Lesperance v. Cooper

• Decision Date: 16 May 1983
• Docket Number: No. 14415,14415
• Citation: 104 Idaho 792,663 P.2d 1094
• Court: Idaho Supreme Court
• Parties: George M. LESPERANCE, Claimant-Appellant, v. Clayne COOPER, dba C & M Ranches, Employer, Defendant-Respondent.

Page 1094

663 P.2d 1094

104 Idaho 792

George M. LESPERANCE, Claimant-Appellant, v. Clayne COOPER, dba C & M Ranches, Employer, Defendant-Respondent.

No. 14415.

Supreme Court of Idaho.

May 16, 1983.

Jerry Goicoechea and Lynn M. Luker, Boise, for claimant-appellant.

Thomas A. Miller, of Hawley, Troxell, Ennis & Hawley, Boise, for employer, defendant-respondent.

BAKES, Justice.

Appellant appeals from an Industrial Commission order dismissing his claim for workmen's compensation. The commission held that the respondent was exempt from workmen's compensation coverage because his business is an agricultural pursuit.

Before the Industrial Commission, the parties stipulated to a bifurcated procedure wherein the commission would first determine whether the employer's business was an exempt "agricultural pursuit" under I.C. § 72-212(8), ¹ then decide other issues in the case, if necessary. The parties then stipulated to the following facts, allowing the commission to rule without a hearing.

Respondent and his spouse own and operate a ranch consisting of more than 540 acres. A cattle feedlot occupies 20 acres of the ranch. The remainder of the ranch consists of pasture and farmland. Cattle are fed hay from the pastures and grain while in the feedlot. Crops, such as wheat, barley and hay, are raised on the ranch for use as feed.

Appellant worked for respondent for six years. He was a foreman and supervised activities on the ranch, including the feeding of and caring for cattle, growing and harvesting grain, building and maintaining structures on the ranch, and generally overseeing the work of a handful of other employees. In November, 1979, respondent hired a separate manager for the feedlot, and appellant, after training this employee, began managing only those parts of the ranch other than the feedlot.

The majority of respondent's income comes from charging third parties for feeding their cattle. Charges for boarding cattle are made on a per head, per day basis. Despite the existence of other farming activities on the ranch, the commission specifically found that the general nature of respondents' business is a cattle feeding operation.

Appellant was injured in April of 1980, when he was sprayed by a chemical weed killer after a hose on a spraying machine broke. Appellant was spraying an irrigation ditch with the weed killer in preparation for the planting season.

The commission held that the respondent employer was engaged in an agricultural pursuit, and thus was exempt under Idaho law from providing coverage for its workers. The question presented on appeal is whether the commission erred as a matter of law in making such a determination.

Numerous Idaho cases have discussed the agricultural exemption offered under the workmen's compensation laws. One of the earliest is Cook v. Massey, 38 Idaho 264, 220 P. 1088 (1923). In Cook, the employer owned a threshing machine. The employee was engaged to aid in the operation of the machine, which traveled from farm to farm, threshing fields for individual farmers on a contract basis. This Court, after discussing the various definitions of "agriculture," "thresher," and "pursuit," ruled that an "agricultural pursuit" "include[s] every process and step taken and necessary to the completion of a finished farm product." Id. at 274, 220 P. 1088. This Court then went on to hold threshing to be an agricultural pursuit.

Mundell v. Swedlund, 59 Idaho 29, 80 P.2d 13 (1938), involved a commercial hay grinding business. Although the employer in that case relied heavily on Cook v. Massey, supra, and argued that hay grinding was an exempt operation, this Court disagreed for several reasons, including that hay is a finished farm product, that the employer was not a farmer, and that grinding of hay is something not commonly done by farmers. This Court held that the employee and employer "were engaged in a special work, not ordinarily done by farmers,--a business or industrial pursuit in and of itself, entirely separate and apart from farming and not an agricultural pursuit within the meaning of section 43-904, I.C.A." In Mulanix v. Falen, 64 Idaho 293, 130 P.2d 866 (1942), this Court was asked to consider whether the claimant, employed as a truck driver to deliver fruit and produce, was employed in an agricultural pursuit. We upheld the finding of the Industrial Commission that this was not an agricultural pursuit. It was noted that the fruit and produce being delivered were finished farm products, necessitating trips of several hundred miles, a process distinct from the production of the fruit itself. Also noted was that the "same work done under certain conditions and under certain circumstances may be agricultural, and other conditions and circumstances not." Id. at 296, 130 P.2d 866.

