Walls v. North Mississippi Medical Center & U.S. Fidelity & Guar. Co.

• Decision Date: 26 September 1990
• Docket Number: No. 07-CC-58822,07-CC-58822
• Citation: 568 So.2d 712
• Parties: Carolyn WALLS v. NORTH MISSISSIPPI MEDICAL CENTER & UNITED STATES FIDELITY & GUARANTY COMPANY.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Page 712

568 So.2d 712

Carolyn WALLS v. NORTH MISSISSIPPI MEDICAL CENTER & UNITED STATES FIDELITY &amp GUARANTY COMPANY.

No. 07-CC-58822.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

Sept. 26, 1990.

Roy O. Parker, Jr., Tupelo, for appellant.

Michael G. Soper, Soper Russell Richardson & Dent, Tupelo, for appellee.

EN BANC:

PRATHER, Justice, for the Court:

The issue in this workers' compensation case is whether a student nurse injured while engaged in clinical training at a hospital was an apprenticeship employee of the hospital within the meaning of the Workers' Compensation Act. The Administrative Judge, Workers' Compensation Commission, and Circuit Court of Lee County held that student nurse Carolyn Walls was not an employee, express or implied, of North Mississippi Medical Center and denied compensation to Walls from the hospital and its insurer, United States Fidelity and Guaranty Company. This appeal ensued on this issue. ¹

I.

Thirty-two-year old Carolyn Walls was enrolled in a one-year nurses' program at Itawamba Junior College (IJC), seeking a degree as a Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN). It is presumed that she paid tuition to IJC, but she did not testify at trial to that fact. She received classroom instruction at the college and clinical training as a student nurse at a health care facility. When performing her clinical training on April 17, 1984, Walls was moving a patient at the direction of a hospital-employed nurse. As she did so, she felt a pain in her lower back. The pain hampered Walls' ability to perform her work and eventually forced her to seek treatment for the injury. Drs. William Brown and John McFadden treated Ms. Walls for her injury, which was diagnosed as a lumbar disk injury. The injury manifested itself in the form of decreased mobility, pain and tenderness, and ultimately forced her to drop out of the nursing program.

The issue on appeal is whether Carolyn Walls, while under a student intern program and performing services in the hospital, at the direction of the hospital's nurses, was an apprentice employee of the hospital as a matter of law for purposes of workers' compensation benefits. There is no dispute of the fact that Walls was injured while interning at the hospital, and that the activities which caused her injury on that occasion were performed at the direction of the hospital's nurses. The Workers' Compensation Commission affirmed the Administrative Judge's conclusion that Ms. Walls failed to establish that she was an employee of the hospital. The crucial facts in this case are undisputed, and are as follows.

II.

A. The Nursing Program

The nursing program in which Carolyn Walls enrolled began with four (4) months of classroom instruction. Following the classroom instruction, the remaining eight (8) months comprised clinical training at a medical facility, in this case, North Mississippi Medical Center, in conjunction with more classroom instruction. While she was undergoing her training at IJC as a student, Walls shared all the same holidays that other students enjoyed, including Thanksgiving, Christmas and Spring Break, the same hours as all other IJC nursing students, and the same rights and privileges as other junior college students. She did not work the same hours as North Mississippi Medical Center employees, but only worked where and when scheduled by the Nursing Department of IJC. Student nurse training was given by IJC nursing instructors at the hospital. The nursing students worked five-hour shifts at the hospital, five days a week, excluding the weekends.

When the students entered the clinical portion of their training, they reported to the health facility at which they were to receive their clinical training, rather than reporting to the IJC campus. At the beginning of a working day at the hospital, the student nurses would report to the IJC nursing instructor on duty. Faye Taylor, a fellow student nurse with Ms. Walls, testified that these nursing instructors assigned the student nurses to designated patients and acted as supervisors for the students.

The nursing students were under the supervision and control of the head nursing instructor who was a teacher at IJC, and the students were primarily the responsibility of the head nursing instructor. However, Walls testified that she was not completely under the direction and control of the nursing instructor. In addition to receiving instructions from instructors at IJC, students in the program were also subject to receiving instructions from nurses who were employees of the Medical Center. In fact, Walls had administered an injection and was moving a patient at the direction of a Medical Center nurse when she was injured.

