Faulkner v. Mayfield

• Decision Date: 25 March 1988
• Docket Number: No. 1851,1851
• Citation: 529 N.E.2d 1294,39 Ohio App.3d 136
• Parties: FAULKNER, Appellant, v. MAYFIELD, Admr., et al., Appellees.
• Court: Ohio Court of Appeals

Page 136

39 Ohio App.3d 136

529 N.E.2d 1294

FAULKNER, Appellant, v. MAYFIELD, Admr., et al., Appellees.

No. 1851.

Court of Appeals of Ohio, Fourth District, Lawrence County.

March 25, 1988.

Syllabus by the Court

Ohio workers' compensation laws provide no specific statutory exclusions from participation in the Workers' Compensation Fund for persons who are injured while working off a fine for a misdemeanor offense.

David R. Spears, Ironton, for appellant.

Anthony J. Celebrezze, Jr., Atty. Gen., and James A. Barnes, Columbus, for appellee James L. Mayfield, Adm'r, Bureau of Workers' Compensation.

Charles Cooper, Ironton, for appellee City of Ironton.

GREY, Presiding Judge.

This is an appeal from the Court of Common Pleas of Lawrence County. The appellant appeals from an administrative body that denied his participation in the Workers' Compensation Fund. We reverse and remand.

The appellant, Rusty Faulkner, was found guilty of driving an automobile under the influence of alcohol, a misdemeanor. The Lawrence County Municipal Court sentenced him to a jail sentence and fined him three hundred fifty dollars. Since Faulkner could not pay his fine, he entered a work program to satisfy the debt.

The court assigned Faulkner to chop wood for a private individual. He suffered a serious injury, amputation of part of his right index finger, which required extensive medical attention. Faulkner applied for workers' compensation benefits, but was denied participation in the fund. The district hearing officer found:

"After full consideration of the issue it is the finding of the District Hearing Officer that the claimant was not an employee of the named employer, since the claimant was not hired to be an employee of the Municipal Court, and there never was a contract of hire, either expressed or implied. Rather, the claimant was ordered by the Court to serve time in jail and pay a fine as a result of his criminal activities; and in his failure to pay the fine, the Court ordered that he participate in work detail under the direction of the Bailiff to discharge his criminal obligations, fines, and court costs.

"This District Hearing Officer further finds that during the time of the injury, the claimant was still under the direction and order of the Court for his criminal wrongdoings, and that a certain amount of time had to be served in the work detail to discharge his fines and court costs. The claimant was injured while serving his time on the work detail, and at no time did the Municipal Court hire the claimant to be an employee of the Court.

"It is therefore ordered that this claim be disallowed in its entirety." (Emphasis sic.)

After the regional board of review affirmed the district hearing officer's findings, Faulkner appealed. The Court of Common Pleas of Lawrence County granted summary judgment for the Industrial Commission. Faulkner filed a timely appeal.

We will consider Faulkner's assignments of error jointly.

"First Assignment of Error:

"The trial court erred by granting summary judgment concerning the issue of whether there was an employment relationship between appellant and appellee, City of Ironton, Ohio.

"Second Assignment of Error:

"The court erred in determining as a manner of law that no employment relationship existed."

Since the trial court granted summary judgment, our task on review is to see if reasonable minds could come to but one conclusion, that Rusty Faulkner's working off his fine by chopping wood did not make him eligible to participate under R.C. Chapter 4123 in the Workers' Compensation Fund.

Appellees have cited two unreported opinions which deny workers' compensation participation to penitentiary inmates, Tyner v. State (Mar. 31, 1981), Marion App. No. 9-80-46, unreported; Schwartz v. Ohio Dept. of Admin. Serv. (June 4, 1981), Richland App. No. CA-1977, unreported. The basic thrust of these opinions is that inmates who work in prison are not employees under R.C. 4123.01 because there is no contractual relationship. Since a prisoner does not have the freedom to contract while incarcerated, there is no consent, consideration or mutuality, the ordinary components of a contract. Tyner, supra, at 4, following Watson v. Indus. Comm. (1966), 100 Ariz. 327, 414 P.2d 144.

This case can be distinguished from those two unreported cases. First, Faulkner was not a prisoner deprived of liberty or under the direction and control of a prison superintendent. Second, these two cases rely entirely on employee-employer principles, a traditional common-law master-servant analysis. The traditional employee is, of course, included in workers' compensation coverage, but the statute provides broader coverage than the common-law master-servant relationship.