In 1956, we considered a case where a person hired to pitch pea vines into threshing machines was struck by a truck. Hubble v. Perrault, 78 Idaho 448, 304 P.2d 1092 (1956). We reversed the Industrial Commission, ruling that the employee was engaged in an agricultural pursuit. Mentioned as factors considered by the Court are: threshing is a necessary step in farming; the threshing pursuit was not part of the employer's commercial cannery; threshing of farm crops is an agricultural pursuit. In Collins v. Moyle, 83 Idaho 151, 358 P.2d 1035 (1961), we considered the question of whether a laborer on a mink farm was engaged in a covered employment. At that time the definition of agricultural pursuits in our statute included only "the care-taking and handling of livestock on enclosed lands and public ranges." Id. at 154, 358 P.2d 1035. The question in Collins was whether mink could be considered livestock. This Court held it could not. The legislature has since amended the statute to include "fur bearing animals."

In 1966, we were faced with the question of whether an employee, engaged to plow and seed federal land, was engaged in an agricultural pursuit. Reedy v. Trummell, 90 Idaho 318, 410 P.2d 654 (1966). We held that he was, noting that the main work the employee was engaged to do, plow fields, was generally agricultural in character. In Manning v. Win Her Stables, Inc., 91 Idaho 549, 428 P.2d 55 (1967), claimant had been employed to exercise and train racehorses at a race track owned by his employer. We concluded that "respondent's [claimant's] employment was not agricultural as the term is commonly understood but was special work, not ordinarily done by farmers, that partook of a commercial character entirely separate and apart from an agricultural pursuit." Id. at 553, 428 P.2d 55. Thus, the work was not an agricultural pursuit, and the employer was not exempt. Backsen v. Blauser, 95 Idaho 811, 520 P.2d 858 (1974), involved a claimant truck driver employed to haul crops from farmers' fields to a point decided by the farmer. On the date of his injury he was stacking hay which he had hauled from a field to a barn. We noted, "that Blauser's business was not agricultural as the term is commonly understood, but trucking, and thus not exempt from the workmen's compensation laws." Id. at 813, 520 P.2d 858. In Goodson v. L.W. Hult Produce Co., 97 Idaho 264, 543 P.2d 167 (1975), the claimant was injured while loading potatoes on a truck at his employer's warehouse. After holding that the warehouse was a separate enterprise from the employer's seed potato operation, we ruled that operation of a commercial warehouse was not an agricultural pursuit.

In Dwigans v. Olander, 98 Idaho 744, 572 P.2d 178 (1977), the employer operated a custom manure spreading business. We noted that "Olander was not a farmer, but rather a businessman providing a limited, specific service to farmers on a contract basis. It would be incorrect to say that Olander's business constituted the 'raising and harvesting' of agricultural products." Id. at 745, 572 P.2d 178.

Finally, in Kuhn v. Box Canyon Livestock, Inc., 102 Idaho 658, 637 P.2d 1154 (1981), we ruled that a milk truck driver was working in covered employment at the time of his industrial accident. After ruling that the milk hauling business of respondent was sufficiently separate from his dairy business, we held that the transportation of milk was equivalent to the hauling of a finished agricultural product, thus not within the exclusion.

Both respondent and appellant cite the foregoing Idaho cases in arguing their respective positions. Both attempt to analogize the present situation to the fact patterns involved in those previous cases. However, none of those cases are precisely on point. All we can do is attempt to glean general principles from them, and then apply those principles to the facts at hand.

One general principle evident in all the cases is that we are required to look to the general nature of the employer's business in determining whether he is engaged in an agricultural pursuit. The general character of respondent's business, as found by the commission, is a cattle feeding operation.

Another principle evident from reading of the cases is that courts often look to the traditional meaning of agriculture as the term is commonly understood in an attempt to classify a particular business. See Backsen v. Blauser, supra; Manning v. Win Her Stables, supra. If the work is such that it is not ordinarily done by farmers, courts will generally hold that the character of the work is not agricultural, and thus not exempt. However, if the work is ordinarily done by farmers, and is of a nature ordinarily thought of as agricultural, courts will consistently find that work to be an agricultural pursuit and exempt under the workmen's compensation laws.

It is also clear in the cases that each business will be judged on its own unique characteristics. We cannot categorize a type of business, e.g., a feedlot, without looking closely at that individual business and its characteristics to see if it has an agricultural base.

The Industrial Commission found that resp...