192 Iowa 1259 | Iowa | 1921
Lead Opinion
The remaining employees completed the work of building the corncrib in about five or sis days. The appellee made proper application, as provided by statute, for compensation under the Workmen’s Compensation Act, and was awarded compensation by the industrial commissioner; and, on appeal to the district court of Linn County, Iowa, the action awarding such compensation was affirmed.
Since said time, the said Wachal has died, and the appellant, as executor of his estate, has been substituted in the case.
The question for our determination is whether or not, on said state of facts, the appellee is entitled to compensation under the Workmen’s Compensation Act, as it existed at the time of the injury.
I. Section 2477-m of the Code Supplement, 1913, provides as follows:
“(a) Except as by this act otherwise provided, it shall be conclusively presumed that every employer as defined by this act has elected to provide, secure and pay compensation according to the terms, conditions, and provisions of this act for any and all personal injuries sustained by an employee arising out of and in the course of the employment; and in such cases the employer shall be relieved from other liability for recovery of damages or other compensation for such per
Section 2477-ml6, Code Supplement, 1913, Paragraph b, provides as follows:
“ ‘Workman’ is used synonymously with ‘employee,’ and means any person who has entered into the employment of, or works under contract of service, express or implied, or apprenticeship for an employer, except a person whose employment is purely casual and not for the purpose of the employer’s trade or business or those engaged in clerical work only, * * *”
At the outset, it is well to notice that this statute has been materially changed by Section 10 of Chapter 270, Acts of the Thirty-seventh General Assembly. By said act, the word “and” in said Section 2477-m16, Paragraph b, is changed to the word “or,” and as the law now stands, this paragraph excepts from the provisions of the act persons whose employment is “purely casual” or whose employment is “not for the purpose of the employer’s trade or business.”
We had occasion to discuss this change in the statute in the recent case of Herbig v. Walton Auto Co., 191 Iowa 394. The instant case arose, however, before, the amendment to the statute, and we were compelled to consider it in the light of the statute as originally enacted.
It will be observed that Section 2477-m provides that the act “shall not apply to persons whose employment is of a casual nature.” And Section 2477-m16, in defining who is a workman, excepts from the provisions of the statute a “person whose employment is purely casual and not for the purpose of the employer’s trade or business.” So we have the situation that, under Section 2477-m, all persons “whose employment is of a casual nature” are excepted from the provisions of the act. Under Section 2477-m16, Paragraph b, there is excepted from the definition of a workman “a person whose employment is purely casual and not for the purpose of the employer’s trade or business." The two sections must be read together, in order to arrive at the intention of the legislature in enacting the statute. Standing alone, the first section exempts from the provisions of
In considering this case, we shall regard it as coming, under Section 2477-ml6, as originally enacted, and must squarely meet tbe question: “Was tbe appellee a person whose employment was ‘purely casual’ and ‘not for tbe purpose of tbe employer’s trade or business?’ ” If be was, then be was not entitled to compensation under tbe act. If be was not, then be was entitled to compensation, and tbe award made was' correct.
"The intention of the lawmakers is the law. This intention is to be gathered from the necessity or reason of the enactment and the meaning of the words, enlarged or restricted according to their real intent. In construing a statute, the courts are not confined to the literal meaning of the words. A thing within the intention is regarded within the statute, though not within the letter. A thing within, the letter is not within the statute, if not also within the intention. When the intention can be collected from the statute, words may be modified or altered, so as to obviate all inconsistency with such intention. (Hoyne v. Danisch, 264 Ill. 467.) When great inconvenience or absurd consequences will result from a particular construction, that construction should be avoided, unless the meaning of the legisla
We approve of this pronouncement. With this thought in mind, let us examine the statute in question. It is a comprehensive scheme, enacted for the benefit of both the employer and employee engaged in industrial employment. The statute, as it stood at the time this injury occurred, declares that:
“ ‘Industrial employment’ includes only employment in occupation, callings, businesses or pursuits which are carried on by the employer for the sake of pecuniary gain.” Code Supplement, 1913, 2477-m16, Paragraph h.
It also provides (Section 2477-m) that:
“This act shall not apply to any household or domestic servant, farm or other laborer engaged in agricultural pursuits.”
