Yount v. Boundary County

• Decision Date: 14 August 1990
• Docket Number: No. 18021,18021
• Parties: , 13 A.L.R.5th 996 Iris YOUNT, Claimant-Appellant, v. BOUNDARY COUNTY, Employer, and State Insurance Fund, Surety, Defendants-Respondents.
• Court: Idaho Supreme Court

Page 516

796 P.2d 516

118 Idaho 307, 13 A.L.R.5th 996

Iris YOUNT, Claimant-Appellant, v. BOUNDARY COUNTY, Employer, and State Insurance Fund, Surety, Defendants-Respondents.

No. 18021.

Supreme Court of Idaho.

Aug. 14, 1990.

Cooke, LaManna, Smith & Cogswell, Priest River, for claimant-appellant. Nicholas M. LaManna, argued.

Cox & Davis, Coeur d'Alene, and M. Karl Shurtliff (argued), Boise, for defendants-respondents.

BISTLINE, Justice.

INTRODUCTION

The Commission, noting that this was a case of first impression in Idaho, turned to other jurisdictions for guidance. Observing that it had found only one case which compensated a juror, and that nine other states had determined that jurors are not employees within the purview of workers' compensation law, it concluded that I.C. § 72-205 is substantially similar to the statutory provisions of the states which denied compensation and ruled that an Idaho juror is not covered, as there is no contract of hire either express or implied. R. 48. The Commission did not favor us with any analysis of the case law upon which it relied, except by reference to the names of the states: Michigan, Maryland, Louisiana, North Carolina, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Florida, New Mexico, and Colorado. It specifically cited to the one case which allowed an injured juror to recover. Industrial Comm'n v. Rogers, 122 Ohio 134, 171 N.E. 35 (1930). All ten of the cases date back to the era when the various state legislatures decided to provide workers with compensation irrespective of the employees' negligence--such being the quid pro quo for eliminating the previous remedy of seeking a tort recovery from employers. Sure and certain relief was the promise of the Workers' Compensation Act.

Conceding that the Commission accurately observed that the numerical weight of authority, nine to one, preponderates in favor of denying coverage, it is incumbent on this Court to analyze case law precedent, and determine whether what has been referred to as the overwhelming weight of authority is persuasive. Our Idaho Workers' Compensation Act is to be liberally construed in order to implement its beneficial purposes. Jones v. Morrison-Knudsen Co., 98 Idaho 458, 567 P.2d 3 (1977); Hattenburg v. Blanks, 98 Idaho 485, 567 P.2d 829 (1977). With due deference to the Commission's approach, we will decide the issue in accordance with the foregoing precept, in accordance with applicable Idaho statutory law, and with an analysis of the case law precedent of the ten states which have addressed the issue--the latter being that to which we shall first direct our attention.

I. OTHER STATES' PRECEDENTS

An overview of the nine cases denying coverage illustrates that after the first case denying coverage was followed by a second such holding, there was a readily observable propensity toward becoming "aligned with the great weight of authority." The most recent case from the nine jurisdictions mentioned by the Commission is Jeansonne v. Parish of E. Baton Rouge, 354 So.2d 619 (La.Ct.App.1977). There the First Circuit Court of Appeals of Louisiana cursorily considered that a juror does receive compensation for services rendered, but immediately watered down its effort by noting its own holding in Parker v. State, 353 So.2d 333 (La.Ct.App.1977), that payment of some compensation to prisoners for their labor does not make them into state employees. ¹

The Louisiana court made no mention of the single contrary but well-reasoned analysis and holding of the Ohio Court of Appeals, Industrial Comm'n v. Rogers, 34 Ohio App. 196, 170 N.E. 600 (1929), aff'd by opinion of the Ohio Supreme Court, 122 Ohio St. 134, 171 N.E. 35 (1930). Upon analyzing the Jeansonne rationale it is found to be without substance. The Louisiana court candidly stated that:

In reaching our conclusion that a juror is not covered by our Workman's Compensation Law, we note that such result has been reached by the overwhelming majority of states deciding the question. Metropolitan Dade County v. Glassman, 341 So.2d 995 (Fla.1976); 1-A Larson, The Law of Workmen's Compensation, § 56.35 (1973).

Jeansonne, 354 So.2d at 619 (emphasis added). We find no help from Louisiana, but do note that it recited the statutory provision that the workers' compensation law of that state "shall apply to every person in the service of the [a] state or political subdivision thereof." 354 So.2d at 620.

