Court Opinion

ID: 9688727
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 18:01:31.598011+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:41.503772
License: Public Domain

McCALEB, Justice.
We granted a rehearing to Marquette Casualty Company mainly for the purpose of reconsidering our ruling that Marquette alone was liable for the compensation benefits payable to plaintiff, for the use of her minor child, as a result of the accidental death of the employee, Joe Humphreys, while engaged in the business individually operated by N. P. Martone.
The facts of the case, which was consolidated in all courts with that of Holland v. Marquette Casualty Company, have been; fully stated by the Court of Appeal (see 95 So.2d 878) and in our original opinion. Therefore, they need not be repeated again in detail.
For purposes of our present discussion, it suffices to say that Clifton Holland and Joe Humphreys were electrocuted on September 27, 1955, while temporarily performing services for' N. P. Martone, a rice farmer insured by Marquette Casualty Company. They were regularly employed by Bon Air Ranch, a land-leasing and cattle-raising enterprise managed by Martone for a partnership composed of his wife and mother-in-law. Bon Air Ranch was insured for workmen’s compensation liability by defendant, American Casualty Company, and Holland and Humphreys were at all times carried on the payroll of the ranch as cowboys, it being understood by them, however, that they would be required to assist Martone in his rice farming operations during the harvest season. Under this factual situation, a majority of the Court ruled on the original hearing that Holland and Humphreys were borrowed employees of Martone, engaged in his work at the time of their accidental deaths, and that Martone alone and not the general employer, Bon Air Ranch, was liable for workmen’s compensation.
We are now convinced that this holding was incorrect insofar as it releases Bon Air’s insurer from responsibility. Accepting as final, for purposes of this discussion, our former conclusion that Holland and Humphreys were borrowed employees of Mar-tone 1 and that he would be liable for the torts committed by them and also responsi*387ble to them for compensation for accidental injuries sustained by them during their working hours, it does not follow that this necessarily relieves Bon Air Ranch, the regular employer, from its legal duty to pay compensation.
In the leading case of Kern v. Southport Mill, 174 La. 432, 141 So. 19, 20, this Court laid down the test for determining whether injuries to or death of an employee is sustained while he is “performing services arising out of and incidental to his employment in the course of his employer’s trade, business or occupation * * * ” as required by R.S. 23 :1035. It was there held that services arise out of and are incidental to the employment whenever the employment calls for the services that are being performed at the time of the accident and that, whenever the employer directs the employee to render any particular service, “* * * he, at least (that is to say, the employer himself), is in no position any longer to deny that the services thus requested arise out of and are incidental to the employment.”
This test was recently applied in Dobson v. Standard Accident Insurance Co., 228 La. 837, 84 So.2d 210, where it was held that an employer, who has directed his employee to perform a particular service outside of the normal scope of his duties, is in no position to assert, when sued for compensation benefits for injuries resulting from an accident occurring while the employee was performing the particular service, that the services rendered by the employee at his request were disconnected from and not incidental to the employment.
Thus, it is evident that, since Holland and Humphreys were performing special services for Martone which they had been directed to render in compliance with their employment contracts, American Casualty, as insurer of their regular employer, may not escape liability for compensation as Bon Air Ranch cannot be heard to assert that the services which were being rendered at its request did not arise out of and in the course of the employment.
Counsel for American Casualty maintain that this case is distinguishable from the Kern and Dobson cases in that, here, the accident occurred while the employees were performing services for their special employer, Martone, who is liable for compensation, whereas, in those cases the injured employees had only their regular employers from whom compensation benefits could be claimed.
We perceive no justifiable foundation for the attempted differentiation. The principal upon which the regular employer is held is the same in each instance, i.e., that the special service of the employee, being performed at his principal’s request, is service arising out of his employment. Hence, the circumstance that the special employer is likewise liable for compensation *389affords no basis for relieving the regular employer from liability for compensation imposed by the law in virtue of the hiring contract. Indeed, it is the good fortune of the regular employer that the special employer is likewise liable and able to respond, thus contributing in part to his liability for the entire compensation due.
It was well said by the Court of Appeals of New York in De Noyer v. Cavanaugh, 1917, 221 N.Y. 273, 116 N.E. 992, 993, in speaking of the liability of a general employer for compensation in a case of this sort, that:
“* * * The fact that a workman has a general and a special employer is not inconsistent with the relation of employer and employé between both of them and himself. If the men are under the exclusive control of the special employer in the performance of work which is a part of his business, they are, for the time being, his employés. * * * Thus at one and the same time they are generally the employes of the general employer and specially the employés of the special employer. As they may under the common law of master and servant look to the former for their wages and to the latter for damages for negligent injuries, so under the Workmen’s Compensation Law they may, so far as its provisions are applicable, look to the one or to the other, or to both, for compensation for inj'uries due to occupational hazards * * *
Finding that both of the insurance companies, Marquette Casualty and American Casualty, are liable in solido for the compensation due plaintiff’s child, we pass on to their contentions that penalties and attorneys’ fees are not recoverable as their denials of liability were not arbitrary or capricious.
Counsel for Marquette say that, since there was a division of opinion on original hearing concerning the borrowed servant rule, this in itself is evidence of reasonable grounds for Marquette’s denial of liability. And counsel for American argue that it can •hardly be said that this insurance company acted arbitrarily in view of the fact that a 'majority of the Court of Appeal, and this Court on original hearing, found that it was not liable.
These arguments are not impressive. It cannot be doubted that either one or the other or both of these insurance companies were liable for compensation. This being so, they should have made provision, either collectively or separately, for payment of compensation until their respective legal liability was determined. They could not justifiably withhold all benefits and force plaintiff to undergo the legal expense and the delay in collecting an admittedly valid claim, even though each might have had reasonable grounds to litigate the issue of its legal liability for compensation.
*391For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the Court of Appeal is set aside and that of the district court is amended by including therein an award in favor of plaintiff and against defendants, in solido, for attorneys’ fees in the sum of $1,000 and a 12% penalty on all weekly compensation payments which are now due or which may hereafter become 60 days overdue. As thus amended, the judgment of the district court is reinstated and affirmed, defendants to pay all costs.
HAMITER, J., concurs in the decree.
TATE, J- recused.

. Counsel for Marquette urge on this rehearing that our prior holding that the employees were “borrowed” is not well founded. We see no reason to consider counsel’s argument because the best that they could bope for would be a factual finding of joint enterprise, in which event Marquette would be liable in solido with American Casualty for compensation.