Gomez v. Texas Casualty Insurance Co.

355 S.W.2d 546, 1962 Tex. App. LEXIS 2285
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedMarch 14, 1962
DocketNo. 10939
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 355 S.W.2d 546 (Gomez v. Texas Casualty Insurance Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Gomez v. Texas Casualty Insurance Co., 355 S.W.2d 546, 1962 Tex. App. LEXIS 2285 (Tex. Ct. App. 1962).

Opinion

HUGHES, Justice.

This is an appeal from a summary judgment in which the only question presented is whether or not appellant, Frank H. Gomez, when injured, was an employee covered by a Workmen’s Compensation insurance policy, then in force, issued by Texas Casualty Insurance Company, appel-lee, to W. E. Loftin, appellant’s employer.

W. E. Loftin was engaged in the cafe business in Ballinger, Runnels County, Texas. He lived a mile from the cafe on a lot just outside the city limits of Ballinger where he also owned 10já acres which he used exclusively for feeding and butchering cattle to supply his cafe with meat. Mr. Loftin had only the one business, the cafe business, or the combination cafe and cattle feeding and butchering business. He testified:

“Q Mr. Loftin, in figuring up your profits and loss from your business you include in it the cost of these cattle and the cost of feeding them?
“A I have to. Yes, sir, sure do.
“Q And you include in your income the meat, what you get for the meat that is sold to the cafe?
“A That’s right.
“Q And it is all one operation?
“A Yes, sir.”

Mr. Loftin had conducted his business in the manner described for a long time. He was engaged in rebuilding and enlarging a barn on his 10½ acres for the purpose of storing feed and having a place to feed his cattle when appellant was injured by the collapse of the partially reconstructed barn caused by a small windstorm.

Appellant was an employee of Mr. Loftin on the barn project. He was not then, nor had he recently been, an employee of Mr. Loftin in the cafe.

The solution of the question presented depends upon a proper construction of the following portion of Art. 8309, Sec. 1, Vernon’s Ann.Civ.St.:

“ ‘Employee’ shall mean every person in the service of another under any contract of hire, expressed or implied, oral or written, except masters of or seamen on vessels engaged in interstate or foreign commerce, and except one whose employment is not in the usual course of the trade, business, profession or occupation of his employer ; provided that an employee who is employed in the usual course of the trade, business, profession or occupation of an employer and who is temporarily directed or instructed by his employer to perform service outside [548]*548of the usual course of trade, business, profession or occupation of his employer is also an employee while performing such services pursuant to such instructions or directions; provided further, that such persons, other than independent contractors and their employees, as may be engaged in the work of the employer of enlargement, construction, remodeling or repairing of the premises or buildings used or to be used in the conduct of the business of the employer shall be deemed employees; * * Italics added.

As enacted in 19171 the definition of an “employee” in the Workmen’s Compensation Act was confined to the language of the present Act from its beginning to the first semicolon, supra.

In 1937 the present definition of “employee” was first incorporated in the Act.2 We quote in full the emergency clause to this amending Act:

“The inadequacy of the provisions of the Workmen’s Compensation Law to compensate employees for injuries received while in the performance of certain work or acts unusual to their regular employment, but within the general scope and in furtherance, or in the interest, of the business, trade, profession or occupation of the employer (as illustrated by the decision of the Commission of Appeals, adopted by the Supreme Court, in Texas Employers’ Insurance Association vs. Wright, 128 Tex. 242, 97 S.W.2d 171), creates an emergency and an imperative public necessity demanding the suspension of the Constitutional Rule requiring bills to be read on three several days in each House, and said Rule is hereby suspended, and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its passage, and it is so enacted.” 3

The case cited by the Legislature was a case in which a regular employee of the insurance carrying employer was directed by his employer to assist in the construction of a building. The Court held that since the usual trade or business of the employer was not constructing buildings, the employee was not an “employee” under the Act, and was not entitled to compensation.

It is clear that the first proviso added by the Legislature in 1937 was sufficient to overcome the holding in the Wright case.

The Legislature, however, did not stop with remedying the situation reflected in the Wright case. It proceeded to enact a second proviso which included within the definition of “employee” persons who had never been employed in the usual trade or business of the employer. There were, it seems, cases which the Legislature could well have had in mind which prompted it to enact the second proviso of the 1937 amendment. One such case was Texas Employer’s Ins. Association v. Sewell, 32 S.W.2d 262, Waco Civil Appeals, writ ref.

In such case the usual business of the employer was making textile products. Sewell was hired by this employer to paint houses to be occupied by regular employees of the employer. Sewell had never done any work for his employer. He was held not to be an “employee.”

[549]*549In the course of its opinion the Court discussed the cases of Oilmen’s Reciprocal Association v. Gilleland, 291 S.W. 197, Tex.Com. of Appeals, Morse v. New Amsterdam, 30 F.2d 974, D.C., Northern District of Texas, and Croswell v. Commercial Standard Ins. Co., 56 S.W.2d 918, Beaumont Civil Appeals, writ ref.

In Gilleland a laundry obtained its water from wells. On account of the growth of its business and its increased demands for water it became necessary to install additional pumping equipment. For this purpose it caused an excavation to be made, and employed Gilleland, a bricklayer, to wall the sides of the opening. Since laying brick was not the usual business of a laundry, Gilleland was held not to be an employee under the Act.

In Morse a company engaged in the grain and grocery business was the employer. It decided to install a new grain elevator to better handle its grain business. Morse, a carpenter, was employed to help construct the elevator. Judge Atwell, following the Court’s holding in Gilleland, held that Morse was not an employee under the Act. We quote from Judge Atwell’s opinion:

“I reach the conclusion with great reluctance, but must read the policy in the present case in the light of and in conjunction with the Texas statute, and in harmony with the decisions of the highest court of the state.

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355 S.W.2d 546, 1962 Tex. App. LEXIS 2285, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/gomez-v-texas-casualty-insurance-co-texapp-1962.