Court Opinion

ID: 9567276
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:51:41.191096+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:00:30.223300
License: Public Domain

Hall, Presiding Judge,
dissenting. In my opinion there is very little predictability to be found in the appellate decisions of this state on the distinction between servant and independent contractor. The control or right to control test is to say the least esoteric. "The distinction between servant and independent contractor is commonly said to turn on whether the employer has retained control or right of control over the details of the work, or as one writer has put it, whether the employer has hired services or has bought the product of those services . . . Perhaps the control test has been overemphasized in judicial reasoning. We have seen how tenuous, and often fictitious, control is even in clear master and servant cases, and how its use as a justification of vicarious liability is generally associated with the felt need for finding some sort of fault in the master. We have seen too how this attempted justification falls short and how the chief warrant for vicarious liability must be found in the principle that an *586enterprise (and its beneficiaries) should pay for the losses caused by the risks which it creates (even without its fault). In this view the existence of a general right of control may afford an added subsidiary reason for holding the employer who has it (e.g., an admonition to care in selecting a competent or a financially responsible contractor), but its absence would scarcely justify conferring upon an entrepreneur immunity for risks of his business. If we are looking for risks fairly allocable to an enterprise then there is much significance in the question 'whether or not the work is a part of the regular business of the employer.’ The real question in all independent contractor cases is whether a man may 'farm out’ or 'lop off some of his affairs and escape liabilities in connection with them. No general policy forbids this ... The primary question is whether the task which caused the injury was actually and in good faith farmed out to another. It is here that the question of control comes in. As a generalization it may be said that an employer has farmed out or turned over a task to another where he has relinquished control over it. But control is not the all important thing it is sometimes made out to be and it is not a constant factor. The master, of course, alway does have the general right of control over his employees in the sense that he can give them orders, train them, hire and fire them. But he very often lacks any effective spot control over the conduct that brings about an accident. There are many independent contractor situations in which the employer has far greater spot control over the details of the work . . . Business enterprises, too, commonly farm out many tasks which may well be regarded as normal incidents to their enterprises . . . Questions arise mainly where an enterprise makes regular use of individuals (e.g., salesmen or newsboys) or units that would ordinarily be regarded, as subordinate to it (such as the filling stations of the great oil companies), in order to get something done *587which would ordinarily be regarded as a part of its enterprise. It is in this type of situation that courts will carefully scrutinize the question of control. It is here that the bulk of litigation occurs. And it is here that immunity for the conduct of independent contractors tends most to thwart allocation of losses to responsible enterprises, and therefore that the defense of independent contractor meets mounting disfavor.” 2 Harper and James, Law of Torts, 1395, 1400, 1401, 1402, § 26.11.
The contract in this case is almost identical to that found in Lyons v. Employers Mut. Liab. Ins. Co., 127 Ga. App. 268 (193 SE2d 244) and Wood v. Brunswick Pulp & Paper Co., 119 Ga. App. 880 (169 SE2d 403). In both of these cases the formal contract was held by its terms to establish the relationship of independent contractor. The Wood case was allowed to go to the jury on the question of whether Wood was in fact the alter ego of Brunswick and whether the contract was made in good faith. In other words, whether a jury would be authorized to find that the formal contract was sham and that actual control remained in the alleged employer. No such claim is made in this case and the deeisiomis"hased upon the terms of the formal contract. We must look to the contract as a whole and not to some isolated part thereof to determine whether there is any "general right of control” reserved by Union Camp Corporation. In my opinion there is no "general right of control,” and I would affirm the judgment of the trial court.