Walls testified that they were expected to follow orders from Medical Center nurses as they would instructions from the IJC nursing instructors. She also stated that if told to stop a specific activity by a Medical Center nurse, she would be expected to do so. The students were also encouraged to work with the nurses at the Medical Center and ask them questions if necessary. The student nurses did not receive clothes, room, board, tuition, or a monthly allowance. Walls did receive $40.00 a week--$30.00 for travel expenses and $10.00 for child care--from the Mississippi Employment Security Office, a federal assistance program.

Walls testified during cross-examination that she never listed any income from the North Mississippi Medical Center on her tax returns. The patients cared for by the students were picked out by nurses at the Medical Center because they thought the students could "handle" them. During cross-examination, Ms. Walls insisted that the nursing students were assigned patients by their instructor, at the direction of the nurses at the Medical Center. The nursing students also followed IJC policy concerning sick leave and vacations, not those of the hospital.

B. The Law

When a person is injured while on the job, the person is entitled to compensation under the Workers' Compensation Act, not because of any act or omission of his employer, but because an employment relationship exists [citations omitted]. The question of whether a person is an employee may be one of fact, of mixed law and fact, or of law only. Where the facts are undisputed, the question is one of law, and the Court[ ] may independently review those facts to determine the correct answer.

Barragan v. W.C.A.B., 195 Cal.App.3d 637, 240 Cal.Rptr. 811, 814-815 (1987). The facts of this case are undisputed; therefore, this Court must determine whether Walls is an "employee" as a matter of law. The language of the Mississippi Workers' Compensation Act is the statutory authority by which this case is determined. The applicable section of Workers' Compensation Act related to the statutory definition of "employee" for workers compensation purposes defines employee as follows:

Section 71-3-3(d), M.C.A. (1972):

... [A]ny person, ... in the service of an employer under any contract of hire or apprenticeship, written or oral, express or implied ...

Since the right to workers' compensation is statutory and is exclusive of any other statutory and common law remedies, it is important to critically analyze the undisputed factual situation in determining coverage under the Workers' Compensation Law (WC). Coverage under workers' compensation law rests upon the status of employer-employee relationship. It has been held that the terms "employer" and "employee" as used in the Mississippi Workers' Compensation Act are synonymous with the words "master" and "servant" as used under common law. Robertson v. Stroup, 254 Miss. 118, 180 So.2d 617 (1965). Hillcrest Hospital v. State Industrial Court, 452 P.2d 781 (Okla.1969); Landrum v. Ownby, 290 P.2d 400 (Okla.1955). That relationship is evidenced by the "contract of hire or apprenticeship, oral or written, express or implied." "The traditional features of an employment contract are (1) consent of the parties, (2) consideration for the service rendered, and (3) control by the employer over the employee." Barragan, 240 Cal.Rptr. at 815. However, courts have held in workers' compensation cases that these common law requirements "should not be rigidly applied." Id.

In the case sub judice, the Administrative Judge and Commission found that no written or oral "contract for hire" between Walls and the Medical Center existed. The record is devoid of any written contractual agreement between the Hospital and IJC, requiring either party to effect workers' compensation insurance; it is also devoid of any indemnification agreement by IJC to insure the hospital against loss or damage resulting from trainee injury. Absent a written or oral contract of employment, a claimant must look further within the statutory language.

The statute also refers to a "contract of hire, ... express or implied ...;" thus, this Court next addresses an implied contract of hire. In the case of Betts v. Ann Arbor Public Schools, 403 Mich. 507, 271 N.W.2d 498 (1978), a university student while "practice teaching" in a high school to fulfill his student teaching requirement, was serving under an appointment to the school and was determined to be an "employee" of the school district for purposes of workers' compensation. The statutory language of the Michigan law defines an employee to be "... every person in the service of the state or of any county, city, township, village, or school district, under any appointment, or contract of hire, express or implied, oral or written." 271 N.W.2d at 499. The Court held that the practice teacher was serving the school district under "appointment" and under an implied contract of hire. Ostensibly, the Michigan statutory language is distinguishable from the Mississippi law in its use of the word appointment, but is identical in use of the words "implied ... contract of hire." Without deciding the issue of whether an implied contract of hire exists in the case sub judice, this Court...