Tennessee Coal, Iron & R. Co. v. Martin

• Decision Date: 24 June 1948
• Docket Number: 6 Div. 735.
• Citation: 36 So.2d 547,251 Ala. 153
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court
• Parties: TENNESSEE COAL, IRON & R. CO. v. MARTIN et al.

36 So.2d 547

251 Ala. 153

TENNESSEE COAL, IRON & R. CO. v. MARTIN et al.

6 Div. 735.

Supreme Court of Alabama

June 24, 1948

Rehearing Denied July 31, 1948.

Certiorari to Court of Appeals.

D. K. McKamy, Jas. A. Simpson, Benners, Burr Stokely & McKamy and Lange, Simpson, Robinson &amp Somerville, all of Birmingham, for petitioner.

Crampton Harris, Wm. E. Mitch and Harris &amp Brown, all of Birmingham, opposed.

The majority opinion of the Court of Appeals, brought under review, is as follows:

Harwood Judge. This case was originally assigned to Presiding Judge Bricken. In the opinion prepared by Judge Bricken the facts have already been sufficiently set forth obviating the necessity of further recital thereof in this opinion.

The majority of the court being unable to concur in certain conclusions reached by Judge Bricken therefore express their conclusions below.

In the opinion on the rehearing in the Drummond case (Department of Industrial Relations v. Drummond), 30 Ala.App. 78, 1 So.2d 395, 401, this court stated that the essential purpose of the Alabama Unemployment Compensation Act, Code 1940, Tit 26, § 180 et seq., was 'to minimize the harmful effect on society of unemployment; that it is, in character, a form of insurance for the unemployed worker, is remedial in nature, and should be liberally construed in his favor.'

This indisputable premise, in our opinion, furnishes the clearest marker for our guidance on the tangled trail of judicial decisions and opaque statutory declarations in this developing field of jurisprudence.

In his opinion Judge Bricken states that 'The parties also seem to be in accord that the strike above referred to was a labor dispute within the meaning of such section.' We are unable to accord to the contentions of appellees' counsel, urged in oral argument and in briefs filed, the conclusion reached by Judge Bricken as to such accord. As we interpreted the argument and briefs of counsel representing the appellees they strenuously contend that there is no labor dispute within the meaning of our statute and judicial interpretations thereof.

However, since the 1939 Amendment to Section 214, subd. A, Title 26, Code of Alabama 1940, defining a 'labor dispute' as the term is defined in National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 151 et seq., and the Norris-La Guardia Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 101 et seq., it is our opinion that appellees' unemployment was directly due to a labor dispute. Section 214, subd. A, supra. Badgett v. Department of Industrial Relations, 30 Ala.App. 457, 10 So.2d 872; Id., 243 Ala. 538, 10 So.2d 880; New Negro Alliance v. Sanitary Grocery Co., 303 U.S. 552, 304 U.S. 542, 58 S.Ct. 703, 82 L.Ed. 1012; Lauf v. E. G. Shinner & Co., 303 U.S. 323, 58 S.Ct. 578, 82 L.Ed. 872.

It is our opinion therefore that the lower court erred in its reasoning that appellee's unemployment did not result directly from a labor dispute.

Conditions in addition to the worker's involuntary unemployment directly due to a labor dispute must be concurrently present under our law to bring about this disqualification to receive unemployment benefits. The labor dispute must be in active progress, and 'in the establishment in which he is or was last employed.' (Italics ours.)

There are no cases from either our Supreme Court, or this court, construing the meaning of the word 'establishment,' nor does the Act contain any definition.

The conditions disqualifying a worker from the benefits of our Act constitute exceptions thereto. Exceptions from legislation humanitarian and remedial in nature must be narrowly construed, giving due regard to the plain meaning of statutory language and legislative intent, Phillips, Inc. v. Walling, 324 U.S. 490, 65 S.Ct. 807, 89 L.Ed. 1095, 157 A.L.R. 876, and in Canadian Pacific R. Co. v. United States, 9 Cir., 73 F.2d 831, 834, the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit declared:

'A proviso or exception which restricts the general scope of the act must be strictly construed, and will not be permitted to take any case out of the enacting clause which does not clearly fall within its terms, and the burden of proof is on one claiming the benefit of the proviso.'

