Claim of Schweitzer v. Thompson & Norris Co. of New Jersey

127 N.E. 904, 229 N.Y. 97, 1920 N.Y. LEXIS 660
CourtNew York Court of Appeals
DecidedJune 1, 1920
StatusPublished
Cited by28 cases

This text of 127 N.E. 904 (Claim of Schweitzer v. Thompson & Norris Co. of New Jersey) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New York Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Claim of Schweitzer v. Thompson & Norris Co. of New Jersey, 127 N.E. 904, 229 N.Y. 97, 1920 N.Y. LEXIS 660 (N.Y. 1920).

Opinions

Crane, J.

It is well settled that one may be in the general service of another and nevertheless with respect to particular work may be transferred with his own consent or acquiescence to the service of a third person so that he becomes the servant of that person with all the legal consequences of the new relation.- (Standard Oil Co. v. Anderson, 212 U. S. 215, 220.) Difficulty frequently arises in determining when this transfer of relationship takes place. The rule was stated in this court in Hartell v. Simonson & Son Co. (218 N. Y. 345, 349) to be the following: “A servant in the general employment of one person, who is temporarily loaned to another person to do the latter’s work, becomes, for the time being, the servant of the borrower, who is liable for his negligence. But if the general employer enters into a contract to do the work of another, as an independent contractor, his servants do not become the servants of the person with whom he thus contracts, and the latter is not liable for their negligence.”

The cases of Kellogg v. Church Charity Foundation of Long Island (203 N. Y. 191) and Schmedes v. Deffaa (153 App. Div. 819; 214 N. Y. 675) were cited as illustrations of the distinction.

Recognizing this temporary shifting of the relationship of master and servant the question has arisen in this case whether the Workmen’s Compensation Law (Cons. Laws, ch. 67) has extended liability beyond either general or *100 special employment. That is, will one engaged in a hazardous employment be liable to the servant of another who happens to be doing work for him under such circumstances as not to make him a special employer under existing law.

It was intimated in Matter of Dale v. Saunders Brothers (171 App. Div. 528) that such might be the law. This case was affirmed by this court in 218 New York, 59. The facts briefly were that one Dale was employed as a wagon driver by Saunders Brothers who sent him to cart dirt from a sand bank for one Walsh. While Dale was at work with his team and wagon the sand bank fell upon him and killed him. The claim for compensation was made against the general employers, Saunders Brothers. It was allowed by the Appellate Division and by this court. In affirming the Dale case we did not mean to adopt all that was said in the opinion below. It was there stated: “It is not a question of hiring, or of master and servant, but of using and putting the man in the hazardous employment which the act has in view. * * * When it appears that a person is carrying on such hazardous employment for profit and that a person in his service or who he is employing or using therein receives an injury, compensation follows.” (p. 531.)

A person may be using another in his work without making him his servant. A man in the trucking business may contract to do all the hauling and delivering for a manufacturer. He becomes an independent contractor for the trucking work. The manufacturer would be using the drivers or chauffeurs in his business but they would not be his .employees.

The basis of the Workmen’s Compensation Law is the relationship of master and servant. Section 10 reads: “ Every employer * * * shall pay * * * compensation * * * for the disability or death of his employee * * * arising out of and in the course of his employment * *

*101 The employment and the hazardous occupation go together, they cannot be separated. The general employer or the special employer, one or both, may be liable but there must be employment known and recognized by the common law; the special employer becomes such because at common law the servant of another becomes his servant pro hac vice. In this respect the Workmen’s Compensation Law has not changed the law.

It was said in our opinion in the Dale case: The doctrine of respondeat superior has no application here, nor are the rules of employers’ liability for negligence controlling.”

But this was said in answer to the claim that the responsibility was all Walsh’s as he was a special employer.

In the later case of Matter of De Noyer v. Cavanaugh (221 N. Y. 273, 275) the claim was again made against the general employer. There one Joseph E. DeNoyer was a truck driver for D. B. Cavanaugh. Cavanaugh made an arrangement with the Crown Oil Company to furnish a horse and driver to be used in connection with a tank wagon owned by the company for the delivery of oil. While DeNoyer was making deliveries he was injured and an award for compensation was made against Cavanaugh, his general employer. In sustaining this award we said of Dale v. Saunders that we had held in that case that the general employer who carried on a hazardous employment is hable under the Workmen’s Compensation Law for. injuries sustained or death incurred by his employee, arising out of and in the course of his employment, although at the time he was working under the direction of a special employer.

It was further stated by Judge Pound in the opinion: It does not follow that by the application of this rule the special employer is not to be held in any case. The fact that a workman has a general and a special employer *102 is not inconsistent with the relation of employer and employee between both of them and himself. If the men are under the exclusive control of the special employer in the performance of work which is a part of his business, they are, for the time being, his employees. (Comerford's Case, 224 Mass. 571, 573.) Thus at one and the same time they are generally the employees of the general employer and specially the employees of the special employer. As they may under the common law of master and servant look to the former for their wages and to the latter for damages for negligent injuries, so under the Workmen’s Compensation Law they may, so far as its provisions are applicable, look to the one or to the other or to both for compensation for injuries due to occupational hazards (Workmen’s Compensation Law [Consol. Laws, chap. 67], § 3, subds. 3, 4), and the industrial commission may make such an award as the facts in the particular case may justify.”

Where, therefore, the circumstances show that a servant has been transferred by his general employer to another under such circumstances as to create that other a special employer under the rules of the common law as heretofore decided the workmen’s compensation commission may make an award for injuries received against the general employer or against the special employer in whose work the employee was injured. This is not the same as saying that one using the servant of another is hable simply because the servant is performing his work when the relationship of special employer and employee would not exist at common law. The case cited (Comerford's Case, supra) indicates that such was our holding.

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Bluebook (online)
127 N.E. 904, 229 N.Y. 97, 1920 N.Y. LEXIS 660, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/claim-of-schweitzer-v-thompson-norris-co-of-new-jersey-ny-1920.