Horsman Dolls Inc. v. State Unemployment Comp. Comm'n

• Decision Date: 13 April 1945
• Docket Number: No. 210.,210.
• Citation: 133 N.J.L. 11,42 A.2d 777
• Parties: HORSMAN DOLLS, Inc., v. STATE UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION COMMISSION et al.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

133 N.J.L. 11

42 A.2d 777

HORSMAN DOLLS, Inc.,

v.STATE UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION COMMISSION et al.

No. 210.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

April 13, 1945.

Certiorari by Horsman Dolls, Inc., against the State of New Jersey Unemployment Compensation Commission and others to review an order by the Commission removing proceeding from referee to Director of Commission.

Order set aside.

Syllabus by the Court.

Under the ‘Unemployment Compensation Law’ P.L.1936 c. 270, R.S. 43:21-1 et seq., N.J.S.A. where there has been a reference to a ‘salaried examiner’, sometimes called a ‘referee’, to determine the contribution rate, such reference is irrevocable.

January term, 1945, before PARKER and COLIE, JJ.

Samuel Kaufman, of Newark, for prosecutor.

Herman D. Ringle, of New Brunswick, for defendants.

PARKER, Justice.

The writ brings up for review ‘a certain order’ rendered on July 14, 1944 by the Unemployment Compensation Commission of the State of New Jersey in relation to the matter entitled ‘In the Matter of Horsman Dolls, Inc. then pending before William C. Nowels, Referee of the State of New Jersey Unemployment Compensation Commission.’ The reasons filed are twenty-four in number, but need not be reproduced at length. The history of the case shortly stated is, that the Compensation Commission, in the execution of its duties under the statute, P.L.1936 c. 270, R.S. 43:21-1 et seq., N.J.S.A., established a contribution rate for the prosecutor corporation for 1942. Prosecutor protested the rate and applied for a hearing in the usual manner, and the Commission, pursuant to its own regulations, sent the matter to a ‘referee’. The statute does not seem to provide for a ‘referee’ by that name, but does provide for a ‘salaried examiner’; and the power to make such appointment is not the subject of any attack here. The question for decision seems to be whether, in cases like the present one, a reference to the referee is irrevocable. We answer it in the affirmative. For the defendants, reference is made to the Commission's ‘Regulations and Rules relating to Referee and Commission Hearings' which contains this sentence: ‘The Executive Director or the Commission may remove to himself or itself for determination, any proceeding before a Referee.’ The question then arises, whether the statute has endowed the Commission with power to make that regulation. We answer it in the negative. If such power exist it must be derived from R.S. 43:21-6(e), N.J.S.A., a...