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Hammock v. United States9/30/2003
yer" of a hired independent contractor, we apply the three-tier inquiry enunciated in Bradley v. Clark, 1990 OK 73, 804 P.2d 425. In this opinion, however, we are asked to decide a preliminary matter: Whether a vendee may be deemed the "statutory employer" of its vendor under § 11.
The first prerequisite for AAFES to be deemed the "statutory employer" of Southern Sales is that the § 11 statutorily prescribed relationship between AAFES and Southern Sales must exist: i.e., Southern Sales must be an independent contractor of AAFES.
In defining statutory terms, in the absence of specified definitions, the Supreme Court must assume that the Legislature intended for them to have the same meaning as that attributed to them in ordinary and usual parlance. Loffland Bros. Equip. v. White, 1984 OK 69, 689 P.2d 311, 134. This court may not expand the plain meaning of words of a statute by construction. Ridley Packing Co. v. Holliday, 1970 OK 59, 467 P.2d 480, 482. The words of a statute will not be given a strained meaning, if to do so would defeat the legislative purpose. Jackson v. Sims, 201 F.2d 259, 261 (10th Cir. 1953).
There is no definition of the term "independent contractor" as that term is used in the Act. Accordingly, the term retains its common law meaning. The term is usually applied to one who engages to perform a certain service for another (i.e. the hirer) according to his or her own method and manner, free from control and direction of the hirer in all matters connected with the performance of the service except as to the result. Flick v. Crouch, 1967 OK 131, 434 P.2d 256. The decisive test for determining whether one is an employee or an independent contractor is the existence, or not, of the hirer's right to exercise control over the physical details of the performance of the service. Id.
The term "independent contractor" refers to employees engaged in services or work executed by subcontract. If we were to expand the term to include the relationship of buyer and seller of a commodity or material, we would violate fundamental rules of construction which require that words have the same meaning as that attributed to them in ordinary and usual parlance. Whatever activities might render someone an independent contractor, acting as a mere vendor is not one of them. We do not believe the Legislature intended § 11 to apply when the relationship between the injured worker's immediate employer and the entity sought to be held liable in tort as a "statutory employer" is that of vendor/vendee.
B. The actions of the vendor in this case (delivering, stocking, rotating, inventorying, and promoting Miller beer at the PX), do not make it AAFES' independent contractor under § 11.
Southern Sales contracted with AAFES for the sale and delivery of Miller beer. The work performed by Hammock (Southern Sales' employee) in stocking the shelves and maintaining the Miller display was incidental to the primary purpose of the sales agreement between Southern Sales and AAFES, which was to provide beer for retail sales. The relationship between Southern Sales and AAFES remained one of vendor/vendee, despite the services performed by Hammock.
The facts in this case are virtually identical to those of Meyer v. Piggly Wiggly No. 24, Inc., 527 S.E.2d 761 (S.C. 2000). In Piggly Wiggly, the court was called upon to determine whether the plaintiff was Piggly Wiggly's statutory employee fro workers' compensation purposes. The plaintiff was a route salesman for a baking company. He delivered cake products from the baking company to various retail stores, including Piggly Wiggly. He ordered products from a master inventory list of products authori
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