- 54 -
TLC had the “sole and absolute authority * * * to terminate each
driver-employee’s employment with TLC.” Id. at 164.
With respect to petitioner’s argument that, in determining
whether TLC was the employer of each driver-employee whom it
leased to one of its trucking company clients, the Court gave
improper weight to certain facts that it had found, petitioner
asserts:
The Court used the term “neutral” to describe
certain factors which the Court concluded were not
important in its decision * * *. This categorization
of certain factors was in error for at least two
reasons: (1) the Court was not free to disregard
certain factors; and (2) a factor should be considered
“neutral” only when there is evidence favoring both
sides, in other words, when the court is unable to
determine which party the factor favors.
On the record before us, we reject petitioner’s assertion.
As discussed above, the Court in Transport Labor I did not
disregard any common-law employment factors. With respect to
petitioner’s assertion that a common-law employment factor should
be considered neutral only when there is evidence favoring both
sides, that assertion ignores that the Court is “the trier of the
facts, the judge of the credibility of witnesses and of the
weight of the evidence, and the drawer of appropriate
inferences”, Hamm v. Commissioner, 325 F.2d at 938. The Court in
Transport Labor I was free to give evidence whatever weight it
considered to be appropriate. Moreover, the Court does not
consider a factor to be neutral only when there is evidence
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