In re Centrello

• Decision Date: 14 March 1919
• Citation: 232 Mass. 456,122 N.E. 560
• Parties: CENTRELLO'S CASE. In re J. K. RYAN CO. In re TRAVELERS' INS. CO.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

232 Mass. 456

122 N.E. 560

CENTRELLO'S CASE. In re J. K. RYAN CO. In re TRAVELERS' INS. CO.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

March 14, 1919.

Appeal from Superior Court, Suffolk County.

Proceeding for compensation for injuries under the Workmen's Compensation Act by Louis Centrello, the employé, opposed by J. K. Ryan, the employer, and the Travelers' Insurance Company. Compensation was awarded, the award affirmed by the superior court, and from its decree the insurer appeals. Reversed.

Walter I. Badger and Louis C. Doyle, both of Boston, for appellant.

PER CURIAM.

Centrello owned three teams which he let with drivers to the J. K. Ryan Company to haul dirt at the rate of $1 per hour for each team and driver. Centrello drove one of the teams himself. At the end of a day's work Centrello got off his cart and went in front, thinking it would be safer to lead the horses down an embankment. He took hold of the horses by the bridle and led them. While doing this his leg was broken by a rolling stone. The J. K. Ryan Company directed the general work of hauling the dirt. The drivers did no work of shoveling or loading and only drove the horses and took the pin out of the cart when it had been driven to the place to dump and replaced it after the cart had been dumped. The Ryan Company did not fix the wages of the drivers. That was done by Centrello. He received no wages himself. He made the profits due to the owner and contractor for letting the teams with drivers. Neither he nor his drivers were on the pay roll of the Ryan Company. There is no evidence that the Ryan Company exercised any control over the drivers respecting their horses, except to direct them where to get dirt and where to dump it. The statement of a foreman of the Ryan Company to the effect that ‘If a driver didn't do what I wanted him to, I would tell him to take his team and go,’ adds nothing to his testimony that ‘other than to tell Centrello where to get dirt and where they should dump it, he did not give them any orders.’ Where nothing further appears, it is plain that the driver of a team hired out by the owner, his general employer, to perform work for another, remains in the employ of his general employer so far as concerns the management and care of his horses. Peach v. Bruno, 224 Mass. 447, 113 N. E. 279. Centrello was not an employé of the Ryan Company in this respect. Since there is nothing to show that the care and management of the horses were surrendered to the Ryan Company the drivers were not employés of that company, but of the owner of the horses and teams. Shepard v. Jacobs, 204 Mass. 110, 90 N. E. 392,26 L. R. A. (N. S.) 442, 134 Am. St. Rep. 648, and numerous cases there collected. Brackett v. Lubke, 4 Allen, 138, 81 Am. Dec. 694, has no pertinency under these conditions. The circumstance that Centrello was the owner and drove one of his own teams does not establish the liability of the Ryan Company. He stands in this regard no better than one of his...