Court Opinion

ID: 9655034
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 18:58:32.67359+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:15.671140
License: Public Domain

SHIRLEY S. ABRAHAMSON, J.
(concurring in part and dissenting in part). I concur with the majority’s holding that because the 1975 contract expressly grants Star Line control or direction over the performance of services of the owner-driver, the owner-driver is not excluded as an employee under sec. 108.02(3) (b)l, Stats. 1979-80. Unlike the majority, I would hold that the 1976 contract which provides that Star Line has “exclusive possession, control and use” of the motor vehicle equipment expressly grants Star Line control or direction over the performance of services of the owner-driver and that the owner-driver is not excluded as an employee under sec. 108.02(3) (b)l, Stats. 1979-80.
Sec. 108.02(3) (a), Stats. 1979-80, provides that any individual who is performing services for an employing unit is an employee except as provided in subsection (b). The majority apparently concludes that the owner-driver *283is performing services for an employing unit under sec. 108.02(3) (a) and that the issue in the case is whether the owner-driver falls within sec. 108.02(3) (b).
I agree with the majority, supra at 277, that sec. 108.-02 (3) (b) 1, Stats. 1979-80, requires Star Line to show by satisfactory proof, Sears, Roebuck Co. v. DILHR, 90 Wis. 2d 736, 743, 280 N.W.2d 240 (1979), that pursuant to both the terms of the 1976 contract and in fact1 that *284the owner-driver has been and will continue to be free from Star Line’s control or direction over the performance of his or her services.2 While I agree with the majority’s statement of the applicable principle of law, I think the principle requires affirmance, rather than reversal, of the decision of the court of appeals.
The majority errs in holding that the terms of the 1976 contract do not provide for “control or direction” by Star Line over the performance of the owner-drivers’ services. The 1976 contract grants Star Line “exclusive possession, control and use” of the motor vehicle equipment. The contract reads as follows:

