Stanley Forman Reed

“ 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 collects employment taxes from the distributor instead of the producer or the other way around. ”

“ Probably it is quite impossible to extract from the statute a rule of thumb to define the limits of the employer-employer relationship. The Social Security Agency and the courts will find that degrees of control, opportunities for profit or loss, investment in facilities, permanency of relation and skill required in the claimed independent operation are important for decision. No one is controlling nor is the list complete. These unloaders and truckers and their assistants are from one standpoint an integral part of the businesses of retailing coal or transporting freight. ”

“ The Social Security Act was drawn with this industrial situation as a part of the surroundings in which it was to be enforced. Where a part of an industrial process is in the hands of independent contractors, they are the ones who should pay the social security taxes. ”

“ These driver-owners are small businessmen. They own their own trucks. They hire their own helpers. In one instance they haul for a single business, in the other for any customer. The distinction, though important, is not controlling. It is the total situation, including the risk undertaken, the control exercised, the opportunity for profit from sound management, that marks these driver-owners as independent contractors. ”

“ The truckers are not instructed how to do their jobs, but are merely given a ticket telling them where the coal is to be delivered and whether the charge is to be collected or not. Any damage caused by them is paid for by the company. The District Court found that the truckers could and often did refuse to make a delivery without penalty. Further, the court found that the truckers may come and go as they please and frequently did leave the premises without permission. They may and did haul for others when they pleased. ”

“ 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. [8] Certainly the industry's right to control how 'work shall be done' is a factor in the determination of whether the worker is an employee or independent contractor. The Government points out that the regulations were construed by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue to cover the circumstances here presented. ”

“ The principal method adopted by Congress to advance its purposes was to provide for periodic payments in the nature of annuities to the elderly and compensation to workers during periods of unemployment. Employment taxes, such as we are here considering, are necessary to produce the revenue for federal participation in the program of alleviation. Employers do not pay taxes on certain groups of employees, such as agricultural or domestic workers but none of these exceptions are applicable to these cases. ”

“ But a 'Statement by the Court' recites details of the arrangements with the truckers and unloaders in the focus of whether Silk exercised control over them and concludes he did not; hence, there was no employer-employee relation. The opinion of the Circuit Court of Appeals, though recognizing the necessity for liberal construction of the Act, treats the facts found in the same focus of control. The court was influenced by the regulations promulgated under the Act (Reg. 90, Art. 205) and also by the Bureau of Internal Revenue (Reg. 91, Art. 3) . ”

“ The undisputed evidence is that the only supervision or control ever exercised or that could be exercised over the haulers was to give them the sales ticket if they were willing to take it, and let them deliver the coal. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”