It also provides, Section 2477-m41, Code Supplement, 1913:
“Every employer subject to the provisions of this act shall insure his liability thereunder in some corporation, association or organization approved by the state department of insurance. ’ ’
The statute also has provisions requiring every employer subject thereto, if he does not accept the provisions of the act before “beginning business,” to file a notice with the Iowa Industrial Commissioner of his rejection of the terms, conditions, and provisions of the act, and requiring that the employer shall keep a copy of such notice posted in some conspicuous place “at the place where the business is carried on.” By amendment to the statute, an employer who fails to insure his
The evident purpose of the legislature in the enactment of this statute was to apply it to “industrial employment,” to “occupations, callings, businesses, and pursuits carried on for the sake of pecuniary gain. ’ ’ It was intended obviously to apply to cases where employers in industrial pursuits, outside of those excepted in the statute, carried on a business for pecuniary gain, and engaged employees to work for them in the prosecution of such business.
By the very terms of the act, those whose employment in such business was “casual” did not come under its provisions. It was clearly the intention of the legislature that, where an employer engaged some employee whose services were “purely casual,” he should not be required to take out insurance to cover such employee while engaged in such casual service, or to post notices of the rejection of the act, if he did reject it.
What is casual employment, within the meaning of this act, must be determined by the facts of each particular case. We have had occasion to pass upon this question and to review the authorities in Bedard v. Sweinhart, 186 Iowa 655; Herbig v. Walton Auto Co., supra, and Porter v. Mapleton Elec. Light Co., 191 Iowa 1031. Following these decisions, under the facts in this case, we hold that the employment of the appellee to assist in the building of a eorncrib on the farm owned by Wachal was of a casual nature, within the meaning of this statute.
The situation is neither unusual nor exceptional, within this state. We cannot be unmindful of the fact that there are few, if any, cities or towns of this state that do not disclose in repeated instances the same kind of situation that is evidenced here. Numeróus "retired farmers” live in the cities and towns ’of Iowa, and own land which they lease to tenants who are in possession thereof. Sueh owners frequently employ different persons, from time to time, to make needed repairs or improvements on their farms. If this statute applies to all sueh cases, then sueh a landowner could not hire a man to mend a fence, to fix a gate, to repair a pump, to restore shingles on a roof, to patch up a chimney, or to do any one of the numerous things that are necessary and are constantly being done, to keep up premises so oAvned, without being under the necessity of taking out an insurance policy every time a man is hired to do such work; or else such owner would be compelled to post a notice, in a conspicuous place near the work, of the rejection of the Workmen’s Compensation Act, and to serve such notice on the
We do not believe that the legislature of Iowa ever intended that this act should be construed in any such way, or that its terms were ever intended to include any such employment as being “industrial employment for pecuniary gain.”
Wachal’s “business” was not that of house building. He was not carrying on any such occupation, calling, business, or pursuit for pecuniary gain. Under the very language of the statute, this employment of appellee was not “for the purpose of the employer’s trade or business.” Wachal had no trade or business, within the meaning of this act. The fact that he owned a farm and leased it did not bring him within the class contemplated by this statute as “an employer.” He was not engaged in any “industrial employment for pecuniary gain,” within the purview of this statute.
It is undoubtedly true that a man may have more than one business or occupation. He may come under this statute in one instance and not in another; but we are not prepared to hold that a retired farmer, living in town and leasing his farm, is engaged in ‘ ‘ an industrial business, ’ ’ as contemplated by this act, because he hires three or four men to build a corncrib on his rented farm, and that he must, before doing so, take out an insurance policy, and otherwise comply with the terms and provisions of the Workmen’s Compensation Act. We hold that such a construction and application of the law were never intended by the legislature. We are not without support for this conclusion in the authorities.
