Scofield v. Lordsburg Municipal School Dist.

205 P.2d 834, 53 N.M. 249
CourtNew Mexico Supreme Court
DecidedApril 30, 1949
DocketNo. 5165.
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 205 P.2d 834 (Scofield v. Lordsburg Municipal School Dist.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New Mexico Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Scofield v. Lordsburg Municipal School Dist., 205 P.2d 834, 53 N.M. 249 (N.M. 1949).

Opinion

SADLER, Justice.

The Lordsburg Municipal School District of Hidalgo County, the defendant below, appeals from a judgment against it in favor of Harry L. Scofield, the plaintiff, awarding him compensation for temporary total and permanent partial disability on account of an injury suffered in the course of his employment by defendant.

Trial was to the court and it found the facts to which our review is limited save as any of them may be challenged successfully for want of adequate support in the evidence. As found, they disclose that plaintiff was employed by the defendant School District on July 10, 1946, to do carpenter work on the Central School Building in the town of Lordsburg, on a day to day basis and to be paid therefor at the rate of $8.00 per day. He worked at this employment from July 10, 1946, to August 19, 1946, during which time he constructed some tennis court backstops on the school grounds surrounding said building and repaired doors, windows, window screens, hung Venetian blinds and did other miscellaneous repair jobs in and about the school building.

While thus engaged, at the particular moment hanging Venetian blinds from a standing position on a ladder, the plaintiff fell and suffered a compound fracture of the right ankle. As a proximate result of this injury and due to complications that followed, the plaintiff’s right leg was amputated above the knee on August 13, 1947. During the period from August 19, 1946, date of injury, to August 13, 1947, date of amputation, the plaintiff was totally disabled as a result of his injury and was unable to perform any kind of labor or pursue any gainful occupation. He had been earning an average weekly wage of $48.00 during the period of his employment.

The court concluded from the foregoing facts that defendant was liable to plaintiff under the Workmen’s Compensation Act, 1941 Comp. § 57-901 et seq., and awarded him compensation at the rate of $18.00 per week for the period of total disability from August 26, 1946, seven days after the injury, to August 13, 1947, plus an award in the same amount for 130 weeks for loss of one leg above the knee. In addition, the plaintiff was given an award of $400.00 for medical and hospital bills and $500.00 for the benefit of his attorney, H. Vearle Payne, for services rendered in prosecuting his claim in the district court. This appeal followed.

It is first argued by defendant that the course of employment in which plaintiff was engaged was not “extra-hazardous,” within the purview of the Workmen’s Compensation Act of New Mexico. We have no fault to find with the trial court’s conclusion that plaintiff was engaged in an “extra-hazardous” occupation at time of his injury. In order to arrive at this conclusion, however, two major contentions presented by defendant must be met and answered. First, it is said there were two employments; (a) to repair the building by replacing and puttying broken window panes, mending and painting window screens; (b) to hang Venetian blinds. It is enough to say in disposing of this contention that the trial court found on conflicting evidence there was but a single employment, namely, carpenter work in repair of a building, under which work was continuous down to the moment of the injury.

It would serve no useful purpose to attempt a detailed recital of the testimony and we shall not undertake to do so. However, the plaintiff and a co-worker both testified there was but a single employment and that work was continuous under it. The rate of pay was the same whether hanging Venetian blinds, installing and puttying new window panes, or replacing worn out window screens with new ones. Not a day, nor an hour, was lost when turning from the one kind of work to the other. Under well settled principles of review, we are unable to overturn a finding of fact resting on substantial evidence as this one does.

In the second place, and under the circumstances here shown, was the hanging of Venetian blinds in replacement of old, worn out shades and drapes, so related to the other work upon which the plaintiff was engaged as to be deemed an essential part thereof and hence to fall into the general category of “repairs” to a building? We have no hesitancy in giving an affirmative answer to this inquiry. Laying aside for the moment the question whether hanging such blinds, in and of itself, constitutes the “repair” of a building, none can successfully urge but that the general nature of plaintiff's employment was to repair a building. If defendant’s counsel could separate the hanging of Venetian blinds from the work done under the original employment, and relate it to a separate employment, undoubtedly they would be in a better position to urge this as a bar to recovery. However, the trial court’s finding that the employment was single forecloses a division of the employment into two separate transactions. Considered then as a single employment, the mere fact that the hanging of Venetian blinds is not work done in the “decoration, alteration, (or) repair * * * of any building” (1941 Comp. § 57-912) does not serve to defeat recovery, if the hanging of Venetian blinds was but an incident of the general employment on which the plaintiff was engaged. See Koger v. A. T. Woods, Inc., 38 N.M. 241, 31 P.2d 255, 256, where we said:

“We hold not only upon authority, but on reason and logic, that the true test is not the particular item of work the injured employee is doing, but rather the general nature and the object of the employment.”

Whether standing alone, the hanging of Venetian blinds may be properly classified as the “decoration, alteration” or “repair” of a building within the phrase “building work” a-s used in section 57-912, supra, we find it unnecessary to determine. But, see Albuquerque Foundry & Machine Works v. Stone, 34 N.M. 540, 286 P. 157; Dysart v. Youngblood, 44 N.M. 351, 102 P.2d 664; Board of County Commissioners of Bernalillo County v. McCulloh, 52 N.M. 210, 195 P.2d 1005; Beaudry v. Bell, 250 Ill.App. 468; Porter Screen Mfg. Co. v. Hunter, 69 Pa.Super. 22; Great Northern Ry. Co. v. Wojtala, 9 Cir., 112 F.2d 609; and Grady v. National Conduit & Cable Co., 153 App. Div. 401, 138 N.Y.S. 549, for cases suggesting by way of analogy that such work might be treated as an “alteration” or “repair” of a building.

Having determined that the Act in. question classifies the work being performed by plaintiff as an extra-hazardous, occupation or pursuit, it next must be determined whether the defendant, although not engaged as an employer in carrying on this-extra-hazardous work as an “occupation or pursuit” for the purpose of business, trade or gain, is nevertheless liable under the act while so engaged. Here the language of the Act itself comes to plaintiff's aid. 1941 Comp. § 57-912(h) provides:

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205 P.2d 834, 53 N.M. 249, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/scofield-v-lordsburg-municipal-school-dist-nm-1949.