MR. JUSTICE REED delivered the opinion of the Court.
We consider together the above two cases. Both involve suits to recover sums exacted from businesses by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue as employment taxes on employers under the Social Security Act.
Respondent sells coal at retail in the city of Topeka, Kansas. His coalyard consists of two buildings, one for an office and the other a gathering place for workers, railroad tracks upon which carloads of coal are delivered by the railroad, and bins for the different types of coal. Respondent pays those who work as unloaders an agreed price per ton to unload coal from the railroad cars. These men come to the yard when and as they please and are assigned a car to unload and a place to put the coal. They furnish their own tools, work when they wish and work for others at will. One of these unloaders testified that he worked as regularly "as a man has to when he has to eat" but there was also testimony that some of the unloaders were floaters who came to the yard only intermittently.
Respondent owns no trucks himself but contracts with workers who own their own trucks to deliver coal at a uniform price per ton. This is paid to the trucker by the respondent out of the price he receives for the coal from the customer. When an order for coal is taken in the company office, a bell is rung which rings in the building used by the truckers. The truckers have voluntarily
The Collector ruled that the unloaders and truckers were employees of the respondent during the years 1936 through 1939 within the meaning of the Social Security Act and he accordingly assessed additional taxes under Titles VIII and IX of the Social Security Act and Subchapters A and C of Chapter 9 of the Internal Revenue Code. Respondent filed a claim for a refund which was denied. He then brought this action. Both the District Court and the Circuit Court of Appeals
Respondent in No. 673, Greyvan Lines, Inc., a common carrier by motor truck, sued the petitioner, a Collector of Internal Revenue, to recover employment taxes alleged to have been illegally assessed and collected from it under similar provisions of the Social Security Act involved in
The respondent operates its trucking business under a permit issued by the Interstate Commerce Commission under the "grandfather clause" of the Motor Carrier Act. 32 M.C.C. 719, 723. It operates throughout thirty-eight states and parts of Canada, carrying largely household furniture. While its principal office is in Chicago, it maintains agencies to solicit business in many of the larger cities of the areas it serves, from which it contracts to move goods. As early as 1930, before the passage of the Social Security Act, the respondent adopted the system of relations with the truckmen here concerned, which gives rise to the present issue. The system was based on contracts with the truckmen under which the truckmen were required to haul exclusively for the respondent and to furnish their own trucks and all equipment and labor necessary to pick up, handle and deliver shipments, to pay all expenses of operation, to furnish all fire, theft, and collision insurance which the respondent might specify, to pay for all loss or damage to shipments and to indemnify the company for any loss caused it by the acts of the truckmen, their servants and employees, to paint the designation "Greyvan Lines" on their trucks, to collect all money due the company from shippers or consignees, and to turn in such moneys at the office to which they report after delivering a shipment, to post bonds with the
The record shows the following additional undisputed facts, not contained in the findings. A manual of instructions, given by the respondent to the truckmen, and a contract between the company and Local No. 711 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Stablemen and Helpers of America were introduced in evidence.
The Social Security Act of 1935 was the result of long consideration by the President and Congress of the evil of the burdens that rest upon large numbers of our people because of the insecurities of modern life, particularly old age and unemployment. It was enacted in an effort to coordinate the forces of government and industry for solving the problems.
