Tuscaloosa Compress Co. v. Hagood

156 So. 633, 229 Ala. 284, 1934 Ala. LEXIS 299
CourtSupreme Court of Alabama
DecidedJune 21, 1934
Docket6 Div. 588.
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 156 So. 633 (Tuscaloosa Compress Co. v. Hagood) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Tuscaloosa Compress Co. v. Hagood, 156 So. 633, 229 Ala. 284, 1934 Ala. LEXIS 299 (Ala. 1934).

Opinion

BOULDIN, Justice.

The question of moment in this cause is whether the employee should be denied the benefits of the Workmen’s Compensation Law (Code 1923, § 7534 et seq.) upon the ground that he is excluded under the following clause of Code, § 7543: “* * * persons whose employment at the time of the injury is casual and not' in the usual course of the trade, ■business, profession or occupation of the employer.”

The business of the employer was the operation of a cotton compress. There was a breakdown in the compress. The compress company got in touch with the manufacturer of compress machinery, arranged for new parts to replace, those which were broken, and requested the manufacturer to find a machinist familiar with such machines to assist in making the repairs. Accordingly the plaintiff was engaged, entered upon the work, and, while so employed, fell and received severe injuries. It appears the superintendent of the plant made ordinary repairs or caused same to be made by the regular working force, but plaintiff was called in because of the need of an expert machinist in that line. He was employed merely for the job on an hourly wage.

It will be noted our statute is of that class in which “casual” and not in the “usual course of the * * * business * * * of the employer” are used conjunctively. Both conditions must concur to exclude the employee from compensation. It may be said both terms are interrelated and together define a status of employment outside the field covered by our Compensation Law.

*286 Broadly speaking, the test is the relation of the employment in question to the general line of business in which the employer is engaged.

Limiting our discussion to cases similar to this, a temporary employment to do a special job by way of repairs on an industrial plant, we observe Callihan v. Montgomery (1922) 272 Pa. 56, 115 A. 889, strongly relied upon by petitioner, involved a statute like unto ours, and facts quite analogous to' this case.

The employer was. operating an oil well. He engaged a skilled mechanic for the special job of repairing an engine to run the pump. He entered upon the work and, while engaged therein, was caught in the machinery of the plant and killed.

After reviewing many cases, the court' declared: “The casual employment of one, for the performance of an odd job, may occur in conducting a business and still not be within its regular course. Eor instance, emergency repair work on a machine used in the operation of a business can always be said to take place in the course of that business, as all machinery, at some time or other, is bound-to need repair; but such work, if not of a kind usually performed by or under the control of the person conducting the business, would be outside the regular course thereof.. * * * While repair work may be considered an important incident to any. business* using machinery, and, in some cases, may enter "into the customary operations of such a business (for example, when men are engaged as regular employees for the purpose of keeping the machinery in order), yet the repairs we are here considering were no part of the regular course of the business conducted by defendant, which is producing oil; they represent merely an odd job, incidental to that business, but not part of the work ordinarily done by or under the control of the employer in this particular case. On the other hand, such repairs might well be classed as within the regular course of the business of plaintiff’s deceased husband.” Callihan v. Montgomery, 272 Pa. 56, 115 A. 889, 894, 895.

But in the later case of Hauger v. H. W. Walker Co. et al. (1923) 277 Pa. 506, 121 A. 200, 201, the same court said: .

“The latter (the employer) was a manufacturer of ice cream and other dairy products, and had, as its factory foreman, one Marlin G. Miller, who, as appellants admit, ‘was charged, with the duty of keeping the plant in operation,’ making ‘such small repairs as he could by himself, or, with the assistance of other men in the regular employ of the company, but when there was some major job of repairing to be done, he, as factory foreman, called in’ decedent, who was an expert machinist, to assist in doing this character of work. * * *
“It will be noticed that the last clause of this section is in form conjunctive, and hence inapplicable, unless the employment is not only casual, as this was, but also ‘not in the regular course of the business of the employer.’ Defendant having made the repairing of its machinery a part of the ‘regular course of (its) business,’ decedent was its employee by the very terms of this section, and plaintiff has the same right as the widow of any other employee who was killed or injured during the Tegular coui;se of the business.’ ”

The fact that the employment was temporary, one called for only occasionally, or incidentally, was treated as “casual,” but liability was imposed, notwithstanding, upon the ground that such repair work was made a part of the employer’s “regular course of business.” In that case the duties of the foreman touching ordinary and special repairs were like unto those of the superintendent in this case.

We are not impressed that undue emphasis’ should be placed on maintenance of a regular repair force, or the frequency with which ordinary or extraordinary repairs are required. If in the operation of an industrial plant, consisting, much of machinery whose repair is essential to effective operation, the making of such repairs is as truly within the regular course of business as any other part of its operation.

Who would question that a special mechanic employed to install machinery in the con-’ struction of a plant is employed in the regular course of business of the employer? One who replaces broken parts and puts a broken-down plant to going is in no less favorable position.

In our own case of Mobile Liners, Inc., v. McConnell, 220 Ala. 562, 126 So. 626, turning on what class of employees should be counted in ascertaining whether the statutory number were regularly employed, this court quoted with evident approval from the case of Holmen Creamery Ass’n et al. v. Industrial Commission of Wisconsin, 167 Wis. 470, 167 N. W. 808, wherein the mechanic was employed as occasion arose to repair buildings used in the creamery business. Repairs were there declared an integral and essential part of every business employing material things in its operation.

*287 In National Cast Iron Pipe Co. v. Higginbotham, 216 Ala. 129, 112 So. 734, 736, the clause now under construction was directly involved and construed. Claimant was a painter engaged in painting the employer’s houses provided for its employees. This was declared an “incidental and necessary repair work,” and such employee entitled to compensation. The same liberal construction was given to this as to other provisions of the Workmen’s Compensation Law. See, also, Ex parte Little Cahaba Coal Co. (Baughn v. Little Cahaba Coal Co.), 213 Ala. 596, 105 So. 648.

The trial court correctly found this issue in favor of the employee.

We find no difficulty in holding the plaintiff an employee, not an original contractor.

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156 So. 633, 229 Ala. 284, 1934 Ala. LEXIS 299, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/tuscaloosa-compress-co-v-hagood-ala-1934.