Crouse v. Lloyd's Turkey Ranch

• Decision Date: 15 December 1959
• Docket Number: No. 49761,49761
• Citation: 100 N.W.2d 115,251 Iowa 156
• Parties: Mildred CROUSE, Claimant-Appellee, v. LLOYD'S TURKEY RANCH, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

Page 115

100 N.W.2d 115

251 Iowa 156

Mildred CROUSE, Claimant-Appellee, v. LLOYD'S TURKEY RANCH, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 49761.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Dec. 15, 1959.

Richard C. Turner, Council Bluffs, for appellant.

Connolly & Connolly, Council Bluffs, for appellee.

THOMPSON, Justice.

In 1956, Ralph Lloyd, Jr., was engaged in business in Pottawattamie County under the trade name of Lloyd's Turkey Ranch. He operated on a six-acre tract, where he raised turkeys and some chickens. Each year when poultry was ready for the market, he processed about half of the turkey crop by slaughtering and dressing them. This was done in a separate building on the ranch. There were three or four regular employees; when the processing started in the fall about six more were hired. The plaintiff was one of these extra helpers. She was employed in October of 1956 and worked until December 14 of the same year, when she was injured by slipping on the floor in the building where the turkeys were processed. The defendant also raised pheasants, guinea hens, apples, pears, some cattle, and rented horses, and sold eggs from the poultry. The plaintiff's work was solely in the building where the turkeys were processed. She had no part in the raising of any of the produce. Her work was seasonal, and the record indicates it would have ended when the processing of the turkeys for the Christmas trade was finished. The defendant testified that he raised about 8,000 turkeys in 1956, about half of which were processed and the remainder sold live to packers. While both the Commissioner and the District Court referred to the supposed fact that he purchased turkeys from others for processing, the defendant in argument denies this, and we think the record, fairly construed, does not show the processing of any turkeys except of his own raising. We shall so consider it. The plaintiff prevailed before the Deputy Commissioner, the Commissioner, and the trial court, and the defendant has brought the case to us on appeal.

I. The defendant relies entirely upon the exclusion contained in Section 85.1, subd. 3, Code of 1954, I.C.A. It is there provided the Workmen's Compensation Act shall not apply to 'Persons engaged in agriculture, insofar as injuries shall be incurred by employees while engaged in agricultural pursuits or any operation immediately connected therewith, whether on or off the premises of the employer * * *'. The defendant says he was engaged in agriculture, and the plaintiff was injured while employed in an operation immediately connected therewith. He concedes that while cleaning the floor she was not engaged in an agricultural pursuit, but contends it was closely connected.

The appeal poses the difficult question of when the processing of crops raised on a farm or ranch ceases to be agriculture and becomes a commercial enterprise. 'Agriculture' is variously defined; but generally, in its broad sense, it is said to be 'the art or science of cultivating the ground, including harvesting of crops and rearing and management of livestock.' 3 C.J.S. Agriculture § 1, page 365. In Sylcord v. Horn, 179 Iowa 936, 945, 162 N.W. 249, 252, 7 A.L.R. 1285, we quoted with apparent approval, from Simons v. Lovell, 54 Tenn. 510, 516; 'It is equivalent to husbandry, and husbandry, Webster defines to be the business of a farmer, comprehending agriculture or tillage of the ground, the raising, managing, and fattening of cattle and other domestic animals, the management of the dairy and whatever the land produces.'

It will be noted that the exclusion in our statute, Sec. 85.1, subd. 3, is of 'persons engaged in agriculture, insofar as injuries shall be incurred by employees while engaged in agricultural pursuits'. Professor Maurice H. Merrill, in his careful analysis of this statute in Fifteen Years More of Workmen's Compensation in Iowa, 32 Iowa Law Review, 1, 7, points out that two things must concur to bar recovery by the injured employee under this statute. He says: 'The exclusion is limited to persons who are 'engaged in agriculture' and then only if at the time of injury they are engaged in an agricultural pursuit or an operation closely connected therewith.' So he points out that in Trullinger v. Fremont County, 223 Iowa 677, 273 N.W. 124, the plaintiff was permitted to recover because he, and his employer, were not engaged in agriculture, although at the time of injury he was engaged in an agricultural pursuit. He distinguishes this from Taverner v. Anderson, 220 Iowa 151, 261 N.W. 610, by the fact that in the latter case the employee was both engaged in agriculture and in an operation at least closely connected therewith. The I.L.R. article also notes an erroneous statement in Criger v. Mustaba Investment Company, 224 Iowa 1111, 1115, 276 N.W. 788, 790, where it is said the statute 'excludes all persons engaged in * * * agricultural pursuits, or any operations connected therewith.' This would bar compensation to any person either engaged in agriculture or any operation connected therewith; while obviously, we think, to be excluded he must have been both engaged in agriculture, and an agricultural pursuit or an operation connected therewith at the time of the injury. The quoted statement from the Criger case is disapproved.

The defendant here appears to be of the opinion that the term 'engaged in agriculture' must be held to apply only to the employer. As we view the case, the point is not important. Professor Merrill does not make such a distinction; 32 I.L.R., supra, pages 7 and 8, nor do we, although the question is not decisive. The defendant then proceeds to assume as an inescapable fact that the employer here was engaged in agriculture and that the injured employee, the plaintiff, was clearly engaged at least in an operation closely connected with agricultural pursuits and so is excluded from the benefits of the act.

It is upon the question whether the employer was engaged in agriculture in the operation of the turkey packing plant that we part company with the defendant and the able brief and argument of his counsel. Of course the employer was engaged in agriculture, under the broad definition, in raising his poultry and in marketing it. But an employer may be engaged in two distinct occupations, one agricultural and one commercial, manufacturing, or otherwise industrial. 99 C.J.S. Workmen's Compensation § 29, pages 184, 185; Tucker v. Newman, 217 Minn. 473, 14 N.W.2d 767, 770; Evansville Veneer & Lumber Co. v. Mullen, 116 Ind.App. 616, 65 N.E.2d 742, 744; Compos v. Garden City Co., 166 Kan. 352, 201 P.2d 1017, 1019. Our own statute, Section 85.1, supra, recognizes this. Our problem here is to determine whether the defendant employer was so engaged in two distinct occupations, or solely in agriculture. If the processing of the turkeys was a part of agriculture within the broad meaning of the term, then it follows that the exclusion applies; because the plaintiff would then have been both engaged in agriculture and injured while in an agricultural pursuit or one closely connected therewith.

There is no evidence as to the custom of turkey raisers in processing their own turkeys, or selling them live. The New Jersey Supreme Court has held that the cleaning,...