Since Congress has made clear by its many exemptions, such as, for example, the broad categories of agricultural labor and domestic service, 53 Stat. 1384, 1393, that it was not its purpose to make the Act cover the whole field of service to every business enterprise, the sections in question are to be read with the exemptions in mind. The very specificity of the exemptions, however, and the generality
Of course, this does not mean that all who render service to an industry are employees. Compare Metcalf & Eddy v. Mitchell, 269 U.S. 514, 520. Obviously the private contractor who undertakes to build at a fixed price or on cost-plus a new plant on specifications is not an employee of the industry thus served nor are his employees. The distributor who undertakes to market at his own risk the product of another, or the producer who agrees so to manufacture for another, ordinarily cannot be said to have the employer-employee relationship. Production and distribution are different segments of business. The purposes of the legislation are not frustrated because the Government
The problem of differentiating between employee and an independent contractor, or between an agent and an independent contractor, has given difficulty through the years before social legislation multiplied its importance. When the matter arose in the administration of the National Labor Relations Act, we pointed out that the legal standards to fix responsibility for acts of servants, employees or agents had not been reduced to such certainty that it could be said there was "some simple, uniform and easily applicable test." The word "employee," we said, was not there used as a word of art, and its content in its context was a federal problem to be construed "in the light of the mischief to be corrected and the end to be attained." We concluded that, since that end was the elimination of labor disputes and industrial strife, "employees" included workers who were such as a matter of economic reality. The aim of the Act was to remedy the inequality of bargaining power in controversies over wages, hours and working conditions. We rejected the test of the "technical concepts pertinent to an employer's legal responsibility to third persons for acts of his servants." This is often referred to as power of control, whether exercised or not, over the manner of performing service to the industry. Restatement of the Law, Agency, § 220. We approved the statement of the National Labor Relations Board that "the primary consideration in the determination of the applicability of the statutory definition is whether effectuation of the declared policy and purposes of the Act comprehend securing to the individual the rights guaranteed and protection afforded by the Act." Labor Board v. Hearst Publications, 322 U.S. 111, 120, 123, 124, 128, 129, 131.
Application of the social security legislation should follow the same rule that we applied to the National Labor
The long-standing regulations of the Treasury and the Federal Security Agency (H. Doc. 595, 79th Cong., 2d Sess.) recognize that independent contractors exist under the Act. The pertinent portions are set out in the margin.
So far as the regulations refer to the effect of contracts, we think their statement of the law cannot be challenged successfully. Contracts, however "skilfully devised," Lucas v. Earl, 281 U.S. 111, 115, should not be permitted to shift tax liability as definitely fixed by the statutes.
Both lower courts in both cases have determined that these workers are independent contractors. These inferences were drawn by the courts from facts concerning which there is no real dispute. The excerpts from the opinions below show the reasons for their conclusions.
Giving full consideration to the concurrence of the two lower courts in a contrary result, we cannot agree that the
There are cases, too, where driver-owners of trucks or wagons have been held employees
No. 312, United States v. Silk, is affirmed in part and reversed in part.
No. 673, Harrison v. Greyvan Lines, Inc., is affirmed.
MR. JUSTICE BLACK, MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS and MR. JUSTICE MURPHY are of the view that the applicable principles of law, stated by the Court and with which they agree, require reversal of both judgments in their entirety.
MR. JUSTICE RUTLEDGE.
I join in the Court's opinion and in the result insofar as the principles stated are applied to the unloaders in the Silk case. But I think a different disposition should be made in application of those principles to the truckers in that case and in the Greyvan case.
So far as the truckers are concerned, both are borderline cases.
I agree with the Court's views in adopting this approach and that the balance in close cases should be cast in favor of rather than against coverage, in order to fulfill the statute's broad and beneficent objects. A narrow, constricted construction in doubtful cases only goes, as indeed the opinion recognizes, to defeat the Act's policy and purposes pro tanto.
But I do not think it necessary or perhaps in harmony with sound practice, considering the nature of this Court's functions and those of the district courts, for us to undertake drawing the final conclusion generally in these borderline cases. Having declared the applicable principles of law to be applied, our function is sufficiently discharged by seeing to it that they are observed. And when this has been done, drawing the final conclusion, in matters so largely factual as the end result must be in close cases, is more properly the business of the district courts than ours.
Here the District Courts and the Circuit Courts of Appeals determined the cases largely if not indeed exclusively by applying the so-called "common law control" test as the criterion. This was clearly wrong, in view of the Court's present ruling. But for its action in drawing the ultimate and largely factual conclusion on that basis, the error would require remanding the causes to the District
I would follow that course, so far as the truckers are concerned.
FootNotes
See Internal Revenue Code, chap. 9, subchap. A and C.
