Bridges v. Wyandotte Worsted Co.

• Decision Date: 08 July 1963
• Docket Number: No. 18093,18093
• Citation: 243 S.C. 1,132 S.E.2d 18
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: D. B. BRIDGES and American Guarantee and Liability Insurance Company, Appellants, v. WYANDOTTE WORSTED COMPANY, Respondent.

Page 18

132 S.E.2d 18

243 S.C. 1

D. B. BRIDGES and American Guarantee and Liability Insurance

Company, Appellants, v. WYANDOTTE WORSTED COMPANY, Respondent.

No. 18093.

Supreme Court of South Carolina.

July 8, 1963.

Leatherwood, Walker, Todd & Mann, Greenville, for appellants.

Haynsworth, Perry, Bryant, Marion & Johnstone, Greenville, for respondent.

LEWIS, Justice.

This action was instituted in the Court of Common Pleas against the defendant Wyandotte Worsted Company to recover damages sustained by the plaintiff Bridges from an electrical shock received while engaged, as an employee of P. E. Collins Electric Company, in the replacement of an electric transmission line of the defendant at its plant in Greenville County. Collins Electric Company had contracted with the defendant to do the work and the plaintiff Bridges was a member of the crew assigned by Collins to do the job. This appeal is by the plaintiff from an order of the lower court dismissing the action upon the ground that the court was without jurisdiction of the cause and that plaintiff's claim was within the exclusive jurisdiction of the South Carolina Industrial Commission, because the work being performed by the subcontractor Collins, the plaintiff's employer, was a part of the trade, business or occupation of the defendant, within the meaning of the Workmen's Compensation Law. The basic issues to be decided in this appeal concern whether or not the lower court properly determined the foregoing jurisdictional question. This case was before us on a prior appeal involving a question of parties. 239 S.C. 37, 121 S.E.2d 300.

The defendant Wyandotte Worsted Company is a manufacturer of textile woolen goods and operates a plant at Conestee, in Greenville County, South Carolina. Its employees are covered under the Workmen's Compensation Law. It owned and operated its own hydro-electric system, from which it derived a portion of the electricity used in the operation of its plant. The balance of its needed electricity was purchased from Duke Power Company. The electricity purchased from Duke was received at the defendant's property line and brought to its plant over a transmission line owned and maintained by the defendant. The electricity generated by the defendant's hydro-electric plant and that purchased from Duke was brought into the plant of the defendant at a central point where it was reduced by the defendant's electrical system from a voltage of 550 to 220 or 110 as required and then distributed over the wiring system of the defendant to the machinery in the mill. The defendant's complete electrical system, including the transmission lines from its property line to the plant, was owned and maintained by it. The defendant regularly employed a crew of men who maintained the electrical system, two of whom were experienced and competent electricians in the handling of electrical work on energized, or so-called 'hot' electrical lines.

In June, 1960, due to an increase in the amount of machinery in the plant of the defendant, a three phase transmission line of the defendant, over which electricity was brought into the plant from Duke Power Company, became overloaded. This overload made it necessary to replace it with a heavier duty line. The work on the line had to be done on a Sunday when the defendant's machinery was not operating. The defendant's crew had on a prior occasion done similar work on this line and maintained it, but, due to the excessive amount of overtime that its men had already worked, the defendant felt that they should have a rest on the particular Sunday selected to replace the line and, therefore, contracted with P. E. Collins Electric Company, an electrical contractor, to do the work. The record shows that in the performance of this work Collins occupied the status of an independent contractor. Collins had on two prior occasions been called in by the defendant to do electrical work at its plant.

The plaintiff Bridges was an employee of Collins Electric Company and a member of the crew assigned by Collins to replace the above mentioned transmission line at the plant of the defendant. While so engaged on Sunday, June 19, 1960, the plaintiff sustained injuries from electrical shock when he came into contact with an energized electric line.

Collins Electric Company, by whom plaintiff Bridges was employed, was operating under the South Carolina Workmen's Compensation Law and Bridges was paid benefits to which he was entitled under such law by the American Guarantee and Liability Company, the Workmen's Compensation carrier of Collins Electric Company.

This action was subsequently instituted by the plaintiff Bridges against the defendant to recover for his injuries, alleging that they resulted from the negligent and reckless acts of an employee of the defendant in turning on the electricity and re-energizing the lines upon which he was working. Since the American Guarantee and Liability Insurance Company paid Workmen's Compensation benefits to the plaintiff Bridges, it was subrogated to Bridges' claim against the defendant to the extent of such payments, and was, therefore, joined as a co-plaintiff in this action.

