31 Haw. 102 | Haw. | 1929
The industrial accident board of the City and County of Honolulu has reserved to this court the following question of law: "Whether or not a general contractor, engaged in the construction of private residences for sale on land owned by him, and who gives an independent contractor, who has not provided security for compensation liability to his employees, for a consideration, a contract to clear the land so owned by him, is an employer within the meaning of subdivision (a) section 3663, Revised Laws of Hawaii, 1925, so as to render him liable to compensate for personal injury by accident sustained by an employee of the independent contractor arising out of and in the course of such employment."
The material facts out of which the question arises are as follows: One Chun Kim Sut, a general contractor, was also the owner of certain premises situated at Kapahulu in Honolulu. Sut was employed in the erection of houses on these premises, which he intended, when the houses were completed, to sell. In order to prepare the land for the erection of the houses it was necessary to clear it of rocks. He therefore entered into a contract with one B. Enomoto to do this particular work. Under the contract Enomoto's relation to Sut was that of an independent contractor. Enomoto employed several workmen at a stipulated daily wage to assist him. Among these persons was one Hatsuko Uyeno. On the 26th day of October, 1928, Uyeno, while engaged in the work of removing rock from the premises in question, was injured by a belated explosion of powder. He thereupon filed with the industrial accident board a claim for compensation against Enomoto. At the hearing on this claim it was found that Enomoto did not carry insurance, as required by the Workmen's Compensation Act, and a finding of delinquency was made and the claim filed by Uyeno against Chun Kim Sut. The question, therefore, is *104 whether under the provisions of the Workmen's Compensation Act Sut is liable.
Section 3663, R.L. 1925, which is a part of the Act, contains the following provision: "Definitions. In this chapter, unless the context otherwise requires: (a) `Employer,' unless otherwise stated, includes any body of persons, corporate or unincorporated, public or private, and the legal representative of a deceased employer. It includes the owner or lessee of premises, or other person who is virtually the proprietor, or operator of the business there carried on, but who, by reason of there being an independent contractor, or for any other reason, is not the direct employer of the workmen there employed. If the employer is insured it includes his insurer as far as applicable." Omitting the portions of this section that are irrelevant to the facts before us and, in order to make its application to these facts more apparent, somewhat paraphrasing it, it is as follows: Employer includes the owner of premises who is also the owner of the business carried on on such premises but who, by reason of there being an independent contractor, is not the direct employer of the workmen there employed.
It is agreed that Chun Kim Sut was the owner of the premises upon which the workman's injuries occurred. It is also agreed that he acquired the premises, as he had acquired other premises, for the purpose of erecting houses on them and thereafter selling them. It was the plan he had conceived and was prosecuting for the purpose of making money. It was the business in which he was engaged. Like most business enterprises, such, for instance, as the production of sugar or raising pineapples or conducting a store, it was comprised of many details. The rock must be removed so as to adapt the land to the erection of the houses contemplated. Building material must be obtained and placed on the land, houses must be *105 erected, purchasers must be found and sales completed. All these activities were component parts of the business in which the owner of the premises was engaged. The removal of the rock was as much a part of it as the erection of houses. His virtual ownership of the business was not affected by letting the prosecution of a part of it to an independent contractor. Such an arrangement, if countenanced, would defeat the purpose of the Workmen's Compensation Act. This clearly expressed purpose, so far as the instant case is concerned, is to impose liability for injuries sustained by workmen upon the owner of premises, who is also the owner of the enterprise that is being conducted on the premises, notwithstanding the fact that the particular detail of the enterprise in which the workman was injured has been let to and is being carried on by an independent contractor who is the immediate employer of the workmen.
Whether the owner of premises, who is not the owner of the business there carried on, comes within the statutory definition of "employer" we do not decide. That question is not before us.
The question before us was decided, and we think correctly, by this court in the case of Ikoma v. Oahu Sugar Co.,
In O'Boyle v. Parker-Young Co.,
Our attention has been called to two other Vermont cases, one earlier than the O'Boyle case and the other later, under which it is contended by the owner of the premises in question that he is not liable as an employer. In the later of these cases (Blake v. American Fork Hoe Co.,
For the foregoing reasons the reserved question is answered in the affirmative.