Exclusive Possession Control

> “As required by Wisconsin Administrative Code Section PSC 60.03 and the Interstant [sic] Commerce Commission, the CARRIER [Star Line] and CONTRACTOR [owner-driver] agree that the motor vehicle equipment *285described in this ‘Equipment Agreement’ when operated in connection with transportation under the CARRIERS license as a contract or common motor carrier shall be in the exclusive possession, control and use of the CARRIER during the term of this Agreement and the CARRIER hereby assumes full responsibility to the public, the shippers and all regulatory agencies having jurisdiction, for the operation of said motor vehicle equipment during the entire period of the Agreement.”
The majority concludes that this provision of the contract, which is mandated by PSC3 and ICC4 regulations, *286does not give Star Line power to control or direct the performance of the services of the owner-driver. The majority reasons that the contractual provision does not mean what it says, that is, that the PSC and the ICC regulations do not intend Star Line to have exclusive control over the motor vehicle. The majority then shifts its position and seems to say that although the contract gives Star Line control, control over the motor vehicle does not mean control over the owner-driver.
The majority appears to nullify the contract’s grant to Star Line of exclusive possession, control and use of the motor vehicle by interpreting the intent behind the mandated provision as an intent to impose financial responsibility, that is, to impose liability, on Star Line for truck-related losses. The unstated assumption in the majority’s interpretation is that because the administrative agency’s reason for requiring the clause is to impose financial responsibility, the clause does not require or permit Star Line to have actual control over the operation of the motor vehicle. The majority explains the contract as follows:
“[These] types of clauses are intended solely to promote the safe operations of trucks and to ensure continuous financial responsibility so that truck-related losses do not go uncompensated. The clause protects both the highway-traveling public and the segment of the public directly using trucking services. See N.L.R.B. v. Deaton, Inc., 502 F.2d 1221, 1224-25 (5th Cir. 1974), cert, den., *287422 U.S. 1047 (1975). . . . Since the PSC clause is required solely to promote safety and financial responsibility among carriers, we find that DILHR’s interpretation of the clause establishing employer control is not an available one. . . . The result of the exclusive possession, control and use of the motor vehicle is for the carrier to assume complete responsibility to and for the protected classes, i.e., public, shippers and all regulatory agencies having jurisdiction.” Swpra, at 277, 278.
Neither the PSC rule, nor the ICC rule, nor the Deaton case (upon which the majority relies) supports the majority’s interpretation of the mandated contractual provision, and neither the majority, nor the parties, nor I have found any authority for the majority’s view.
The PSC and ICC regulations clearly show that the regulations concern more than allocation of financial responsibility. The regulations also mandate control. The regulations require contracts like the one in issue in the instant case to cover two points: first, the contract must provide that Star Line has exclusive possession, use and control of the motor vehicles, and second, the contract must provide that Star Line is financially responsible to the highway users and the shippers. In Deaton the court recognized that the regulations have at least two interrelated objectives: to promote safe operations of the trucks and to ensure that truck-related losses will not go uncompensated. The first objective, safety, is fostered by both clauses that the regulations require to be in the contract. Star Line is required to have control over the motor vehicles to enable it to ensure safe operations. In addition, Star Line is given the incentive to exercise control over the motor vehicles to ensure safe operations by being financially responsible, under the regulations, for truck-related losses incurred by the highway users and the shippers. The second objective, financial responsibility, is fostered by the regulations making Star Line financially responsible for truck-related losses. The Dea-*288ton court concluded, contrary to what the majority implies, that the ICC regulations have the effect of requiring carriers (such as Star Line) to possess and exercise considerable control over all trucks operated under the certificate. 502 F.2d at 1227.5
In its final analysis, the majority appears to concede that the contract does give Star Line control, but intimates that Star Line’s control under the mandated contractual provision is over the motor vehicle, not over the owner-driver. Supra at 278. The Deaton court, taking a common sense approach, makes short shrift of this kind of reasoning, saying, “Control over trucks involves control over drivers.” Id. at 1227.
Sec. 108.02(3) (b) 1 clearly states that if the owner-driver is to be excluded from the classification of employee, the owner-drivers must, under the contract, be free from Star Line’s control over the performance of *289their services. Absent proof by Star Line that the word “control” in sec. 108.02(3) (b)l is not to be interpreted the same as the word “control” in the PSC-ICC regulations,6 and absent any proof by Star Line that the mandated contractual provision provides for control of the owner-driver by the federal and state governments7 rather than by Star Line, the commission, looking at the 1976 contract, could only conclude that under sec. 108.-02(3) (b) 1 the contract authorizes Star Line to exercise control over the performance of the services of the owner-driver. Had the legislature intended to preclude the commission from considering mandated contractual provisions as evidence of control under the contract, it would have so stated. Since Star Line has not shown that owner-drivers are, under the contract, free from Star Line’s control over the performance of their services, the commission’s conclusion that the owner-driver is an “employee” within the meaning of sec. 108.02(3) (a) should be affirmed.
The following memorandum was filed on January 3, 1983.
PER CURIAM
(on motion for reconsideration). On its motion for reconsideration, DILHR requests that the case be remanded to the LIRC to make further factual findings. Specifically, DILHR notes that sec. 108.-02 (3) (b), Stats., requires that two conditions be met for the exemption to apply. The commission had found that the owner-operators were not free from Star Line’s *289adirection or control under sec. 108.02(3) (b)l. Since that finding was made, the commission made no findings on the independently established business test under sec. 108.02(3) (b) 2. This court reversed the commission’s finding that the owner-operators’ services were not free from Star Line’s direction or control. DILHR contends that a remand to the commission is necessary to determine whether the owner-operators’ services were performed in an independently established business. For an individual to be customarily engaged in an independently established business, it must be such a business as the person has a proprietary interest in, an interest which he alone controls and is able to give away. Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. ILHR Department, 90 Wis. 2d 736, 751, 280 N.W.2d 240 (1979). Based on a review of the entire record, since the owner-operators owned their equipment, hired other drivers to perform hauling contracts for Star Line, and were free to select hauling contracts, we find that the independently established business test has been satisfied. Accordingly, we find that both conditions in sec. 108.02(3) (b) have been met and that the owner-operators are not employees under the act.
The motion for reconsideration is denied without costs.
Beilfuss, C.J., took no part.

 Star Line argues on appeal that the parties’ actual relationship, not their written contract, is the test of “control or direction” and is therefore determinative of the parties’ status under the unemployment compensation act. The majority has not adopted Star Line’s position.
Star Line also argues that this court should follow the decisions of the federal courts and other state courts which hold that owner-drivers and not employees. In Moorman Mfg. Co. v. Industrial Commission, 241 Wis. 200, 201, 5 N.W.2d 743 (1942), this court rejected the argument that we should look to other jurisdictions’ interpretations of unemployment compensation acts to interpret Wisconsin’s unemployment compensation act. This court said that Wisconsin’s, not other states’, legislative policy should determine obligations under the Wisconsin act. The policy of the Wisconsin unemployment compensation act is to aid the unemployed worker who is tied to the labor market and unable to find work and to limit his economic loss and his loss of purchasing power in society. See, Milwaukee Transformer Co., Inc. v. Industrial Commission, 22 Wis. 2d 502, 511, 126 N.W. 2d 6, 12 (1964); Moorman Manufacturing Co. v. Industrial Commission, 241 Wis. 200, 204-05, 5 N.W.2d 743, 745 (1942); sec. 108.01(1), Stats. 1979-80. Regardless of how other states construe their act, the Wisconsin unemployment compensation act should be construed liberally to protect unemployed persons. See Note, Statutory Construction — Unemployment CompensationxAct — Derogation Buie, 1941 Wis. L. Rev. 269, 271.
Alternatively Star Line argues that this court should apply the common-law rules of agency which distinguish independent contractors from employees (servants) to determine whether an individual is free from control under sec. 108.02(3) (b)l. Although the words “control” and “direction” are not defined in sec. 108.02 (3) (b)l, or in Chapter 108 or in our cases, our court appears to have rejected the argument that Star Line advances here. In *284Moorman Mfg. Co. v. Industrial Commission, 241 Wis. 200, 203, 6 N.W.2d 743 (1942), we said that even though the individual was a common-law independent contractor, this characterization “does not necessarily bar him from being an employee under the act. His status under the act must be determined from the act itself in view of the purpose of the act as declared therein. We consider that so construing the act Elliott was an employee.”
In Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. DILHR, 90 Wis. 2d 736, 750, 280 N.W.2d 240 (1979), the question was raised whether the statutory control test of sec. 108.02(3) (b)l is or is not a restatement of the common law test applicable to determine who is an independent contractor. The court in Sears acknowledged the question but did not answer it. The majority, although it reviews the evidence and decides that control in fact does not exist in this case, fails to define what it means by control.