Section 34, Article II of the Ohio Constitution provides:

"Welfare of employes.

"Laws may be passed fixing and regulating the hours of labor, establishing a minimum wage, and providing for the comfort, health, safety and general welfare of all employes; and no other provision of the constitution shall impair or limit this power. (Adopted September 3, 1912.) "

In State v. Iden (1942), 71 Ohio App. 65, 25 O.O. 404, 47 N.E.2d 907, the court discussed that constitutional provision, and the scope of the legislature's power to carry it into effect:

"But we are of [the] opinion that the people understood the term in the constitutional provision in a broader sense. It is significant that the word 'all' precedes the word 'employees.' Not just those who might be so designated and found in a negligence action. In fact, anyone who labors for another and is compensated by his employer for so doing is an employee and is in employment. The constitutional term 'employees' standing alone describes the individuals. The statutory term 'employment' rather describes the station or situation in which an 'employee' finds himself. Clearly the purpose of Section 34 of Article II was not to define the word 'employees' but to empower the Legislature to pass laws that would promote the general welfare of employees by improving their working conditions; in other words, their 'employment.' " Id. at 72, 25 O.O. at 407, 47 N.E.2d at 910-911.

R.C. 4123.01(A)(1)(a) reads:

"(A)(1) 'employee,' 'workman,' or 'operative' means:

"(a) Every person in the service of the state, or of any county, municipal corporation, township, or school district therein, including regular members of lawfully constituted police and fire departments of municipal corporations and townships, whether paid or volunteer, and wherever serving within the state or on temporary assignment outside thereof, and executive officers of boards of education, under any appointment or contract of hire, express or implied, oral or written, including any elected official of the state, or of any county, municipal corporation, or township, or members of boards of education[.] * * * "

The language in R.C. 4123.01 uses broad universal phrasing, such as "[e ] very person in the service of the state, or of any county * * * " and "[e ] very * * * firm * * *." " 'Injury' includes any injury * * *." The exceptions to R.C. 4123.01(A) are quite narrow, excluding only ministers, Victory Baptist Temple, Inc. v. Indus. Comm. (1982), 2 Ohio App.3d 418, 2 OBR 510, 442 N.E.2d 819, and the officers of a family farm corporation, and even these employees may be covered if the employer elects to do so. The clear legislative intent is to make workers' compensation coverage broad enough to include the entire range of employment relations people might enter into. There are no specific statutory exclusions from participation in the fund for persons who are injured while working off a fine, nor has the issue presented in this case ever been considered in Ohio.

The variety of work people do is as various as people themselves. While the large majority of people work regularly scheduled jobs for regular pay, there is a small fraction who do not fit the mold. Nonetheless, accidents happen to the people engaged in these minor kinds of employment, and the costs and disabilities resulting from these accidents are just the same as in regular employment. The underlying theory of workers' compensation is that the risk and costs of on-the-job accidents be spread, as equitably as possible, to all employees and all employers.

Not every injury is compensable under workers' compensation law, of course, and most of the cases have dealt with close issues such as we have here, but the cases have established some criteria. Payment is one criterion for determining the employee-employer relationship. In Coviello v. Indus. Comm. (1935), 129 Ohio St. 589, 3 O.O. 9, 196 N.E. 661, a case dealing with the leasing of cabs by cab drivers, the court noted that payment was a sine qua non of the employment relationship. Another basic standard is the right to hire and fire and to control the person's work. This standard had been regularly used for years, e.g., Case v. Indus. Comm. (1939), 62 Ohio App. 219, 15 O.O. 540, 23 N.E.2d 652, and more recently in Foran v. Fisher Foods, Inc. (1985), 17 Ohio St.3d 193, 17 OBR 430, 478 N.E.2d 998, where the court said, at 194, 17 OBR at 431-432, 478 N.E.2d at 999:

"A review of prior case law establishes that one who exercises day-to-day control over the employee will be considered as the employer for purposes of workers' compensation."

Faulkner was sent out by the court to a private individual to chop wood.

Faulkner was paid a set rate of $30 per day, although all income was used to pay off the fine. He worked at the direction of the court bailiff who controlled and directed when and where he was to work. Faulkner meets all the usual tests for employment. The question presented to this court is whether he should be denied participation in the Workers' Compensation Fund on public policy grounds.

Though many jurisdictions would deny participation in a workers' compensation fund for injuries sustained while working in...