Shinuald v. Mound City Yellow Cab Co.
| Decision Date | 24 January 1984 |
| Docket Number | No. 46588,46588 |
| Citation | 666 S.W.2d 846 |
| Parties | Cobie SHINUALD, Appellant, v. MOUND CITY YELLOW CAB COMPANY, Respondent. |
| Court | Missouri Court of Appeals |
Harry James Nichols, St. Louis, for appellant.
Mark Robert Henry, Clayton, for respondent.
In August 1976, appellant Cobie Shinuald, then a Yellow Cab driver, was driving passengers to the St. Louis train station when his cab was demolished by a city bus. The Labor and Industrial Relations Commission (Commission) affirmed a consequent workers' compensation award to Shinuald for injuries he sustained in the accident. The named employer, Mound City Yellow Cab Company (Yellow Cab), appealed the award to the circuit court and the circuit court reversed, concluding that claimant was not Yellow Cab's employee but an independent contractor. The correctness of that ruling is the sole issue on this appeal. We reverse and remand with directions to affirm the award of the Commission.
Section 287.020.-1., RSMo (1978) 1 defines "employee" for the purposes of The Workers' Compensation Law. The pertinent part of the definition is set out below:
The word 'employee' as used in this chapter shall be construed to mean every person in the service of any employer, as defined in this chapter, under any contract of hire, express or implied, oral or written, or under any appointment or election, including executive officers of corporations.
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As the definition implies, an employer-employee relationship under The Workers' Compensation Law is established by proof of two ultimate facts: " 'one, that the claimant was in the service of the [alleged employer], and, two, that said services were controllable' by the latter." Lawson v. Lawson, 415 S.W.2d 313, 319 (Mo.App.1967). The Commission held that the requisite controllable services were shown when the evidence was viewed under the "relative nature of the work test" approved in Ceradsky v. Mid-America Dairymen, Inc., 583 S.W.2d 193 (Mo.App.1979); i.e., by looking at
the character of the claimant's work or business--how skilled it is, how much of a separate calling or enterprise it is, to what extent it may be expected to carry its own accident burden and so on--and its relation to the employer's business, that is, how much it is a regular part of the employer's regular work, whether it is continuous or intermittent, and whether the duration is sufficient to amount to the hiring of continuing services as distinguished from contracting for the completion of a particular job.
Id. at 199; and see 1C A. Larson, The Law of Workmen's Compensation § 43.52, at 8-20 (1980). We agree.
We view the evidence before the Commission in the light most favorable to the award, indulging all reasonable inferences therefrom that favor the award. Schultz v. Moerschel Products Co., 142 S.W.2d 106, 109 (Mo.App.1940); and see Stegeman v. St. Francis Xavier Parish, 611 S.W.2d 204, 205 (Mo.banc 1981).
Yellow Cab is a corporation with offices in St. Louis. According to its president, it is franchised to "just operate generally a taxicab business." The business consists principally of a garage (where cabs are maintained, repaired, painted, etc.), a retail gasoline business, a radio-dispatching operation, and of course the cabs themselves, seventy percent of which are company-owned and which service the sixty-odd cabstands that have been assigned to and which are maintained by Yellow Cab throughout its service area. Service is confined mainly to the City of St. Louis, the unincorporated areas of St. Louis County, and to those municipalities in St. Louis County that have licensed Yellow Cab to operate within their respective city limits. Service to distant destinations outside the principal service area requires Yellow Cab's prior approval.
Claimant started as a cabdriver in April, 1975, by driving a company-owned cab, having gone through the usual application process. He completed a written Yellow Cab application form at Yellow Cab's office, passed the required physical examination, obtained a "cab driver's license," and had a favorable report when Yellow Cab checked for a police record. He then completed a two-or three-day training period, which consisted of riding with another Yellow Cab driver to learn "how it goes."
Company-owned cabs and driver-owned cabs operate generally in the same way. On-duty drivers must conform to Yellow Cab's dress code by being clean-shaven (though mustaches were allowed), and by wearing a white shirt and a "yellow cab cap" at all times. Non-conforming drivers get no calls from the Yellow Cab dispatcher (ninety percent of a driver's fares result from responding to calls from the dispatcher on the cab's two-way radio) and persistent offenders soon find they no longer drive a yellow cab. Cabs are required to be fueled at Yellow Cab's pumps, and then are driven to a Yellow Cab cabstand to await either a call from the Yellow Cab dispatcher or, less frequently, a "walk-out" fare to cabstands at certain restaurants, hotels and transportation depots.
Yellow Cab set the rates for all fares, though under its agreement with each cabdriver, the driver kept all fares paid and made a periodic "stand dues" payment to Yellow Cab. Those driving company-owned cabs paid about $20 daily as "stand dues,"...
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