Bellard v. Tri-State Ins. Co.

• Decision Date: 20 August 1973
• Docket Number: No. 52847,TRI-STATE,52847
• Citation: 282 So.2d 453
• Parties: Anthony BELLARD, Plaintiff-Appellant-Relator, v.INSURANCE COMPANY et al., Defendants-Appellees-Respondents.
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court

Page 453

282 So.2d 453

Anthony BELLARD, Plaintiff-Appellant-Relator, v. TRI-STATE INSURANCE COMPANY et al., Defendants-Appellees-Respondents.

No. 52847.

Supreme Court of Louisiana.

Aug. 20, 1973.

Rehearing Denied Sept. 24, 1973.

Edwards, Stefanski & Barousse, Homer Ed Barousse, Jr., Crowley, for plaintiff-appellant.

Guillory, McGee & Mayeux, Aaran Frank McGee, Eunice, for defendant-appellee.

TATE, Justice.

The plaintiff Bellard sues for workmen's compensation benefits. Made defendants are the Acadian Pulpwood Corporation and its insurer, Tri-State Insurance Company. The court of appeal, one judge dissenting, affirmed the trial court's dismissal of the suit on the ground that no employer-employee relationship existed between Bellard and Acadian. 265 So.2d 808 (La.App.3d Cir. 1972).

We granted certiorari, 263 La. 9, 266 So.2d 713 (1972), primarily because the intermediate court had failed to consider Acadian's liability for compensation benefits as a principal which employed Bellard's immediate employer (Semien). A principal is liable in compensation to an employee of a contractor engaged to perform work which is part of the principal's trade, business, or occupation. La.R.S. 23:1061.

The plaintiff Bellard was injured while cutting pulpwood for Adam Semien, his immediate employer. Semien was cutting wood, with his own equipment and crew (including Bellard), on the Deo Guidry tract. He was cutting it to deliver it to Acadian's pulpwood yard.

The defendant Acadian Pulpwood Corporation is engaged in the business of securing pulpwood to ship off to large purchasers. It ran a pulpwood yard in Eunice.

Acadian's sole stockholder testified as follows: The company never bought timber itself for processing into pulpwood. It merely purchased pulpwood brought in by 'producers' or 'haulers', such as Semien (the plaintiff Bellard's immediate employer). They themselves allegedly made arrangements to secure their own timber to cut into pulpwood and to haul for sale to pulpwood yards, such as that operated by Acadian.

However, this stockholder took no part himself in the management of the company. He was only generally familiar with its operations.

The yard employee of the company testified, from recollection, that the timber from the Deo Guidry tract had been purchased by Waltrip and that 'Acadian Pulpwood was cutting and hauling it.' Semien had been directed to the Guidry tract by Raymond Heinen, the general manager of Acadian, who was the sole person who gave him permission to enter the tract and cut the timber off it.

Semien had been cutting and hauling wood for Acadian for four or five years. He always went to cut on tracts as pointed out by Heinen, and he always brought all wood produced to Acadian. He testified that he purchased his truck and saw on credit from Acadian and would pay for them by deductions from the proceeds of the pulpwood delivered to Acadian.

As the dissenting judge in the court of appeal correctly stated:

'The plaintiff, Anthony Bellard, was a laborer working for a one-truck producer named Adam Semien. Semien is uneducated and inarticulate, but his testimony shows clearly that he was an independent contractor under an agreement with Acadian. He did not own this timber and did not even know who did. All he knew was what he was told by Mr. Heinen, Acadian's General Manager. Mr. Heinen told him where to cut the wood, to haul it to Acadian's yard and he would be paid by the cord. Semien did exactly this. * * *

'Mr. Heinen, Acadian's manager, must have known who owned this timber. Yet defendant did not call him as a witness. * * *

'Plaintiff proved a...