Among other defenses, the answer of the defendant alleged that the Court of Common Pleas was without jurisdiction to entertain this common law action for tort against the defendant Wyandotte Worsted Company, since Wyandotte was operating under the provisions of the South Carolina Workmen's Compensation Law, and Collins Electric Company, the employer of Bridges, was, at the time Bridges received his injuries, engaged in the performance of work which was a part of the defendant's trade, business or occupation within the meaning of the Workmen's Compensation Act, particularly Section 72-111 of the 1962 Code of Laws, which is as follows:

'When any person, in this section and §§ 72-113 and 72-114 referred to as 'owner,' undertakes to perform or execute any work which is a part of his trade, business or occupation and contracts with any other person (in this section and §§ 72-113 to 72-116 referred to as 'subcontractor') for the execution or performance by or under such subcontractor of the whole or any part of the work undertaken by such owner, the owner shall be liable to pay to any workman employed in the work any compensation under this Title which he would have been liable to pay if the workman had been immediately employed by him.'

Upon the trial of the case and at the conclusion of the testimony, the trial judge sustained the foregoing defense and granted defendant's motion for a directed verdict in its favor, holding that the court was without jurisdiction to entertain the present common law action for tort against the defendant, in that the work in which the subcontractor Collins Electric Company, the employer of the plaintiff Bridges, was engaged at the time was a part of the defendant's trade, business or occupation and, therefore, under the provisions of the Workmen's Compensation Act the plaintiff's claim was within the exclusive jurisdiction of the South Carolina Industrial Commission. The plaintiff has appealed from the foregoing ruling of the lower court.

In holding that the court had no jurisdiction to entertain the present common law action for damages, because the plaintiff's employment came within the coverage afforded by the Workmen's Compensation Act, the trial judge withdrew the case from the jury and determined all issues, both of law and fact, relating to jurisdiction. The first question to be decided arises under the exception of the plaintiff, which charges error on the part of the lower court in deciding the factual issues relating to jurisdiction and in not submitting such to the jury for determination.

When the trial judge decided all issues relating to jurisdiction in this case, he followed the rule approved by this Court. For, '[i]t has been consistently held that whether the claim of an injured workman is within the jurisdiction of the Industrial Commission is a matter of law for decision by the court, which includes the finding of the facts which relate to jurisdiction.' Adams v. Davison-Paxon Co., 230 S.C. 532, 96 S.E.2d 566; Knight v. Shepherd, 191 S.C. 452, 4 S.E.2d 906; Tedars v. Savannah River Veneer Company, 202 S.C. 363, 25 S.E.2d 235, 147 A.L.R. 914; McDowell v. Stilley Plywood Co., 210 S.C. 173, 41 S.E.2d 872; Miles v. West Virginia Pulp & Paper Co., 212 S.C. 424, 48 S.E.2d 26; Watson v. Wannamaker & Wells, Inc., 212 S.C. 506, 48 S.E.2d 447; Gordon v. Hollywood-Beaufort Package Corp., 213 S.C. 438, 49 S.E.2d 718; Holland v. Georgia Hardwood Lbr. Co., 214 S.C. 195, 51 S.E.2d 744; Younginer v. J. A. Jones Const. Co., 215 S.C. 135, 54 S.E.2d 545; Horton v. Baruch, 217 S.C. 48, 59 S.E.2d 545; Brown v. Moorhead Oil Co., 239 S.C. 604, 124 S.E.2d 47; Pyett v. Marsh Plywood Corp., 240 S.C. 56, 124 S.E.2d 617; Allen v. Phinney Oil Co., 241 S.C. 173, 127 S.E.2d 448.

The plaintiff does not, however, question the fact that the lower court followed the law in deciding the jurisdictional question, including the factual issues necessary to such determination, but says that the law is wrong and the rule stated in Adams v. Davison-Paxon, and consistently followed by this Court, should be overruled. Permission was granted to argue against further adherence to the rule.

The plaintiff takes the position that, when the court withdrew from the consideration of the jury the factual issue of whether the work being done by the plaintiff was a part of the general business of the defendant, he was deprived of his right to have the jury pass upon the disputed issues of fact. We think that the rule stated in Adams v. Davison-Paxon is sound and we adhere to it.

The rule stated in Adams v. Davison-Paxon is not peculiar to issues concerning jurisdiction in Workmen's Compensation cases. Jurisdictional questions arising under motions to dismiss the service of pleadings on supposed agents of...