In State v. District Court, 138 Minn. 103 (164 N. W. 366), the Supreme Court of Minnesota considered a somewhat similar case. In that case, the defendant owned a farm near the village of Osakis, which he rented to a tenant. The defendant lived in the village, where he dealt in horses and did some auto livery and other business on a small scale. The barn on his farm was destroyed by fire. He employed the relator in the case and four other men to erect a temporary shed on the farm, and took them to the place. While engaged in the work, the relator was hit in the eye by a nail, and injured. It was claimed that the
“Assuming that the lease obligated defendant to erect a shelter for his tenant’s stock, or that he had voluntarily agreed so to do, we may say, in a certain sense, that the erection became his business or duty. But that cannot be the meaning of the word ‘business’ in this statute. It must have the same general significance with respect to the work or calling of the employer as the words ‘trade, profession, or occupation;’ hence must refer to the employer’s ordinary vocation, and not to every occasional, incidental, or insignificant work he may have to do. When we speak of a person’s trade or profession, we generally refer to that branch of the world’s activities wherein, he expends his usual everyday efforts to gain a livelihood. There is no evidence that defendant made it a part of his calling to rent out farms or erect buildings, either temporary structures or permanent. For all that appears, this was the only farm he owned, and it may have been of such small area and value that its renting and care could not properly be classified either as a business or occupation. And certainly neither the renting of the farm nor the construction of this shed can be referred to as coming within the ‘usual course’ of defendant’s business or occupation. ’ ’
The language is pertinent to the instant case. It is true that the Minnesota statute (General Statutes, 1913, Section 8202) provides that it shall not apply to those whose employment is not in the “usual course of the trade, business, profession, or occupation of its employer,” and that our statute follows the language of the English act, omitting the words ‘ ‘ usual
“Even the English act has been so construed that the facts of this case would not warrant compensation. It is said to afford compensation for injuries received only in the normal operations which form the part of the ordinary business carried on, and not to include incidental and occasional operations having for their purpose the preservation of the premises and appliances used in the business. Hayes v. S. J. Thompson Co., 6 B. W. C. C. 130, Rennie v. Reed, 1 B. W. C. C. 324; Pearce v. London & S. W. R. Co., 82 L. T. R. 487; Bargewell v. Daniel, 98 L. T. R. 257; Kelly v. Buchanan, 47 Ir. L. T. R. 228; Alderman v. Warren, 9 B. W. C. C. 507.”
Under the English decisions construing a statute similar to ours, the act would not apply to a case like the one at bar.
In Bargewell v. Daniel, 98 L. T. R. 257, the court considered the case of a workman who earned his living doing repair work. The defendant, Daniel, owned certain cottages, which were leased to tenants. She collected her own rent, made her own repairs, and had no other business or occupation. She hired the complainant to make repairs on one of her cottages; and while so employed, he was injured. The Master of the Rolls said:
“Therefore, the plaintiff was not a workman, within the act, unless he was employed for the purposes of the employer’s trade or business. It is pot suggested the defendant was carrying on a trade. Was she carrying on a business in which the plaintiff could be employed? It seems to me she was not. * * * But Section 13 of the act provides that a workman within the act does not include a person whose employment is of a casual nature, and who is employed otherwise than for the purposes of the employer’s trade or business. The intention was that the act should not apply, in such a ease, to the ordinary owner of property, who was not carrying on any trade or business.”
In Kelly v. Buchanan, 47 Ir. L. T. R. 228, decided under the English act, the defendant was a shopkeeper, who owned certain dwellings adjoining his place of business, which dwellings he rented to tenants. He hired the plaintiff to do some work on one of these buildings, and while so engaged, plaintiff was injured. The court said:
In Uphoff v. Industrial Board, supra, a landowner employed the complainant to help build a broom-corn shed on the former’s farm. While so doing, he was injured. The Workmen’s Compensation Act of Illinois applies to “an employer engaged in any of the following occupations, enterprises, or businesses, namely: 1. The building, maintaining, repairing, or demolishing of any structure." The Supreme Court said:
“It is contended by counsel for defendants in error that plaintiff in error must be held to come under the provisions of the act, under Subdivision 1 of Paragraph (b) of Section 3, as the broom-corn shed would be included in the provisions of that section, in the building ‘of any structure.’ This could only be true if it were held that, in so building such broom-corn shed, the farmer was engaged in an occupation, enterprise, or business, and was engaged in the usual course of his ‘trade, business, profession, or occupation,’ and that the employment was not casual.”
It was held that there was no liability, under the statute.
