Aluminum Co. of America v. Walker

• Decision Date: 07 October 1960
• Citation: 340 S.W.2d 898,207 Tenn. 417,11 McCanless 417
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court
• Parties: , 207 Tenn. 417 ALUMINUM COMPANY OF AMERICA and L. B. Jennings, Commissioner of the Department of Employment Security, v. Fred M. WALKER, Thomas E. Anderson, Frank A. Gray, James R. Bradburn and James H. Steele.

Page 898

340 S.W.2d 898

11 McCanless 417, 207 Tenn. 417

ALUMINUM COMPANY OF AMERICA and L. B. Jennings, Commissioner of the Department of Employment Security, v. Fred M. WALKER, Thomas E. Anderson, Frank A. Gray, James R.

Bradburn and James H. Steele.

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

Oct. 7, 1960.

Franklin J. McVeigh, E. H. Rayson, R. R. Kramer, Knoxville, Kramer, Dye, McNabb & Greenwood, Knoxville, of counsel, for Aluminum Company of America.

W. L. Moore, Chief Counsel, and W. D. Dodson, Asst. Chief Counsel, Nashville, for appellant, L. B. Jennings, etc.

Thomas N. Crawford, Jr., Birmingham, Ala., D. H. Rosier, Jr., Maryville, Cooper, Mitch, Black & Crawford, Birmingham, Ala., Williams, Harwell, Howser & Thomas, Nashville, of counsel, for appellees.

TOMLINSON, Justice.

This is a suit by five employees of the Aluminum Company of America for unemployment compensation benefits claimed by virtue of the Employment Security Law carried in the Code commencing at section 50-1301. The claims were disallowed by the Board of Review because of the refusal of these employees to accept jobs offered them. Several renewals of the offers were declined. The Chancellor reversed on the ground that the jobs offered were not suitable within the meaning of the Employment Security Law. The Aluminum Company bases its appeal on the proposition that material evidence supports the conclusion of the Board; hence, that the Chancellor violated the statute, (T.C.A. Sec. 50-1325, subd. I) in setting aside that order, with the exception of one item hereinafter acted upon.

These men were laid off for lack of work in the job which each was then doing. At the time of the lay-off each was offered the next best available job in his employer's plant for which he was qualified. Each of these jobs was classified as 'laborer' except one classified as 'potroom helper', which, in reality, is a laborer. Each of the offered jobs paid approximately $80 per week, while the job from which each had been laid off carried a weekly compensation of from $30 to $50 more.

All of these men started some years back with the Company as laborers. Three of of them had progressed in their respective departments at the time of the lay-off from that classification to that of first class electrician; one, battery attendant; and the fifth, truck repair man.

The employees of the Company were members of a certain Union. They were all working under a contract entered into in their behalf by this Union as their bargaining agent with the Aluminum Company as employer. A provision of that contract dealing with a recall of employees who had been laid off for lack of work provides as follows:

"If an employee is unemployed at the time of his recall, he is eligible for recall in his own job classification in any department of the Company on the basis of his seniority.

"If a laid off employee accepts work in a department, other than his own he is eligible for recall to his own job classification, on the basis of seniority, only in his own department."

The meaning of that provision is that so long as these electricians remained idle they had a chance of being recalled as electricians in any of the various departments of the Company where such a job became open and their employee status was such that they were in line for it. And likewise so it was with the battery attendant and the truck repair man. On the other hand, under the above quoted provision of the contract, which the appellees characterize a 'peculiar' provision, if any of these five employees had accepted the job of laborer offered him he would not have been eligible for recall to a job in his old classification in any department of the Company except the department in which he was working at the time he was laid off.

A proper conclusion from the evidence is that this was the reason each of these five men refused, and continued to refuse, the job as a laborer. The brief submitted in their behalf seems to concede that to be the cause of their respective rejections of these offers. Here is what this brief says as to that:

'Suppose claimants, severally or jointly, had accepted the offered job of laborer. These first-class electricians might still be performing 'laboring' work or no work at all. This follows from the peculiar provisions of the Union contract agreed to by the parties. * * *

* * *

* * *

'Claimants--by keeping their seniority intact--were in effect insuring their chances of working and, by like token, reducing, their chances of suffering future lay-offs as junior man no longer holding seniority. * * *'

T.C.A. Sec. 50-1324, subd. C. (1) provides that in determining whether the work offered is suitable for the individual 'his length of unemployment and prospects for securing local work in his customary occupation, and the distance of the available work from his residence' shall be considered. The evidence in this case permits a finding that there were no prospects at the time these men were laid off of securing local work in the particular occupation in which each was engaged at the time he was laid off, or within a reasonable distance from his residence. Nor did it appear that such jobs would open up in the reasonable future. Therefore, material evidence supports the Board's finding that the work offered at the time of the lay-off and at the time of the subsequent offers was 'suitable' work. It must be kept in mind that 'the officers or boards charged with the duty of determining whether or not work is suitable for a claimant are given much latitude in making their determination.' 81 C.J.S. Social Security and Public Welfare Sec. 201, p. 297, citing cases.

T.C.A. Sec. 50-1324, subd. C. provides that an individual shall be disqualified for benefits 'if the commissioner finds that he has failed, without good cause, * * * to accept suitable work when offered him'. An insistence made in behalf of these five appellees is...