Court Opinion

ID: 9545051
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:05:14.964401+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:13:59.151924
License: Public Domain

HENRIOD, Chief Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent for a very simple reason: At this point there is nothing substantial to reflect what the true facts are, and it seems to me that we indulge in conjecture about contracts between entrepreneurs, which contracts sometimes are worded and urged as a reason for nonliability to an employee whose interest in reading them, much less trying to interpret them as a matter of law, would be more remote than his interest in next month’s television program.
The main opinion assumes that there was a joint venture or partnership, based upon an exchange of writings between Coker and Kiewit. It would be interesting to know if Coker and Kiewit filed a joint partnership return with the state and federal taxing agencies. It would be interesting to check their respective books as to who paid whom, and over whom who had control. It appears that Coker alone paid for the workmen’s compensation coverage, and plaintiff’s statement that he worked with Kiewit’s employees does not connote any partnership relationship but on the contrary negates it.
Also it seems somewhat significant that defendant, in its answer “admits that * * * plaintiff was an employee of Coker * * This admission is fortified by plaintiff’s deposition, with his assertion that *25his immediate superiors and he were working for Coker, were paid by it, and that’s it.
Questions unsolved here are: Shouldn’t it be shown affirmatively that if this be a partnership, Kiewit did or did not pay its 45% of the workmen’s compensation contribution? That Coker and Kiewit did or did not file joint returns to taxing authorities? Should a workman, insisting he is an employee of Coker and tending to prove it by having workmen’s compensation paid for only by Coker, be bound factually by self-serving recitations in contracts between Coker and Kiewit ? Why not find out what the true facts are instead of concluding on a motion for summary judgment that employers can determine the status of employees on a project involving several contractors, where a workman works and looks to the one who employs him and not to the verbiage of what sometimes proves to be mysterious and contentious not only to laymen, but to lawyers, as is reflected in this most disputatious case itself.
It seems that something more is needed here, factually, and I am of the opinion that the trial court did not err in denying the motion for summary judgment.