Chrysler Corp. v. California Employment Stabilization Commission

• Decision Date: 10 February 1953
• Citation: 116 Cal.App.2d 8,253 P.2d 68
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: CHRYSLER CORP. v. CALIFORNIA EMPLOYMENT STABILIZATION COMMISSION et al. Civ. 19273.

Page 68

253 P.2d 68

116 Cal.App.2d 8

CHRYSLER CORP. v. CALIFORNIA EMPLOYMENT STABILIZATION COMMISSION et al.

Civ. 19273.

District Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 2, California.

Feb. 10, 1953.

Rehearing Denied March 6, 1953.

Hearing Denied April 8, 1953.

Edmund G. Brown, Atty. Gen., Irving H. Perluss, Asst. Atty. Gen., William L. Shaw and Vincent P. Lafferty, Deputy Attys. Gen., for appellants.

Wright, Wright, Green & Wright, Loyd Wright and Charles A. Loring, Los Angeles, for petitioner.

FOX, Justice.

The judgment appealed from vacated the decision of the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board granting unemployment insurance benefits to certain claimants, employees of petitioner, and directed the insurance of a writ of mandate ordering that all charges made to or against the account of petitioner because of such payments be removed from the books of the California Employment Stabilization Commission.

Petitioner manufactures and sells automobiles. Its domicile and principal factory are in Michigan. One of its assembly plants is at Los Angeles where the claimants are employed. In April, 1949, they applied to the Department of Employment for unemployment benefits on the ground that they had been laid off by petitioner. The latter protested the granting of the claims on the ground that they had left their employment because of a trade dispute. The Department of Employment ruled claimants were eligible for unemployment benefits. This decision was upheld by a Referee and the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board. Thereupon, petitioner sued out a writ of mandate in the court below where the controversy was submitted on the record of the administrative tribunal.

The trial court made independent findings of fact based on the administrative record prepared by the Commission. In the main these findings are largely in accord with those made by the administrative officers as far as the objective circumstances resulting in the claimants' loss of employment are concerned. However, the trial court included a crucial finding, not only absent from the written opinion of the Appeals Board but diamentrically opposed to its determination, that the claimants were, in effect, responsible for their own unemployment and hence disqualified from receiving benefit payments.

Petitioner employs both union and non-union workers in its Los Angeles plant. All of petitioner's employees are divided into four separate groups for the purpose of bargaining collectively, to wit: (1) production and maintenance workers; (2) engineers; (3) office workers; (4) cafeteria workers. The International Union, United Automobile, Aircraft and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (hereinafter referred to as the UAW), an affiliate of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (C.I.O.), is the collective bargaining agent for each of the categories of workers above named. The four groups of workers employed by petitioner at its Los Angeles plant are represented by Local 230 of the UAW, although in other geographical areas where there is a greater concentration of workers each group is represented by separate local organizations of the same union. All of the claimants for benefits here involved are office workers, some of them members of Local 230, the rest non-members. The office workers' unit of Local 230 was the bargaining agent for all such workers, union and non-union. Each of the four groups of workers had entered into separate bargaining agreements with petitioner, although each agreement was negotiated through the National Negotiating Committee of the UAW, which committee is the representative negotiating agency of all petitioner's employees.

In June, 1949, the labor relations between petitioner and its employees were governed by its written agreement with the UAW dated April 26, 1947, as amended May 28, 1948. On June 23, 1949, the UAW, through its representative, Mr. Norman Mathews, Director, National Chrysler Department of the said union, served upon petitioner at its head office in Detroit, Michigan, written demands for changes in the basic labor agreement between petitioner and employees in behalf of all the individual categories of workers, including the claimants herein. Petitioner's refusal to accede to these demands engendered a labor dispute involving protracted negotiations. Under the provisions of the constitution of the UAW, such negotiations are conducted between the National Negotiating Committee of said union and the particular employer affected. The National Negotiating Committee, in its bargaining conferences with petitioner, consisted of the presidents of all the local unions within petitioner's establishments across the nation, including the president of Local 230, and was headed by Mr. Mathews in his capacity as director, National Chrysler Department. The negotiations having proved abortive, the National Negotiating Committee recommended that a vote be taken among the membership of the various local unions to determine whether or not the members would strike if called upon to do so at the discretion of the UAW in support of the demands made upon petitioner. On August 16, 1949, the production worker members and office worker members of Local 230 (as well as the other categories) voted, by secret ballot, to strike petitioner's Los Angeles plant if requested to take such action by the UAW. This same decision was reached by members of all other locals of the said union employed in petitioner's plants throughout the United States.

