Court Opinion

ID: 9451810
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:24:27.160217+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:54.537045
License: Public Domain

EDGERTON, Senior Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
Skouzes was in the business of hauling. He kept his trucks in repair and carried liability insurance, and also Workmen’s Compensation Insurance on the driver of his second truck. Though he hauled chiefly for appellee and was doing so when the accident occurred, he also hauled for others.
*547It appears to me that reasonable jurors “could not reach differing conclusions” on the question whether Skouzes was an employee of Arundel or an independent contractor. Though the question in Silk was whether workers were employees within the meaning of the Social Security Act, the Supreme Court’s opinion expressly dealt with tort liability as well. After holding that “unloaders” who furnished only picks and shovels were employees,1 the Court said: “There are cases, too, where driver-owners of trucks or wagons have been held employees in accident suits at tort or under workmen’s compensation laws. But we agree with the decisions below * * * that where the arrangements leave the driver-owners so much responsibility for investment and management as here, they must2 be held to be independent contractors. These driver-owners are small businessmen. They own their own trucks. They hire their own helpers. In one instance they haul for a single business, in the other for any customer. The distinction, though important, is not controlling. It is the total situation, including the risk undertaken, the control exercised, the opportunity for profit from sound management, that marks these driver-owners as independent contractors.” United States v. Silk, 331 U.S. 704, 718-719, 67 S.Ct. 1463, at 1471 (1947).
“A servant is a person employed to perform services in the affairs of another and who with respect to the physical conduct in the performance of the services is subject to the other’s control or right to control.” Restatement, Agency 2d, § 220(1) (1958). In Ward v. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co., 362 U.S. 396, 398 n. 1, 80 S.Ct. 789, 791 (1960), the Supreme Court held that a District Court erred in refusing to instruct a jury that the “primary factor to be considered” in determining whether a man was employed by the railroad within the meaning of the Federal Employers’ Liability Act was “ ‘whether or not the railroad had the power to direct, control, and supervise [him] in the performance of his work * * » The Act “does not use * * ‘employed’ in any special sense * * Baker v. Texas & P. Ry. Co., 359 U.S. 227, 228, 79 S.Ct. 664, 665 (1959).
I would affirm.

. “Cf. Grace v. Magruder [80 U.S.App.D.C. 53], 148 F.2d 679.” 331 U.S. at 717 n. 12, 67 S.Ct. at 1470.

. Emphasis added.