"Generally the relationship exists when the person for whom services are performed has the right to control and direct the individual who performs the services, not only as to the result to be accomplished by the work but also as to the details and means by which that result is accomplished. That is, an employee is subject to the will and control of the employer not only as to what shall be done but how it shall be done. . . . The right to discharge is also an important factor indicating that the person possessing that right is an employer. Other factors characteristic of an employer are the furnishing of tools and the furnishing of a place to work, to the individual who performs the services. In general, if an individual is subject to the control or direction of another merely as to the result to be accomplished by the work and not as to the means and methods for accomplishing the result, he is an independent contractor, not an employee.
"If the relationship of employer and employee exists, the designation or description of the relationship by the parties as anything other than that of employer and employee is immaterial. Thus, if two individuals in fact stand in the relation of employer and employee to each other, it is of no consequence that the employee is designated as a partner, coadventurer, agent, or independent contractor.
"The measurement, method, or designation of compensation is also immaterial, if the relationship of employer and employee in fact exists.
"Individuals performing services as independent contractors are not employees. Generally, physicians, lawyers, dentists, veterinarians, contractors, subcontractors, public stenographers, auctioneers, and others who follow an independent trade, business, or profession, in which they offer their services to the public, are independent contractors and not employees." 26 C.F.R. § 400.205. See also Treasury Regulations 91, 26 C.F.R. § 401.3. (Emphasis added.)
See also note 2.
"We think that the relationship between appellee and the unloaders is not materially different from that between him and the haulers. In response to a question on cross examination, appellee did testify that the unloaders did what his superintendent at the coal yard told them to do, but when considered in the light of all his testimony, all that this answer meant was that they unloaded the car assigned to them into the designated bin. . . .
"The undisputed facts fail to establish such reasonable measure of direction and control over the method and means of performing the services performed by these workers as is necessary to establish a legal relationship of employer and employee between appellee and the workers in question."
Greyvan Lines v. Harrison, 156 F.2d 412, 414-16. After stating the trial court's finding that the truckmen were not employees, the appellate court noted:
"Appellant contends that in determining these facts the court failed to give effect to important provisions of the contracts which it asserts clearly show the reservation of the right of control over the truckmen and their helpers as to the methods and means of their operations which, it is agreed, furnish the test for determining the relationship here in question. . . ."
It then discussed the manual and concluded:
"While it is true that many provisions of the manual, if strictly enforced, would go far to establish an employer-employee relationship between the Company and its truckmen, we agree with appellee that there was evidence to justify the court's disregarding of it. It was not prepared until April, 1940, although the tax period involved was from November, 1937, through March, 1942, and there was no evidence to show any change or tightening of controls after its adoption and distribution; one driver testified that he was never instructed to follow the rules therein provided; an officer of the Company testified that it had been prepared by a group of three men no longer in their employ, and that it had been impractical and was not adhered to."
After a discussion of the helper problem, this statement appears: ". . . the Company cannot be held liable for employment taxes on the wages of persons over whom it exerts no control, and of whose employment it has no knowledge. And this element of control of the truckmen over their own helpers goes far to prevent the employer-employee relationship from arising between them and the Company. While many factors in this case indicate such control as to give rise to that relationship, we think the most vital one is missing because of the complete control of the truckmen as to how many, if any, and what helpers they make use of in their operations. . . ."
"The term `employment' means any service performed . . . by an employee for the person employing him . . . except —
....
"(3) Casual labor not in the course of the employer's trade or business; . . ."
See particularly Singer Manufacturing Co. v. Rahn, 132 U.S. 518.
Certainly the question of coverage under the statute, as an employee, should not be determined more narrowly than that of employee status for purposes of imposing vicarious liability in tort upon an employer, whether by application of the control test exclusively or of the Court's broader ruling.
In the Greyvan case formal findings and conclusions were filed. The Circuit Court of Appeals, accepting the findings, concluded they did not show "change or tightening of controls" after the company's adoption of a manual in 1940, although its provisions "if strictly enforced, would go far to establish an employer-employee relationship. . .." 156 F.2d 412, 415. However, it found another factor conclusive: "While many factors in this case indicate such control as to give rise to that relationship, we think the most vital one is missing because of the complete control of the truckmen as to how many, if any, and what helpers they make use of in their operations." 156 F.2d at 416. Apparently not control of the method of performing the work in general but absence of expressly reserved right of control in a single feature became the criterion used.
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