LEACH v. HALL

LEACH v. HALL
1966 OK 102
418 P.2d 650
Case Number: 41221
Decided: 05/24/1966
Supreme Court of Oklahoma

OLLIE LEACH, PLAINTIFF IN ERROR,
v.
W.C. (BILL) HALL, DEFENDANT IN ERROR.

Syllabus

¶0 1. TRIAL -- Demurrer to evidence -- Failure of plaintiff's evidence. Where the evidence of plaintiff, together with such inferences and conclusions as may reasonably be drawn therefrom, does not warrant recovery against defendant, if is not error for the trial court to sustain a demurrer to the evidence.
2. MASTER AND SERVANT -- Status of general servant loaned or hired to another for some special service. It is well settled that one who is the general servant of another may be loaned or hired by his master to another for some special service so as to become, as to that service, the servant of such third person.
3. MASTER AND SERVANT -- Status of general servant loaned or hired to another for some special service. Servant lent by master to another for particular employment, although remaining general servant of master, must be dealt with as servant of one to whom he is lent, as regards anything done in the latter's employment.
4. MASTER AND SERVANT -- Controlling factor in determining whether employee of one master becomes special or loaned servant of another. The controlling factor in determining whether a regular employee of one master has become the special or loaned servant of another is: Has the general employer released for the time required to perform some particular work, all authority to control or direct the manner and method of the work to be done and surrendered such direction and control to the special employer?

Appeal from the District Court of Tulsa County; S.J. Clendinning, Judge.
Action by Ollie Leach against W.C. (Bill) Hall to recover for personal injuries suffered by plaintiff as a result of claimed negligent acts committed by an employee of defendant. The lower court sustained a demurrer to plaintiff's evidence on the ground that at the time of the accident causing the injuries the employee was the loaned servant of another. Affirmed.

Lampkin, Wolfe & Blankenship, Oklahoma City, for plaintiff in error.
O.H. (Pat) O'Neal, Tulsa, Rucker, Tabor, Shepherd & Palmer, Tulsa, of counsel, John R. Couch, Melvin F. Pierce, Oklahoma City, Pierce, Mock, Duncan, Couch & Hendrickson, Oklahoma City, of counsel, for defendant in error.

DAVISON, Justice.

¶1 Ollie Leach (plaintiff) instituted this action in the lower court against W.C. (Bill) Hall (defendant) to recover for personal injuries suffered by plaintiff on October 29, 1954, as a result of the allegedly negligent acts of an employee of Hall, committed while setting the substructure or base for an oil drilling rig preliminary to the actual well drilling. Plaintiff was injured when the substructure fell on him. The parties will be referred to by their trial court designation. The issues presented by the pleadings included the issue of whether the employee, Crouch, was at the time of the accident the employee of defendant. Specifically defendant's contention was that at the time of the accident Crouch occupied the status of a loaned servant of Kerr-McGee Drilling Company. At the close of plaintiff's evidence on April 13, 1964, the trial court sustained defendant's demurrer to the evidence on the ground that such evidence reflected in fact and law that Crouch was a loaned servant of Kerr-McGee. Consequently the acts of negligence, if any, were not the liability of defendant. Plaintiff has appealed from that order and judgment.

¶2 The answer to the question of whether the plaintiff's evidence showed that Crouch was the loaned servant of Kerr-McGee is determinative of this appeal.

¶3 This case is in effect a companion case to No. 40694, Smith v. Hall, Okl., 418 P.2d 665, in which an opinion was promulgated on this date. The plaintiff in that case and the plaintiff in this case were both employees of Kerr-McGee and were both injured in the same accident when the substructure fell over while being raised by the bulldozer being operated by Crouch. In both cases the trial court sustained a demurrer to the respective plaintiff's evidence on the same grounds.

¶4 From our examination of the record in the present appeal it is our conclusion that the evidence, insofar as same applies and is pertinent to the proposition of loaned servant, is substantially the same or to the same effect as that presented by the plaintiff in the other case.

¶5 It is our opinion that under plaintiff's evidence in the present case the trial court was justified in concluding that at the time of the accident Crouch was the loaned servant of Kerr-McGee, and consequently failed to show a liability on the part of defendant. Our reasons for this conclusion and the law sustaining the same are fully set forth in our opinion in No. 40694, Smith v. Hall, supra. We adopt and apply that decision as determinative of the present appeal.

¶6 The order and judgment of the trial court is affirmed.

¶7 JACKSON, V.C.J., and WILLIAMS, BLACKBIRD, IRWIN, BERRY, HODGES and LAVENDER, JJ., concur.