Todd School for Boys v. Industrial Commission

• Decision Date: 22 May 1952
• Docket Number: No. 32243,32243
• Citation: 412 Ill. 453,107 N.E.2d 745
• Parties: TODD SCHOOL FOR BOYS v. INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION et al.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

Page 745

107 N.E.2d 745

412 Ill. 453

TODD SCHOOL FOR BOYS v. INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION et al.

No. 32243.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

May 22, 1952.

Rehearing Denied Sept. 15, 1952.

L. B. Marshall and Graham & McElligott all of Chicago (Errett O. Graham, Chicago, and Theodore L. Hamer, Woodstock, of counsel), for plaintiff in error.

Hinshaw & Culbertson, of Chicago and Eckert & Cross, of Woodstock (William I. Caldwell, Chicago, of counsel), for defendant in error.

CRAMPTON, Justice.

Joseph R. Peirce, a student at the Todd School for Boys in Woodstock, Illinois, was seriously injured while riding in a truck owned by the school. He applied for compensation against the school under the Workmen's Compensation Act, and an award in his favor was confirmed by the circuit court of McHenry County. We have allowed a writ of error to review the case.

The evidence discloses that on October 22, 1946, Peirce and a fellow student, Ned Tarbox, were in charge of eight younger students on a sailing excursion to a lake about four miles from the school. In accordance with the practice on previous trips, a school truck was used to transport the boys to and from the lake. On the return trip the truck, driven by Tarbox, overturned, causing the injuries in question.

The plaintiff in error is a private boarding school, providing academic instruction in subjects of elementary and college preparatory grades. Its program also offers practical experience in agriculture, seamanship, aviation and other activities. The school owns appropriate physical equipment, including a farm and farm machinery, an airport and airplane, sailboats, manual training room, laboratories, dormatories and other school buildings.

In addition to their academic studies, most of the boys perform physical tasks about the school and its facilities, the extent of any particular student's participation in such work being determined by his age, ability and interest. The students assist in operating the farm, help maintain the airport and the school buildings, take care of the furnaces, wait on tables in the dining room, wash dishes, and perform other useful jobs. Some of the older boys are given positions of proctors and student helpers, to supervise younger boys and grade them on neatness and behavior. Peirce was a senior, seventeen years of age, and was placed in charge of fifth-and sixth-grade boys at the dormitory in which he lived. In addition he took grammar-school boys for sailing trips after school hours, whenever the weather was good. During the previous year he had performed a large variety of other tasks, such as cleaning chickens, unloading coal and vegetables, waiting on tables, building benches, raking leaves, and operating a tractor at the airport.

Because of his limited finances, Peirce was admitted to the school at less than the regular tuition rate. He made no formal application for a scholarship, however, and none was awarded. The headmaster of the school testified that the tasks which the students performed in connection with their school work had no relation to the amount of tuition paid; that a boy who was enrolled at a reduced tuition rate was accorded the same treatment, and was required to engage in the same activities as those paying the regular charge.

Plaintiff in error makes the contention, among others, that the evidence is insufficient to warrant the finding that Peirce was an employee of the school. The statute defines an employee as 'Every person in the service of another under any contract of hire, express or implied, oral or written'. (Ill.Rev.Stat.1945, chap. 48, par. 142.) There is no evidence in the record concerning an express contract of hire, either written or oral. The question in dispute is whether a contract and service thereunder can properly be inferred from the circumstances and conduct of the parties. Defen...