In Holbrook v. Olympia Hotel Co., 200 Mich. 597 (166 N. W. 876), the owner of a hotel caused the rooms to be painted and decorated, from time to time. A workman, while so engaged, was injured. The statute of Michigan provides that it shall not include “any person whose employment is but casual, or not in the usual course of the trade, business, profession, or occupation of his employer.” The Supreme Court of that state said:
“It is clear that the law contemplates that there may be an employment of labor, not in the usual course of the business of the employer, in which employment the risks of injury not occasioned by the employer’s fault are assumed by the workman. It would seem that occasionally renovating the rooms of a building, or the building itself, owned and occupied by the
In Packett v. Moretown Creamery Co., 91 Vt. 97 (99 Atl. 638), a creamery company employed a contractor and builder to erect a new creamery building. In construing tbe statute of Vermont, tbe Supreme Court of that state said:
“Tbe true test is, Did tbe work being done pertain to tbe business, trade, or occupation of tbe creamery company, carried on by it for pecuniary gain ? If so, the fact that it was being done through tbe medium of an independent contractor would not relieve tbe company from liability. Tbe finding of tbe board is that the creamery company, at tbe time of tbe injury, was engaged in tbe creamery business. There is nothing to show that tbe company was engaged in the business of erecting buildings, unless such is tbe effect of tbe fact that Flynn was erecting for it a building under a contract which made him an independent contractor, and not an employee. But such is not tbe reasonable interpretation of employment ‘for tbe purpose of tbe employer’s trade or business,’ and ‘in a trade or occupation * * * carried on * * * for tbe sake of pecuniary gain.’ It would be quite as reasonable to say that Flynn was engaged in the creamery business, in contemplation of the act, as that tbe creamery company was engaged in the business of erecting buildings. As well say that a farmer who lets a contract to build a barn or corncrib on bis premises is engaged in tbe business of contractor and builder, or that the business of tbe contractor, while thus engaged, is that of farming.”
We prefer to adopt the reasoning and conclusions of the foregoing authorities, rather than that of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin in Holmen Creamery Assn. v. Industrial Com., 167 Wis. 470 (167 N. W. 808), and other similar cases decided by that court.
On this branch of tbe case, we bold that the appellee, at
IV. It is claimed, however, that a corncrib was a necessary adjunct to the successful operation of the farm; that the owner received “pecuniary gain” by having the same constructed; and that, therefore, causing the corncrib to be built was part of his “business.” As before stated, we do not believe the legislature ever intended that any such interpretation should be placed upon this act, and we so hold. But if we should accept the construction contended for, then we are at once brought face to face with the provisions of Section 2477-m, which declares that the act “shall not apply to any household or domestic servant, farm or other laborer engaged in agricultural pursuits. ’ ’
If Wachal was engaged in any “trade or business” at all, it was the care, upkeep, and improvement of his farm. If this is to be denominated a “business” or “pursuit,” it was more nearly an “agricultural pursuit” than anything else. If the building of the corncrib was necessary for the proper conduct of the “business” of operating the farm, then it may be said with much plausibility that it was an ' ‘ agricultural pursuit. ’ ’
In Sylcord v. Horn, 179 Iowa 936, we considered this question, and held that an employee engaged in operating a corn shredder was “a farm laborer or other laborer engaged in agricultural pursuits,” and within the exception of the act.
It has been held that an employee on a farm who is required to repair a tractor and is injured while so engaged is a “farm laborer,” within the meaning of the Compensation Act. Maryland Cas. Co. v. Pillsbury, 172 Cal. 748 (158 Pac. 1031).
In Coleman v. Bartholomew, 175 App. Div. 122 (161 N. Y. Supp. 560), it is held that a farm hand engaged in repairing a barn is, nevertheless, a farm laborer.
An employee hired to help operate a threshing machine that was used to thresh grain for farmers generally about the country was held to be a “farm laborer,” within the meaning of the Compensation Act, in State v. District Court, 140 Minn. 398 (168 N. W. 130).
In Miller & Lux v. Industrial Acc. Com., 179 Cal. 764 (178 Pac. 960), the Supreme Court of California held that, where an
In Stevenson v. Magill, 35 N. D. 576 (160 N. W. 700), it is held that a cook for a threshing crew is a “farm laborer.”
In view of our conclusion on the other features of the case, it is unnecessary that we determine the question of whether or not the appellee was “a laborer engaged in agricultural pursuits,” and we do not make any pronouncement on that question, further than 'to observe that, as above indicated, there is respectable authority to sustain such a conclusion.
