{
  "id": 1481766,
  "name": "Ewing v. City of Helena",
  "name_abbreviation": "Ewing v. City of Helena",
  "decision_date": "1944-10-09",
  "docket_number": "4362",
  "first_page": "702",
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  "last_updated": "2023-07-14T21:46:39.394631+00:00",
  "provenance": {
    "date_added": "2019-08-29",
    "source": "Harvard",
    "batch": "2018"
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  "casebody": {
    "judges": [],
    "parties": [
      "Ewing v. City of Helena."
    ],
    "opinions": [
      {
        "text": "Gtueein 'Smith, Chief Justice.\nThe controlling question is whether an occupation tax assessed by the City of Helena applies to appellant.\n\u201c'Contractors, brick or carpentry,\u201d must pay $50 annually. Penalty for failure \u201cshall be a fine twice the amount of the license imposed. \u201d\nIn Municipal Court appellant was fined $50. On appeal Circuit Court directed a verdict for $100. \u25a0\nResult here depends upon construction of the word \u201ccontractor.\u201d It is undisputed that appellant (a brick mason) worked at $1.25 per hour. On one occasion he had been paid so much per thousand for laying brick. \u2022 In dealing with those desiring his services, appellant frequently-mentioned that a helper would be required. The amount so due would ordinarily be included in appellant\u2019s pay check. He did not maintain an office. The telephone to which appellant had access was listed in his brother\u2019s name. There was testimony that when appellant was not engaged as a bricklayer, he \u201cdid a little farming.\u201d Printed on his truck were the words, \u201cJames Ewing & Son, Brick Masons. \u2019 \u2019\nThe term \u201ccontractor\u201d is used in many senses. For determining whether a workman is entitled to recover under compensation laws, it is essential to ascertain whether the relationship of master and servant existed, or that of independent contractor and employer. Under lien laws a somewhat different rule applies; In Little Rock, Hot Springs & Texas Railway Co. v. Spencer, 65 Ark. 183, 47 S. W. 196, 42 L. R. A. 334, it was held that a contractor who had not performed any work or labor personally did not come within the terms of a statute providing a lien for \u201cevery mechanic, builder, artisan, workman, laborer, or other person who shall do or perform any work or labor\u201d on a railroad.\nTexas courts have held that \u201ccontractor\u201d refers to a person who undertakes a specific job in pursuit of an independent business, using his own means without submitting to control as to details. Evans v. Bryant, 29 S. W. 2d 484; Brigman v. Holt & Bowers, 32 S. W. 2d 220.\nOpinions are to the effect that although, in a general sense, every person who \u00e9nters into a ^contract may be called a \u201ccontractor,\u201d yet the word \u2014 for want of a better term \u2014 has come to be used with special reference to one who, in the pursuit of an independent business, undertakes to do a specific piece of work for another person, using the performer\u2019s own means and methods, without (as to details) submitting himself to control of the party for whose benefit the work is being done. The true test, it is said, appears to be that before one should be termed a contractor, he must render service in the course of an independent occupation, representing the will of his employer only as to the result of the work, and not as to the means by which it is accomplished.\nCaldwell v. Atlantic B. & A. R. Co., 49 So. 674, 161 Ala. 395; Jahn\u2019s Adm\u2019r v. Wm. H. McKnight & Co., 78 S. W. 862, 117 Ky. 655; Poor v. Madison River Power Co., 99 P. 947, 38 Mont. 341.\nWe think the Circuit Court erred in not holding, as a matter of law applicable to undisputed facts, that appellant was not a contractor within the meaning of the ordinance authorizing collection of occupation taxes.\nOther issues were brought into the case, hut in the view we take they are unimportant.\nReversed, with directions to dismiss the cause.",
        "type": "majority",
        "author": "Gtueein 'Smith, Chief Justice."
      }
    ],
    "attorneys": [
      "Dinning & Dinning, for appellant.",
      "D. S. Heslep, for appellee. ."
    ],
    "corrections": "",
    "head_matter": "Ewing v. City of Helena.\n4362\n182 S. W. 2d 940\nOpinion delivered October 9, 1944.\nDinning & Dinning, for appellant.\nD. S. Heslep, for appellee. ."
  },
  "file_name": "0702-01",
  "first_page_order": 740,
  "last_page_order": 742
}