de Castro de Guzmán v. Industrial Commission
de Castro de Guzmán v. Industrial Commission
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Relying on the provisions of § 15 of Act No. 45 of 1935 (Sess. Laws, pp. 250, 292), as amended by Act No. 162 of May 14, 1943 (Sess. Laws, pp. 524, 554), Ezequiel Avilés Méndez appeared before the Industrial Commission of Puerto Rico on September 19, 1950, with a petition for compensation in which he alleged in brief that on August 13 of said year he had a labor accident in San Juan while working for the employer Gladys de Castro de Guzmán. The accident consisted, according to him, in a severe blow he received in his left hand and forearm upon falling off a truck he was loading with debris. On that same day the
Upon the case being called for public hearing before the Commission on January 15, 1951, the parties appeared and through their respective attorneys stipulated:
“5. That the second and third stories of this building are used exclusively as private residences.
“6. That when this second floor was vacated, the employer*624 had her regular employee, Gracimiano Santiago, remove certain rubbish and lumber which were piled up somewhere in this second floor. That the employer ordered her employee Graci-miano Santiago to obtain the services of some truck in order to remove on Sunday, August IB, 1950, the debris from said second floor and throw it away.
“7. Gracimiano Santiago hired Juan Matos to take said rubbish away in a truck on said Sunday agreeing to pay him eight dollars ($8.00) for that work.
“8. That Juan Matos brought two helpers named Benieio Ayala and Ezequiel Avilés, and that on said Sunday morning, the three workmen, Juan Matos, Benieio Ayala, and Ezequiel Avilés removed the lumber and rubbish, for which work Beni-cio Ayala was paid two dollars ($2.00) and Ezequiel Avilés was also paid $2 for said day.
“9. That Ezequiel Avilés had never worked for the employer, neither prior nor subsequent to Sunday, August 13, 1950.
“10. It is accepted that on Sunday, August 13, 1950, the workman suffered an accident or a fall while doing the work for which he had been hired.
“11. That the employer is not engaged nor was she engaged at the time of the accident in the transportation business or construction work, specifically on the second floor of said property, and that she has no other business except the beauty parlor established on the first floor of said property, and the academy or school which is also on said first floor.
a 99
On January 23 following the Commission rendered a lengthy decision in which it stated, among other things, that “undoubtedly this accident is not interrelated with the business which the employer has on the first floor of her building, but it did happen in the rental or lease business or enterprise which the employer had on the other floors of the same building, and in connection with this business, we can not consider the employment of this workman, at the time when he was injured, as of a mere temporary nature ■ t(' deprive him of the right to compensation pursuant to tl e provisions of § 38 of the Workmen’s Accident Act.” The C mmission ended saying that “. . . we deem that in this
To review said decision we granted a writ of review on March 5 last. The appellant bases her appeal mainly on two findings of fact which in her judgment are not supported by the stipulation submitted by the parties at the hearing and without, in her judgment, there existing legal and competent evidence in support thereof, to wit: (a) that the employer in this case devoted the second and third floors, of the property in which the accident occurred to private residences; and (b) that the employer operated or had a rental or lease business or enterprise on the second and third-floors of the building in question.
Section 38 of Act No. 45, supra, essentially provides :
“Workman or employee shall be understood to mean any person in the service of any individual, partnership, or corporation regularly employing workmen included under the provisions of this Act; Provided, That workmen and employees engaged in domestic service, those whose work is of a temporary nature and is not included under the business, industry, profession, or occupation, those who work in their homes, and those whose employers are exempt from the obligations imposed by this Act are expressly excluded.” (Italics ours.)
Thus, it is not enough, pursuant to the clear context of the Act, that the work performed by the injured workman be merely of a temporary nature in order for the accident
In the case at bar there is not the least doubt that the work which Avilés Méndez was doing when he suffered the accident was of a temporary nature. However, as according to the stipulation the second and third floors of the aforesaid building are devoted to private residences, we must determine whether the devoting of those floors for rental purposes is equivalent to the operation of a business or industry. If it is not, the case would fall within one of the exceptions specified in § 38.
A case strikingly similar to the case at bar is Summerville v. Industrial Commission, 196 P. 2d 718, decided by the Supreme Court of the State of Utah on August 3, 1948. As appears from the opinion delivered in said case, the defendant Ina Cook owned and operated a coffee shop, and .also owned a building about,one mile away, which she had rented. The building being in need of repair, Mrs. Cook
The decision appealed from will be reversed and the petition filed by the workman dismissed.
The question whether Juan Matos, the owner of the truck, was an independent contractor or not was not raised here. Nor whether the employer utilized at the time of the accident less than three workmen.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.