Plaintiff sued defendant, Omark Industries, for injuries he suffered while working on Omark’s premises. Defendant alleged that workers’ compensation was plaintiff’s sole remedy and that it was therefore immune from tort liability. As contemplated by ORS 656.384(2), the trial court first tried and determined that defense, ruling in defendant’s favor. Plaintiff appeals. We affirm.
The facts are unique in Oregon appellate decisions, although probably common in some industrial and business settings. Plaintiff was employed by Employers’ Overload (EO), a "labor broker” or temporary help service which supplies other companies with temporary workers. EO is paid an hourly rate by its customer for the time EO’s employes work for the customer. EO in turn pays its employes directly, performs all payroll accounting and provides workers’ compensation coverage for its employes.
Omark requested EO to supply temporary workers to "pick up the production demand.” EO sent plaintiff to Omark’s premises. While there, in the course of cleaning a blister pack (plastic sealing) machine, plaintiff injured his hand. Plaintiff received workers’ compensation benefits from EO’s insurer for this injury-
Whether plaintiff can now sue defendant for negligence alleged to have caused the same injury depends upon whether plaintiff and defendant had an employer-employe relationship and whether defendant was complying with the Workers’ Compensation Law. If both of those questions are answered in the affirmative, plaintiff cannot maintain this action against defendant. ORS 656.018.
The employer-employe relationship issue is determined by a two-pronged test: compensation plus right of control. ORS 656.005(16), 656.005(31). The compensation prong is controlled by Whitlock v. State Ind. Acc. *266Com., 233 Or 166, 377 P2d 148 (1962). Whitlock involved a workers’ compensation claim. The claimant and other members of a noncommercial organization had painted a house in return for a fee paid to the organization. The claimant had been injured while painting. The Supreme Court held that the claimant was an employe for workers’ compensation purposes, holding that the fee paid to the organization satisfied the compensation requirement.
By analogy, in the present case, defendant paid compensation to plaintiff through the conduit of EO. Whitlock may well have been a case in which the court was straining to find workers’ compensation coverage — the flip side of which is to bar tort liability. But Whitlock is binding on us and, in any event, the present facts more strongly support a finding of compensation than did the facts in Whitlock — here plaintiff actually received money paid for his services, while the claimant in Whitlock did not actually receive money paid for his services.
A preliminary aspect of the right-of-control issue is whether such a right must necessarily be exclusive. At times plaintiff seems to argue that if he establishes that EO had any right to control any aspect of his work, that would defeat defendant’s right of control — as if right of control were mutually exclusive. We conclude that plaintiff’s apparent premise is incorrect. An employe can have more than one. employer for workers’ compensation purposes. Brazeale v. State Ind. Acc. Comm., 190 Or 565, 576, 227 P2d 804 (1951); Oremus v. Oregonian Pub. Co., 3 Or App 92, 470 P2d 162, rev den (1970). It follows that an employe can be subject to the right of control by more than one employer.
That is exactly what the present facts reveal. EO had the right to control plaintiff to the extent that it directed him to report to defendant’s premises. While plaintiff was on defendant’s premises, defendant had the right to control all aspects of plaintiff’s work. *267Defendant in fact controlled plaintiff’s work with respect to hours, breaks, physical placement within the plant and specific assignment of tasks. We conclude that defendant had the right to control plaintiffs work and therefore was his employer for workers’ compensation purposes.
Plaintiff presses only one argument for a contrary conclusion. Plaintiff alleges that the contract between EO and defendant prohibited defendant from assigning him to work on machinery without EO’s prior approval. It follows, plaintiff reasons, that EO retained the ultimate right of control over the activity that actually led to his injury.
The first flaw is factual. The terms of the contract between EO and defendant pursuant to which EO supplied defendant with temporary workers is a question of fact. There was no written master contract between EO and defendant. One exhibit is the time cards used as the basis upon which EO’s customers pay EO for temporary help and EO in turn pays its employes. It has a printed passage on the back that states:
"It is agreed by the customer that EO employees are not authorized to operate machinery, automotive or truck equipment without first obtaining written approval from EO, unless the EO employee is specifically assigned for said purposes.”
Another exhibit is a plan prepared specifically for defendant by EO in which EO gives defendant the following "helpful hint”:
"Before the EO Temp reports, to avoid delay, assign one of your employees to have the work ready, the machines in good working order, the necessary supplies handy, and instructions available.”
The rest of the evidence about the contractual arrangement between EO and defendant was presented by testimony. EO’s manager testified that it was EO’s "policy” that their employes were not supposed to operate machinery on a customer’s premises. *268The manager never clearly stated whether, when or to what extent this "policy” was communicated to defendant before plaintiff’s injury.
We do not determine the facts in this type of case. Cornelison v. Seabold, 254 Or 401, 408-09, 460 P2d 1009 (1969). The question before us is whether the above evidence establishes as a matter of law that there was a mutually agreed upon contractual limitation prohibiting defendant from assigning employes to operate machinery. Contrary to the apparent conclusion of the dissent, we find the evidence too inconclusive to so hold.
The second flaw in plaintiff’s position is legal. Even assuming arguendo that EO reserved the sole right to control whether its employes operated machinery, all this establishes is the point we have already noted — that both EO and defendant controlled various aspects of plaintiff’s work. That does not establish that either was plaintiff’s only employer; it establishes that both were plaintiff’s employers. Moreover, in a dual-employer situation, we decline plaintiff’s invitation to refine analysis to the point of attempting to ascertain which employer had the right to control the actual injury-causing activity. It is difficult enough to determine, for example, whether work caused a heart attack; it could be impossible to determine which of two employers controlled the activity that caused a heart attack.
The remaining issue is whether defendant was a "complying employer,” which is necessary under the Workers’ Compensation Law in order for defendant to have tort immunity. We confront a statutory hiatus on this issue. To be a complying employer, ORS 656.017 requires an employer to be self-insured or to obtain insurance. Although defendant maintained insurance for its regular employes, it did not do so for its temporary workers like plaintiff. Instead, defendant paid a fee to EO for plaintiff’s services that was known to all *269to be calculated to include workers’ compensation protection for plaintiff that EO actually maintained. Had the legislature considered this dual-employer arrangement, we are confident it would have provided that both employers have tort immunity if either is a complying employer. Cf. State v. Rafal, 21 Or App 114, 117, 533 P2d 1397 (1975). After all, the purpose of the law is to promote workers’ compensation coverage, not to create technicalities that permit a person in plaintiff’s position to obtain a workers’ compensation award from one of his employers and a tort judgment from another of his employers for the same injury.
Affirmed.