Decided fourteen months earlier than Jeansonne was Maryland's Lockerman v. Prince George's County, 281 Md. 195, 377 A.2d 1177 (1977), the disposition of which did not require much effort on the part of the Court of Appeals:

Our inquiry therefore reduces itself to whether those (normal contractual) incidents (of the employer-employee relationship) are present in the relationship of a juror with either the State or the county.... We think it clear that they are not and conclude that an injured juror is not an employee entitled to receive compensation, aligning ourselves with six of the seven jurisdictions which have decided the issue.

377 A.2d at 1181-82 (emphasis added). Perhaps in a desire to fortify its "alignment" ratio decidendi, the Maryland court obediently set out the six citations of the cases to which it adhered. Apparently out of courtesy, it also provided the citation to, but no comment on, the Ohio Supreme Court's Rogers case. ² Obviously the Maryland court was of the same view as the Louisiana court, namely, better to follow the aged adage that there is strength and safety in numbers.

The Maryland court did venture into a general analysis of the prerequisite of employment as essential to eligibility for compensation benefits, as had been stated by earlier members of the court in 1951:

Our predecessors recognized the principles we now reiterate more than a quarter-century ago, when they opined: 'Of course, in order to warrant payment of compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Act, it is essential that there should have existed at the time of the injury (an express or implied) contract of employment between the alleged employer and the injured workman.' Sun Cab Co. v. Powell, 196 Md. 572, 579, 77 A.2d 783, 786 (1951).

Lockerman, 377 A.2d at 1180.

Hicks v. Guilford, 267 N.C. 364, 148 S.E.2d 240 (1966), was cited by the Lockerman court. Discussing an issue of first impression, Hicks took due note of the Ohio Rogers case, and the opposite conclusions of the courts of Colorado and New Mexico before declaring that:

Since in this jurisdiction a juror is not an employee, the North Carolina Workmen's Compensation Act does not apply to an injury sustained by a juror in the course of his or her service as such. Consequently, the Industrial Commission was without jurisdiction in this matter. The judgment of the superior court is, therefore, reversed, and the award of the Industrial Commission is vacated.

Hicks, 148 S.E.2d at 244. The North Carolina Supreme Court was careful to observe that the Ohio holding was that "a juror is within the coverage of the Workmen's Compensation Act of that state," 148 S.E.2d at 244 (emphasis added), and the Colorado and New Mexico conclusions were reached "as to the statutes of those states." Id. The North Carolina Supreme Court was the first to engage in enlightening discussion of the opinion in Rogers and the two contrary results in New Mexico and Colorado. Of significance and helpful to our review, the North Carolina Supreme Court quite adequately vitiates the conclusion advanced by the Idaho Industrial Commission in Part III of its decision, ³ that "Claimant was more like an independent contractor than an employee while she served on jury duty and hence is not entitled to worker's compensation benefits." R. 49.

The Hicks opinion provides us with that state's statutory definition of employee, which is on a par with Idaho's, and then continues on to say:

This definition adds nothing to the common law meaning of the term 'employee.' Hayes v. Board of Trustees of Elon College [224 N.C. 11, 29 S.E.2d 137], supra. As was said by Stacy, C.J., in Hollowell v. North Carolina Department of Conservation and Development, 206 N.C. 206, 173 S.E. 603, 'The sum of the whole matter is that before the provisions of the Workmen's Compensation Act are called into play, the relation of master and servant, or employer and employee, or some appointment, must exist, and this is the initial fact to be established.'

In Scott v. Waccamaw Lumber Co., 232 N.C. 162, 59 S.E.2d 425, Ervin, J., speaking for the Court, said:

The question whether one employed to perform specified work for another is to be regarded as an independent contractor, or as an employee within the operation of the Workmen's Compensation Act is determined by the application of the ordinary common-law tests. * * * The test to be applied in determining whether the relationship of the parties under a contract for the performance of work is that of employer and employee, or that of employer and independent contractor is whether the party for whom the work is being done has the right to control the worker with respect to the manner or method of doing the work, as distinguished from the right merely to require certain definite results conforming to the contract. If the employer has the right of control, it is immaterial whether he actually exercises it.

It does not necessarily follow that one who is not an independent contractor is an employee within the coverage of the Act. One performing work or rendering services may not fall into either category. Thus, a prisoner, who certainly is not an independent contractor, is not an employee as defined in G.S. § 97-2(b), though prisoners are now specifically brought within the Act to a limited extent by another provision of the statute. Lawson v. North Carolina State Highway and Public Works Commission, 248 N.C. 276, 103 S.E.2d 366.

One may be an employee, within the meaning of the Workmen's Compensation Act, though his employment is...