Court Opinion

ID: 9628339
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:17:08.214197+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:04.126962
License: Public Domain

LENT, J.,
specially concurring.
I concur in the result reached by the majority in this case, and I concur in most of the reasoning, as I understand it. I concur with Justice Tongue in his *153assessment of the sufficiency of the evidence in the record to establish a jury question on the issue of whether the dealer was acting "in the affairs of” the distributor.
I confess to some confusion, however, as to the seeming point of difference between Justice Tongue and the majority as to the test for holding the distributor liable for the tort of the dealer. This difference centers around the elements to be considered in finding if one person is to be held liable for the torts of another. See, 1 Restatement (Second) Agency, § 220.
Perhaps my thinking is oversimplistic, but in analyzing the kind of problem which this case presents I prefer to go to certain principles which I regard as basic. These are:
1. Ordinarily D is not liable to P for injury by the tort of X.
2. That general rule is subject to exception in certain circumstances where X is employed to perform services for D, and, where those circumstances obtain, the law imposes liability vicariously upon D for the tort of X against P.
3. If X is employed to perform services in the affairs of D, D maybe liable to P for damages incurred by P resulting from the tort of X in the performance of those services.
a. If X is so employed, D will ordinarily be liable to P if D had control or the right to control over the physical conduct of X out of which the ex delicto cause arose.
b. As a "general rule” D will not be liable to P if D did not have such control or right to control.
Accordingly, insofar as the majority emphasizes the need for finding that X acted in the affairs of D, I agree that is a necessary preliminary test to ascertain whether D should be held liable for the tort of X against P. Insofar as Justice Tongue emphasizes the element of control or right to control as being the test, *154I agree that must be the primary test to ascertain whether X is a servant or an independent contractor.
Nothing I say here should be construed to mean that I believe D cannot be liable to P by the fact alone that there was no control or right to control by D over X. One may well be liable for the torts of an independent contractor. 2 Restatement (Second) of Torts, § 409 sets forth the "general rule” that the employer of an independent contractor is not liable for physical harm caused to another by an act or omission of the contractor or his servants, but that "general rule” is now recognized as being primarily important only as a preamble to the catalog of its exceptions. See, comment b to § 409; Shepler v. Weyerhaeuser Company, 279 Or 477, 499, 569 P2d 1040, 1052 (1977). The trend of the common law is most definitely toward enlargement of the liability of D for the tort of X even where there is the relationship between them of employer and independent contractor rather than master and servant. See, e.g., Lipman Wolfe v. Teeples & Thatcher, 268 Or 578, 585, 588, 522 P2d 467 (1974).
It follows that establishment of the element of control or right to control only serves to establish that the "controlee” is a servant rather than an independent contractor;, the element is not determinative of liability to the third person.