Court Opinion

ID: 9520176
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 01:32:43.393297+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:45:42.309985
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion
DeBruler, J.
There are three elements missing from these findings of facts, the presence of which are necessary to render the findings sufficiently specific to permit a rational and properly limited court review.
1. The findings do not identify which facts produced the Board’s conclusion that James Jessee was an employee of Transport Motor Express at the time of the accident. The findings of facts, are merely a list of all facts found, stated in chronological sequence.
2. The findings do not include factual inferences, which a reading of them indicates, had to have been made in order for the Board to have reached its determination that a relationship of employment as defined by the Indiana Workmen’s Compensation Act of 1929, IC 1971, 22-3-6-1, being Burns § 40-1701, existed between James Jessee and Transport Motor Express. There is no finding, for example that the lease agreement reached between Riss & Company, James Jessee, and Transport Motor Express was in reality a contract of hire, or that James Jessee was to be paid by Transport Motor Express for his services.
3. The findings do not reveal to the reader the factual theory underlying its determination that James Jessee was an employee of Transport Motor Express. The significance which the Board attributed to the various findings is not stated. The majority opinion is erroneous in formulating its own factual theory and then identifying the facts which the *50Court deems supportive of a successful application of that theory. This is the function and the work of the Board and not a court on review.
The Court of Appeals correctly remanded the case to the Board for further specification of facts.
For the reasons stated above, and for the additional reason that I do not consider this case to fall within the framework of our transfer jurisdiction since the Second District of the Court of Appeals has not decided the case on the merits adversely to either party, I cannot concur in the disposition of this case made by the majority.
Prentice, J., concurs.
Note.—Reported at 311 N.E.2d 424.