Court Opinion

ID: 7813665
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-09-07 17:27:25.426278+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:30:32.689180
License: Public Domain

George Bose Smith, J., dissenting. The case presents a question of fact, and I am not able to say that the chancellor was wrong in deciding it as he did. It is possible for the owner of a truck to lease it to another and then obtain employment as its driver without thereby becoming a contract carrier. If the arrangement is bona fide, as it was found to be in Watson Mfg. Co., Inc., v. Common Carrier Application, 51 M. C. C. 223, there is no violation of the law. In the case at bar the arrangements by which the driver-owners are employed by the appellee may or may not have been made in good faith, and I am not willing to ■say that the mere contracts themselves, without other evidence, amount to a subterfuge. If it were shown that the appellee does not in fact exercise the control over the driver-owners that it normally would exercise over an employee, or if it were shown that the amounts paid for the use of these tractors are such as to be fair compensation for the carriage of goods and not fair compensation for the lease of the equipment, or if some other showing were made to indicate bad faith, then I should agree with the majority. But on this record I think the appellee made prima facie proof of a valid arrangement, and the Corn-mission failed to sustain the burden of going forward with the evidence to show that the arrangement is in fact a sham. I would, however, modify the injunction to make it less broad in its terms.