A dissent is filed herewith. We note the facetious manner in which the writer of the dissent has seen fit to treat this division of this opinion. Notwithstanding the jocular animadversions of the dissenter, we still modestly insist that we do no great violence to the proprieties in referring to the pronouncements of the appellate courts of California, New York, Minnesota, and North Dakota as “respectable authority.” The suggestion that the majority would hold that the physician whom a farmer calls to officiate at the birth of his child, or the minister who is called to perform a marriage ceremony, is engaged in “agricultural pursuits” is a splendid example of that fine sense of humor which has so greatly endeared the writer of the dissent to the profession of this state. But our distinguished colleague has placed himself in the somewhat uncomfortable position of being “hoist on his own petard.” The logical deduction from his interpretation of the statute, in his endeavor to make it all-embracing, would be that, before a so-called “employer” could summon an accoucheur or a clergyman, it would be necessary for him to insure his liability with the state department of insurance, or else he would be compelled, in the language of the statute, “before(beginning business,” to file notice with the Iowa industrial commissioner of his rejection of the terms of the act, and to keep a copy posted in some conspicuous place where the “business” is carried on. At the risk of incurring the vigorous accusation of attempting to “modify or alter” the statute, we hope to prevent such an inter
We hold that the purpose or intention of the legislature in enacting the Workmen’s Compensation Act was not to include within its terms and provisions such an employment as is disclosed by the record in this case. We hold that the employment of the appellee by Wachal was casual, and that it was not for the purpose of the employer’s trade or business, within the meaning of the act. It therefore follows that the appellee was not entitled to compensation under the provisions of the Workmen’s Compensation Act, and that the action of the industrial commissioner and the district court of Linn County, in awarding compensation, was erroneous.
The judgment appealed from must be, and the same is,— Reversed.
Dissenting Opinion
(dissenting). I cannot agree that the court’s authority to construe statutes goes to the extent of reading out of the legislative language its ordinary and accepted meaning, according to general usage, or of reading into the language employed a meaning not recognized in such usage. By Paragraph II of the majority opinion, borrowing the language of the Illinois court in Uphoff v. Industrial Board, 271 Ill. 312, as a text for our adherence, we arrogate to ourselves the right to declare the intention of the legislature to be other than that which is expressed. In other words, it is said that we may determine for ourselves the legislative intention which is not expressed, and then “modify or alter” its words “so as to obviate all inconsistency with such intention.” With that rule established, the legislative function is reduced to an idle form, and a statute as it leaves the hands of the constitutional law-making body may be treated as little moré than a disarticulated skeleton of dry bones, out of which or upon which the courts may construct a body to suit its own conception, not of what the legislature does mean, but rather of what the judicial mind, in its wisdom, conceives
To avoid, if possible, the neutralization of the statute by destructive construction, the legislature, in Code Section 2477-ml6, defined the words “employer” and “workman” in the simplest and clearest terms. “Employer” is declared to include any person, firm, association, or corporation, etc., and “workman” is made “synonymous” with “employee,” and means “any person who has entered into the employment of or works under contract of service, express or implied, for an employer.” And the exception from the effect of this statutory definition is one “whose employment is purely casual and not for the purpose of the employer’s trade or business.” The declared scope of the statute, Code Section 2477-ml6, makes it include every employer “as defined by this act-,” and the word is, as we have seen, specifically defined in Section 2477-ml6, above quoted. In equally specific terms it excluded only “the household or domestic servant, farm or other laborer engaged in agricultural pursuits” and “persons ivhose employment is of casual nature.” By the last cited section, as it stood when this accident occurred, to exclude the plaintiff from the benefit of the act it was necessary, as the majority admit, to find both that plaintiff’s employment was “purely casual” and was “not for the purpose of his employer’s trade or business;” and the conclusion reached in the majority opinion is that he comes within neither of these requirements. It will be observed that the term “casual,” as used in the statute referred to, has reference to the workman and the character of Ms service, and not to the employer, while the phrase “for the purpose of the employer’s trade or business” has reference to the employer and his relation to the business in which the workman is employed. Now it appears in this case that the plaintiff was a carpenter, living by
The principal definition of “business” by Webster is:
‘ ‘ That which busies, or engages time, attention, or labor, as a principal serious concern or interest; regular occupation; work. Any particular occupation or employment habitually engaged in, esp. for livelihood or gain. That which one has to do or should do.”
“Occupation, employment, or activity; dealing. Any occupation or employment, pursued as a calling; business.”
In defining the word “business,”.the Century Dictionary expressly includes the term “business of agriculture.” The Massachusetts court has held that a person owning and carrying on a farm is “engaged in business.” Snow v. Sheldon, 126 Mass. 332.