Negotiations between the parties continued sporadically until January 23, 1950, at which time the National Chrysler Conference and the National Negotiating Committee arrived at a determination that, as a matter of strike strategy and policy, only the production workers would be directed to strike, while the office workers would remain at their jobs together with other units of petitioner's employees. This recommendation was approved and adopted by the Executive Board of the UAW on January 24, 1950, and its decision was immediately reported to the various local unions of the organization. On the same day on which it was advised of the Executive Board's strike policy, office worker members of Local 230 attended a general meeting where they voted to conform to and abide by this decision. On January 25, 1950, the production workers employed by petitioner, acting in pursuance of the Executive Board's policy decision, went out on strike until the settlement of the dispute on May 4, 1950. The office workers as a group continued to work for petitioner, passing through the picket lines established by the production workers at the main gate of petitioner's plant. The petitioner untilized the services of the office workers both to complete work already undertaken and in expectation of an early settlement of the dispute, but within three weeks after the production workers launched their strike, there occurred a gradual diminution of work for the office personnel. Finally, on or about April 19, 1950, petitioner notified its office workers that as a consequence of the strike, operations had been paralyzed at the Los Angeles plant and advised them that their services were no longer required because of a lack of work. Some of the claimants testified that for some weeks before April 19, 1950, operations had been so drastically curtailed that they sat around either in idleness or engaged in knitting to occupy their time.

The strike against petitioner, which was concluded on or about May 4, 1950, with both sides agreeing to new contracts, was intended to procure broad economic benefits for all groups of its employees. Each category of worker had a direct interest in the outcome of the strike, and the contracts negotiated in behalf of each bargaining group, as a prelude to the termination of the production workers' strike, contained changes which were practically identical in terms and resulted in substantially similar benefits.

As already appears, the trial court, in making findings of fact in consonance with the narrative of events set forth above, made the additional finding that all of the claimants (exclusively office workers) had voluntarily participated in a trade dispute with petitioner and had engaged in conduct which set in motion a chain of events culminating in the closing of petitioner's Los Angeles plant, thus causing their own unemployment. The court found further that as a result of their actions in connection with the trade dispute, the claimants had left their work within the meaning of section 56(a) of the Unemployment Insurance Act, Gen.Laws, Act 8780d, and were therefore ineligible for benefits under said act. The court, thereupon, granted a writ of mandate which in effect vacated the decision of the Appeals Board and directed that all charges made to the petitioner's account because of its award of benefits to claimants be stricken.

In determining the merits of this appeal, we are confronted with three questions requiring separate consideration: (1) was the trial court entitled to exercise its independent judgment on all the evidence before the administrative tribunal; (2) did the court correctly determine that the union office workers are excluded from benefits under section 56(a) of the Unemployment Insurance Act; (3) was the court correct in its decision that the non-union office workers left their employment because of a trade dispute with reference to section 56(a) of the aforesaid act?

Appellants contend that the trial court was without power to reweigh the evidence; that under the restricted review procedure outlined in section 1094.5, Code of Civil Procedure, the court is confined to the question of whether the Appeals Board's decision is supported by substantial evidence. While this question has been enshrouded in some uncertainty, some of the doubt as to the scope of review by the trial court over the decisions of the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board in a mandate...