Our Unemployment Compensation Act was originally passed in 1935. It operated in a virgin field. England had originally and experimentally passed a similar system of law in 1911, which was revised as trial exposed weaknesses. Wisconsin passed such legislation in 1932. St.1945, § 108.01 et seq. The passage of the Social Security Act by Congress in August 1935, 42 U.S.C.A. § 301 et seq., induced other states to enact such laws. Ours was perhaps the second state act in this country. All states now have similar acts including the basic requirements laid down by the Act of Congress, but differing widely in details which Congress left open to State legislation. While there is an immense body of decisional law in this field enunciated by the agencies to which its administration has been committed, there are comparatively few judicial interpretations.

The relative recency of the law and the paucity of judicial decisions thereon create historical nuances rather than historical facts, which are of only small import in a historical interpretation of the true purpose of the Act. As stated by the Superior Court of Pennsylvania in Bliley Electric Co. v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 158 Pa.Super. 548, 45 A.2d 898, 902:

'Until more cases involving a wide variety of factual situations have been brought to the courts, judicial answers will necessarily lack the usual rigor of legal formulas, and tend to be tentative and groping in their nature. Concrete cases will develop general principles, and precise definition will issue from the wisdom acquired by greater experience.'

The Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company has set up separate divisions for its operations:

1. The Manufacturing Division consists of all the coke ovens, blast furnaces, and finishing plants.

2. The ore mines and quarries divisions.

3. The Coal Mines Division.

4. The Rail Transportations Department.

There is also a health department, operating a large hospital, and an industrial relations department.

By a 'chain of command' the management of all of the departments is directed into the office of the President who has general supervision and direction over all the business and operations of the company.

Evidence introduced by the appellants in the proceedings below tends to show that the operations of the company are planned on a yearly basis; that the functions of each department or division, particularly those concerned with production, are integrated and coordinated each with the other in a general schedule. For this reason the appellant contends that the coal mines are so functionally integrated and coordinated with the other departments and divisions that all must be considered as an integral of one operating unit or establishment.

On the other hand the appellees contend that in the above mentioned departments and divisions the respective employees are engaged in different occupations, and consequently belong to different unions, wholly separate and independent one of the other; that the Coal Mines Division is under the general superintendence of one man, whose authority does not extend to any other department; that this division promulgates its own safety rules and regulations; that each coal mine has its own superintendent whose authority extends to no other mine; that coal miners desiring employment with the Company apply to the Coal Mines Division; and that the mines are geographically separated from the other operating plants and mills of the Company. In short the appellees contend that there is such a degree of isolation in management and space that a concept of functional integrality cannot with propriety be applied so as to conclude that the coal mines were not a separate establishment in themselves.

The appellant earnestly asserts that the Wisconsin case of Spielmann v. Industrial Commission, 236 Wis. 240, 295 N.W. 1, 3, necessitates a conclusion that the word 'establishment' as used in our act includes all functionally integrated components of a single manufacturing unit, particularly in light of the fact that the Alabama Act, like the Wisconsin Act, St.1939, § 108.04, omits the words 'factory, or other premises' found in many other state acts in addition to the word 'establishment', and uses only the word 'establishment.' In this connection it should be noted that at least one court has taken the view that the words 'factory', 'establishment,' or 'other premises' as used in its Unemployment Compensation Act, Laws Alaska 1937, Ex.Sess., c. 4, as amended, were ejusdem generis, and that the principle of noscitur a sociis applies. See Aragon case, 9 Cir., 149 F.2d 447.

The facts upon which the Wisconsin Court [236 Wis. 240, 295 N.W. 3], found the two plants to be a single 'establishment' are as follows:

'The employer is a Maryland corporation and is engaged in, among other things, the manufacture of automobiles. It has a body plant in Milwaukee and an assembly plant at Kenosha. The employe worked at the Milwaukee plant.

'The Milwaukee plant is devoted exclusively to the manufacture of bodies for the several models of the employer's cars. The Kenosha plant is devoted exclusively to the manufacture of parts other than bodies, and to the assembly of the completed cars. There are no other plants of the employer engaged in automobile manufacture.

'Ninety-eight per cent of the cars are built against specific orders. Because of the numerous possible combinations in model, color, trim, accessories, etc., it is necessary that production schedules be carefully planned in advance. Accordingly...