Sines v. Sines

• Decision Date: 25 April 1986
• Docket Number: No. 16006,16006
• Citation: 718 P.2d 1214,110 Idaho 776
• Parties: Eugene E. SINES, Claimant-Appellant, v. Truman SINES, dba Emida Cedar, Employer, and Mission National Insurance Company, Surety, Defendants-Respondents.
• Court: Idaho Supreme Court

Page 1214

718 P.2d 1214

110 Idaho 776

Eugene E. SINES, Claimant-Appellant, v. Truman SINES, dba Emida Cedar, Employer, and Mission National Insurance Company, Surety, Defendants-Respondents.

No. 16006.

Supreme Court of Idaho.

April 25, 1986.

David A. Manko, Coeur d'Alene, for claimant-appellant.

John W. Barrett, Boise, for defendants-respondents.

BISTLINE, Justice.

Emida Cedar had timber harvesting rights to some land owned by Burlington Northern. Eugene Sines, the claimant herein, and Emida Cedar entered into an agreement wherein Mr. Sines would harvest and transport the timber to various mills for a price of $90.00 per one thousand board feet. The agreement entered into by Mr. Sines and Emida Cedar was an oral one, and occurred sometime in January or February 1982.

On May 20, 1982, while attempting to load logs, Mr. Sines caught his hand in the loader's gears. That he has serious permanent injury is not in dispute.

Mr. Sines made a claim on Emida for medical expenses and income benefits. The claim was denied by Emida's surety, Mission National Insurance Company, on the basis that he was not an employee of Emida Cedar.

Following a hearing, the Industrial Commission concluded that Mr. Sines was an independent contractor at the time of his accident, and denied benefits. Mr. Sines has appealed that determination.

After a thorough review of the record, we are not persuaded that the Commission erred. The current test in Idaho for determining whether an individual is an employee or an independent contractor is the "right to control test." ¹ The test used generally focuses upon consideration of four factors, set out most recently in Burdick v. Thornton, 109 Idaho 869, 712 P.2d 570, 572 (1985): "(1) direct evidence of the right; (2) the method of payment; (3) furnishing major items of equipment; and (4) the right to terminate the employment relationship at will and without liability."

This Court had earlier amplified upon the right to control test in Ledesma v. Bergeson, 99 Idaho 555, 557-58, 585 P.2d 965, 967-68 (1978):

The general test which establishes the relationship of employer and employee is "the right to control and direct the activities of the employee, or the power to control the details of the work to be performed and to determine how it shall be done, and whether it shall stop or continue." [Citations omitted.] ...

The integral test then is whether the contract gives, or the employer assumes, the right to control the time, manner and method of executing the work, as distinguished from the right merely to require certain definite results in conformity to the contract. [Citations omitted.]

As in Ledesma, supra, 99 Idaho at 557, 585 P.2d at 967, so, too, here, our "only question ... is whether the Industrial Commission made a proper application of law to [the] evidence." Id. We hold that it did.

The Commission found that Mr. Sines hired, controlled, and paid his own assistants; furnished his own equipment and tools; paid his own expenses; and decided when his crew was to begin work, end work, and take breaks. He even hired his replacement after he was injured. Each of these facts are supported by substantial and competent evidence, and they strongly suggest an independent contractor relationship. Id. at 558, 585 P.2d at 968.

The Commission did note that Emida Cedar told Mr. Sines the boundaries within which he was to cut the timber, what types of cuts were to be made, and where he was supposed to take the timber after it was cut. But, as the Commission also noted, "such directions ... were no more than necessary to ensure the agreed...