Thompson v. Paul C. Thompson & Sons

Singley, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Dana A. Thompson (Dana), now 19 years of age, was seriously injured on 8 April 1968 while working on a farm owned by his uncle, Paul C. Thompson (Uncle ³⁹³ Paul). Proceeding on the theory that his injury occurred during the course of his employment with Paul C. Thompson & Sons (the Partnership) a partnership of which Uncle Paul was a member, Dana filed a claim with the Workmen’s Compensation Commission. From the Commission’s award of compensation for temporary total disability, the Partnership and Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company, (the Insurer) appealed.

After trial before the Circuit Court for Howard County (Mayfield, J.) without a jury judgment was entered in favor of the Partnership and the Insurer on their motions for directed verdicts. Dana has appealed to this Court. The court below found that Dana was not an employee of the Partnership on the day of the accident, and we cannot disturb this conclusion of fact unless it was clearly erroneous, Rule 886 a. The testimony upon which the court posited its finding need only be summarized.

The Partnership, consisting of Uncle Paul and his two sons, was a carpentry and roofing contractor. In the summer vacations of 1966 and 1967, Dana had worked for the Partnership as a carpenter’s helper, and had been paid by checks drawn on the Partnership’s account. He had also worked for the Partnership on five days in January, February and March of 1968, and had been paid in the same fashion. The Partnership had reported this employment to the Insurer.

Dana’s school was closed on Monday, 8 April 1968 because of the unrest which had followed the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. Uncle Paul’s two adult sons, the other members of the Partnership, had been called to active duty with the National Guard in Baltimore. On Monday, Uncle Paul asked Dana to come down to the farm to move some bushes and do some clearing for a swimming pool which Uncle Paul was planning to build on his farm. Dana conceded that Uncle Paul was directing his work, and that the work was not of the type usually done by the Partnership.

It was while Dana and Uncle Paul were cutting down trees with a chain saw that Dana was injured. ³⁹⁴ Ultimately Dana was paid for the work which he did on the day of the accident by Uncle Paul’s personal check. Dana testified that he had always been paid in the past by checks of the Partnership except when he helped Uncle Paul’s wife with her flower garden. He said that on those occasions he was paid in cash. Dana makes much of the fact that on one occasion, he had been paid by the Partnership for baling hay and that on the day of the accident, Jackie Ross, who was regularly employed by the Partnership, was working with him and Uncle Paul.

Nowhere does the record show that the hay-baling took place on Uncle Paul’s farm. As regards Ross, in answer to a request for admission of facts, the Partnership responded, “By private arrangement between the partners, work which Ross did for Paul C. Thompson, Sr., individually and on his individually owned farm and rental property, was paid for out of the Partnership account.” It is well established that a decision of the Workmen’s Compensation Commission is prima facie correct, and that the burden of proof is on the party attacking it, Maryland Code (1957, 1964 Repl. Vol.) Art. 101 § 56 (c). “This means nothing more than that, if the mind of the trier of facts is in equal balance on the evidence in the record, the finding of the Commission should be affirmed.” Morris v. Christopher, 255 Md. 372, 380 , 258 A. 2d 172 (1969) ; Blake Constr. Co. v. Wells, 245 Md. 282, 286 , 225 A. 2d 857 (1967).

We have consistently held that the words “employer” and “employee” as they appear in our Workmen’s Compensation Act, Art. 101 § 67, are the equivalent of and synonymous with the words “master” and “servant”, and that therefore the rules for