Bovet v. Law

164 P.3d 1186, 214 Or. App. 349, 2007 Ore. App. LEXIS 1072
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedAugust 1, 2007
Docket04-04262; A128373
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 164 P.3d 1186 (Bovet v. Law) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Oregon primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bovet v. Law, 164 P.3d 1186, 214 Or. App. 349, 2007 Ore. App. LEXIS 1072 (Or. Ct. App. 2007).

Opinion

ORTEGA, J.

Marc Bovet and Jayce Bovet (the Bovets) and the Department of Consumer and Business Services (DCBS) petition for judicial review of a final order that set aside a nonsubjectivity determination of the Workers’ Compensation Division (WCD) based on a finding by an administrative law judge (ALJ) that claimant is a subject worker entitled to workers’ compensation coverage for an injury sustained while performing work for the Bovets.1 We review the pertinent factual findings for substantial evidence and the legal conclusions for errors of law, Oregon Drywall Systems v. Natl. Council on Comp. Ins., 153 Or App 662, 666, 958 P2d 195 (1998).

Claimant bears the burden of establishing the existence of an employment relationship subject to the Workers’ Compensation Law. Hopkins v. Kobos Co., 186 Or App 273, 277, 62 P3d 870 (2003). We conclude that, under the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the applicable statute, which is part of the statute as though written into it at the time of enactment, Walther v. SAIF, 312 Or 147, 149, 817 P2d 292 (1991), the ALJ erred, as a matter of law. We therefore reverse.

The following facts are undisputed. The Bovets purchased a 77-acre parcel of land in Josephine County on which they were building a home. That home construction project was the context for the work that claimant performed. Although in the past Mr. Bovet has earned income from selling real property holdings that he has improved, he testified that he is a search and rescue coordinator and an artist, and [352]*352that he has independent means of support and lives primarily off personal and family investments. He does not consider himself to be a real estate developer and has not made a business out of buying, fixing up, and selling homes for a profit.

The Bovets hired various independent contractors to work on the Josephine County home, where, according to Mr. Bovet, the family planned to live for the foreseeable future. In November 2003, claimant, then age 18, met with the Bovets while he was on the property working for a contractor whom they had hired to do bulldozer work. Following that meeting, the Bovets hired claimant to install shelves in the new barn and later to help one of the contractors build a culvert. After that, claimant proposed a written “Forest Cleanup Contract” to the Bovets under which he would “provide hard work” and the necessary tools to do forest cleanup on the property for $10 an hour. The Bovets agreed, and claimant began work.

Claimant set his own hours and did not check in or out. He presented his hours to Mr. Bovet once a week and was paid in cash. Generally Mr. Bovet told claimant where to work and what to do, and claimant worked at several locations around the property. One afternoon, a contractor asked Mr. Bovet if claimant could work near him clearing brush for the proposed garage site, and he agreed. The next day a snag fell off a bum pile where claimant was working, and he suffered a scalp laceration and fractured his spine in two places.

Claimant filed a workers’ compensation claim for his injuries, and the WCD concluded that claimant was not a worker subject to the Workers’ Compensation Law. When claimant challenged that determination, however, the ALJ set it aside. The ALJ explained that, even though the evidence was inconclusive regarding whether the Bovets had a right to control claimant’s work so as to bring him within the definition of a worker under ORS 656.005(30), the nature of claimant’s work brought him within that definition. The ALJ also rejected the Bovets’ contention that claimant was a non-subject worker under the householder exemption of ORS 656.027(2).

On judicial review, both the Bovets and DCBS challenge the ALJ’s determinations that (1) claimant was a [353]*353worker under ORS 656.005(30), and (2) claimant did not fit within the householder exemption in ORS 656.027(2).2 The question whether claimant is subject to the Workers’ Compensation Law first requires a determination of whether he was a worker under ORS 656.005(30). If he was not, the inquiry ends there. A determination that he was a worker triggers analysis of whether he was a nonsubject worker under ORS 656.027 (providing that all workers are subject to ORS chapter 656 except those nonsubject workers described therein, including those fitting the householder exemption addressed by the ALJ in this case). Because we agree that claimant did not meet the definition of a worker under ORS 656.005(30), we reverse without reaching petitioners’ challenge to the AL J’s determination regarding application of the householder exemption under ORS 656.027(2).

ORS 656.005(30) defines a “fw]orker” as “any person, including a minor whether lawfully or unlawfully employed, who engages to furnish services for a remuneration, subject to the direction and control of an employer * * In determining whether a claimant meets that definition, the Supreme Court has held that we must analyze the degree to which the employer exercises a right to control the claimant’s work (the “right to control” test) and also the nature of the claimant’s work for the employer (the “nature of the work” test). Rubalcaba v. Nagaki Farms, Inc., 333 Or 614, 619-27, 43 P3d 1106 (2002).3 The two tests are to be applied together: “[I]n situations in which there is some evidence suggesting that an employer retained the right to control the method and details of a claimant’s work, a conclusion about the claimant’s status depends on the analytical factors relevant to both tests.” Id. at 627.

We agree with the ALJ that analysis of the Bovets’ right to control claimant’s work here is inconclusive. On the one hand, claimant provided his own tools, set his own work [354]*354hours, and performed the work in accordance with a contract that he proposed, all factors that we have considered to be indicative of a nonemployment relationship. See Oregon Drywall Systems, 153 Or App at 667-68. On the other hand, claimant was paid hourly (which suggests a right to control), and the ALJ found, and the parties do not dispute, that the Bovets retained the right to terminate claimant’s employment without any contractual limitation and monitored the means, manner, and method by which claimant completed his work by telling him where to work and what to do on particular days. See id.

Control, the Supreme Court has noted, is the essential ingredient in determining who is a “worker” for purposes of the Worker’s Compensation Act. Woody v. Waibel, 276 Or 189, 196, 554 P2d 492 (1976).

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Related

DCBS v. Clements
246 P.3d 62 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2010)
Department of Consumer & Business Services v. Clements
246 P.3d 62 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2010)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
164 P.3d 1186, 214 Or. App. 349, 2007 Ore. App. LEXIS 1072, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bovet-v-law-orctapp-2007.