Court Opinion

ID: 9762578
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:26:42.909238+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:35.564666
License: Public Domain

Steele Hays, Justice, dissenting. Relying only on a sterile record, the majority has overridden the trial court and jury, holding there is no substantial evidence to support the verdict. I fully concur in the dissenting opinion of Special Justice Eddie N. Christian, but offer these further observations. Whether the relationship in this instance is one of master-servant or independent-contractor hinges, not on whether Bill Blankenship did exercise control over John Finley in the performanee of the work, but whether, under the circumstances in their entirety, Blankenship had a right to control. It is the right to control that is decisive. Hobbs-Western Co. v. Carmical, 192 Ark. 59, 91 S.W.2d 605 (1936). That is a factual question of the broadest scope and subject to the most subtle nuances of proof. As to whether Blankenship had a right to control, his own testimony provides the answer and refutes the assertion of the majority that he was interested only in the result: I went out to see the work. If it would not have been satisfactory to me, I would have told him that I didn’t like it, that I wanted it changed and here’s the way I want it done. ... In my opinion, Mr. Finley was better at knowing how to save a dollar than he was to how to do a job right. I expected Mr. Finley to do the work in a fashion which I wanted it done. I believe that I could look at the tile as it progressed, if there was an area that something was wrong with the tile being laid there, I could say, “This is wrong, correct it before you get down there." [My emphasis.] Given its strongest probative weight, that testimony is entirely sufficient to sustain an inference, as the jury found, that Mr. Blankenship was as interested in the manner of the work as in the end result.