Who may say that the man who owns a farm to which he gives his care and attention, whether by his own personal labor or through the medium of hired servants or tenants, who attends to the upkeep and construction of the improvements and all the other constantly recurring tasks and duties which make the property contribute to his livelihood, is a man without business, or that the man whom he employs to. perform or assist in the performance of such work is not employed for the purpose of his employer’s business? I am not unaware that, in certain other states where the courts have taken an attitude of semi-hostility to Compensation Laws, this holding by the majority finds some degree of apparent support, and the benefits of such laws have been greatly narrowed; but up to a very recent date, this court has withheld its concurrence in such tendency. The unfavorable drift of judicial opinion upon the subject is by no means universal. In Wisconsin, Indiana, New Jersey, and some other jurisdictions, the courts have refused to allow the protective features of the law to be weakened or destroyed by judicial enlargement of the exceptions to its application. I sincerely regret that the majority should think it necessary now to expressly disapprove the position taken by the courts last referred to, and to cast the weight of its influence on the other side. It should not be overlooked that our Compensation Act is by no means a replica of the statute of any other state. When compared with some of those statutes, the points of difference are more numerous than the likenesses; and in trying, by construction, to force our law into the mold made use of elsewhere, we shall inevitably, to a great extent, defeat its beneficial purposes.
Before leaving this topic, I desire to call attention to a recent Minnesota case bearing on the question whether plaintiff,
"While the defendant was not a building contractor, nor engaged in specific work of that kind, the construction of the shed in question was in furtherance of its established business, a necessary part thereof; and we discover no sufficient reason for holding that it was outside of and beyond what is customary and usual in a situation of the kind. ’ ’
So in the case at bar, the corncrib was constructed in furtherance of the business of the defendant as the owner of the farm, and iii promotion of his interest thereon.
I venture to prolong the dissent to speak briefly of the effect, if any, which the fact that defendant is a farmer has upon the rights of the parties. The majority refrain from a final pronouncement on that question, but clearly intimate that, if the points already discussed were not to be decided in defendant’s favor, a good reason for reaching the same conclusion would have been found by the heroic plan of holding that, for the purposes of the law, the plaintiff and his fellow carpenters engaged in building a corncrib on defendant’s rented farm were "engaged in agricultural pursuits," and are therefore excluded from the protection of the act. It ought not to be necessary that I challenge both the proposition and the assurance that it has the support of "respectable authority.” There is no such precedent, — no such authority. The cases cited are not at all parallel, in fact or in principle. The implied approval of the absurdity of classing the work of a carpenter' and builder en
As illustrating the fact that the very courts cited by the majority as respectable authority for its extraordinary claims in this respect hold otherwise, I call attention to the case of Shafter Estate Co. v. Industrial Acc. Com., 175 Cal. 522 (166 Pac. 24), decided by the California court, to the effect that an employee on a farm is not engaged in agricultural pursuits unless the duties he performs pertain to agriculture in fact, in the natural and proper sense of the word. In that case, the plaintiff was a gamekeeper, and it was held that he was not excluded. The same court has held that an employee holding a light to guide the night operator of a tractor engine pulling a harrow for seeding grain was not within a provision excluding those engaged in operating farm machinery. George v. Industrial Acc. Com., 178 Cal. 733. Operating a silage cutter is not an excluded occupation. Raney v. State Ind. Acc. Com., 85 Ore. 199 (166 Pac. 523). A laborer employed to poison squirrels on a farm or ranch is not engaged in agriculture. Slaughter Cattle Co. v. Pastrana, (Tex.) 217 S. W. 749. The engineer of a steam threshing machine is not engaged in agricultural employment. Industrial Com. v. Shadowen, 68 Colo. 69 (187 Pac. 926); In re Boyer, 65 Ind. App. 408 (117 N. E. 507) ; White v. Loades, 178 App. Div. 236 (164 N. Y. Supp. 1023).
It should not be overlooked that the statute nowhere attempts to exempt the farmer from all liability to all his workmen under the act. The exemption exists only as to employees engaged in “agricultural pursuits.” If he has other employees, not engaged in agricultural pursuits or in service as house
Again,- issues joined in this class of cases are at law, and the finding of the industrial commissioner and of the court below has the force and effect of a jury verdict, and is entitled to our respect. In my opinion, the case should be affirmed.