 Although the statute appears to say that the commission determines whether the individual is free from control by looking not only at the time of the cause of action (the year 1976 in this case)' but also at the past and the future dealings of the parties, neither the majority nor the parties address this question.

 Sec. PSC 60.03, Wis. Adm. Code, reads in part:
“PSC 60.03 Lease of motor vehicle. A lease for the use of a motor vehicle, except interchanged vehicles subject to Wis. Adm. Code section PSC 60.04 hereof, must comply with each of the following requirements:
“(1) Shall he in writing and signed by the parties thereto, or their regular employees or agents duly authorized to act for them in the execution of contracts, leases, or other arrangements. Shall show the year, make and identification, motor or serial number of the motor vehicle as shown on the registration card issued for such vehicle.
“ (2) Shall provide for the exclusive possession, control, and use of the motor vehicle involved by the authorized carrier and the complete assumption by such authorized carrier of full responsibility to the public, the shippers, and all regulatory agencies having jurisdiction.”
Sec. PSC 60.06, Wis. Adm. Code, reads as follows:
“PSC 60.06 Agreement meeting ICC rules. Any lease or interchange agreement meeting the requirements of interstate commerce commission rules in cases involving interstate commerce, will be deemed sufficient to meet the requirements of Wis. Adm. Code subsections PSC 60.03(1), (2), and (3), and PSC 60.04(1) and (2) of these rules, notwithstanding any provision herein to the contrary.”

 49 CFR sec. 1067.4(a) (4) (1977) provides:
“(a) Contract requirements. The contract, lease, or other arrangement for the use of such equipment:
“(4) Exclusive possession and responsibilities. Shall provide for the exclusive possession, control, and use of the equipment and *286for the complete assumption of responsibility in respect thereto, by the lessee for the duration of said contract, lease or other arrangement. . . .”
49 CPR sec. 1057.12(d) (1981) provides:
“Exclusive possession and responsibilities
“(1) The lease shall provide that the authorized carrier shall have exclusive possession, control, and use of the equipment for the duration of the lease. The lease shall further provide that the authorized carrier lessee shall assume complete responsibility for the operation of the equipment for the duration of the lease.”

 The Deaton court’s full discussion on this point is as follows:
“In interstate truck line cases an additional wrinkle on the control test has evolved. The Interstate Commerce Commission and the Department of Transportation closely regulate truck lines. The leading purposes of the regulations are to promote safe operation of trucks and to ensure continuous financial responsibility so that truck-related losses will not go uncompensated. The regulations, designed to protect both the highway-travelling public and the segment of the public directly using trucking services, have the effect of requiring the holder of a certificate of public convenience and necessity to possess and exercise considerable control over all trucks operated under the certificate without regard to whether the holder owns the trucks. Control over trucks involves control over drivers. We agree with the Board that it is unnecessary to decide whether ICC-mandated controls alone would be sufficient to establish the employee status of nonowner drivers of leased trucks. In the present case the Board took into account the substantial nexus of control required by federal regulations and also found that the facts established the existence of ‘additional controls’ voluntarily reserved by Deaton. Thus the Board found that the total controls were sufficient to make out employee status.” NLRB v. Deaton, Inc., supra, 602 F,2d at 1226-27.

 See note 1 supra for a discussion of the definition of the word “control.”

 Star Line does not argue, as others have, that the mandated contractual provision may be just another way of stating that the owner-driver must obey the laws, not Star Line’s orders, and that whatever control is exercised is not Star Line’s but that of the government. Cf. Local 777 v. NLRB, 603 F.2d 862, 876 (D.C. Cir. 1978).