Coontz v. Industrial Commission

• Court: Illinois Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: DAILY
• Citation: Coontz v. Industrial Commission, 169 N.E.2d 94, 19 Ill.2d 574 (Ill. 1960)
• Decision Date: 18 May 1960
• Docket Number: No. 35640,35640
• Parties: Henry COONTZ, d/b/a McLeansboro Nursing Home, Plaintiff in Error, v. INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION et al. (Stanley Allen, Defendant in Error.)

Page 94

169 N.E.2d 94

19 Ill.2d 574

Henry COONTZ, d/b/a McLeansboro Nursing Home, Plaintiff in Error, v. INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION et al. (Stanley Allen, Defendant in Error.)

No. 35640.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

May 18, 1960.

Rehearing Denied Sept. 26, 1960.

Oehmke, Dunham & Boman, and Thomas Q. Keefe, East St. Louis, for plaintiff in error.

Lloyd H. Melton, L. M. Hancock and Harold B. Culley, Jr., Harrisburg, for defendant in error.

DAILY, Justice.

The sole issue in this cause is whether defendant in error, Stanley Allen, who was injured at the McLeansboro Nursing Home on May 5, 1957, was an employee of the home within the meaning of the Workmen's Compensation Act (Ill.Rev.Stat.1955, chap. 48, pars. 138.1-138.28) or an independent contractor. Both an arbitrator and the Industrial Commission found that an employer-employee relation existed and awarded Allen benefits in the amount of $37 per week for 22 1/7 weeks of temporary disability, the order of the commission concluding with a finding that the award would not bar further compensation for either temporary or permanent disability. Upon certiorari, the decision of the commission was affirmed by the circuit court of Hamilton County and we have granted a writ of error for further review.

Undisputed facts show that plaintiff in error, Henry Coontz, had for some time prior to May 5, 1957, operated the McLeansboro Nursing Home which was housed in a three-story structure that accommodated approximately 30 persons. A handoperated elevator ran from the basement to the top floor and was used to transport food, equipment and non-ambulatory patients. The home was staffed with one registered nurse, five practical nurses and a cook, one of such employees being the wife of defendant in error. The defendant in error was regularly employed as an oil field worker and had never performed work for Coontz in any capacity. On the day in question, which was a Sunday, defendant in error came to the home in response to a telephone call from his wife and spliced a frayed elevator rope. After completing the splice, he raised the elevator to the second floor, where it became stuck, and upon going upstairs to locate the trouble was advised by his wife that the elevator often got stuck and that it could be freed by jumping up and down on it. When he did this, however, the elevator suddenly fell to the basement seriously injuring his right arm. It is agreed that at the time of the hearing before the commission, defendant in error was still under medical care, was unable to work, and had been disabled since the date of the injury.

Proof of the circumstances under which the task was undertaken is quite meager and is embodied in the testimony of defendant in error who stated his wife had called him to splice the rope at the request of Coontz, and that he met with the latter in the basement of the home at the foot of the elevator. When asked to describe their conversation defendant in error testified as follows on direct examination: 'We talked about whether to put on a new rope or repair the old one. So we decided to repair the old one.' Describing the same conversation on cross-examination, he testified: 'I asked him how he wanted it spliced, and I asked him if he wanted me to put on a new rope. He asked if I could splice the old rope, and I told him I thought I could, and he said go ahead and do that.' When asked if Coontz was present when the work was performed, defendant in error replied: 'He might have been there when I started, but he wasn't there when I completed it. He left right after I started it.'

Further testifying, defendant in error stated there had been no agreement as to the method or amount of payment, and that on July 9, 1957, two months after the accident, he submitted a bill to Coontz for two hours work at the rate of $1.75 per hour, arriving at the figure because that was what he was...