John Bath & Co. v. Com.

• Decision Date: 30 October 1964
• Citation: 202 N.E.2d 249,348 Mass. 78
• Parties: JOHN BATH & COMPANY, Inc., et al. v. COMMONWEALTH.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

Page 249

202 N.E.2d 249

348 Mass. 78

JOHN BATH & COMPANY, Inc., et al. v. COMMONWEALTH.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

Argued Oct. 7, 1964.

Decided Oct. 30, 1964.

Francis P. o'Connor, Boston, for petitioners.

Warren K. Kaplan, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen. (James W. Bailey, Asst. Atty. Gen., with him), for the Commonwealth.

Before WILKINS, C. J., and SPALDING, WHITTEMORE, CUTTER, KIRK, SPIEGEL, and REARDON, JJ.

WHITTEMORE, Justice.

The petitioners for writ of error, John Bath & Company, Inc., and Allan W. Bath, its vice-president, seek to have set aside judgments of the Superior Court of May 7, 1962, holding them in contempt for discharging an employee for refusing to work while on jury service. The case was reserved and reported by a single justice.

The complaints for contempt are entitled 'Complaint Contempt of Court under G.L. c. 268, § 14A.' This statute provides: 'No person shall be discharged from or deprived of his employment because of his attendance or service as a grand or traverse juror in any court. Violation of this section by an employer shall be a contempt of the court upon which such person is or has been in attendance or in which he is or has been serving as a grand or traverse juror, and such employer may be prosecuted upon complaint verified upon oath and be punished for such contempt.'

The return includes the findings and rulings of the judge of the Superior Court. Ronald K. Larson, the discharged employee, reported for jury service in Worcester on April 2, 1962, having theretofore told his foreman of the call for jury duty. The jury session was to continue to May 4, 1962. On the evening of April 3, the foreman directed Larson to report for work between the hours of 7:30 A.M. and 9:15 A.M. each day during his jury service. Larson replied in substance that the circumstances did not permit this and declined to comply. On April 5, Larson received by registered mail a letter on the letterhead of the corporation signed by Bath as 'Vice President--Mfg.' directing him, on penalty of disciplinary action or discharge, to report for work as ordered by the foreman. There followed two conversations between Larson and Bath, in each of which the direction under penalty of discharge was repeated and Larson protested his inability to comply. The second of these conversations was in the presence of labor union officials at the company plant on April 19. On April 23, Larson received another registered letter from Bath as 'Vice President--Mfg.' notifying him of his discharge for 'repeated insubordination' in failing to obey directions 'to report for work mornings from 7:30 A.M.--9:15 A.M. while serving on jury duty.'

Larson's place of employment was three miles from the court house in Worcester and about seven miles from his home in Millbury. His workday began at 7:30 A.M. Normally he operated a grinding machine and was subjected to a considerable spattering of oil and an oil mist from the flow of lubricating oil upon the grinding wheel. After any appreciable working time, Larson had oil on his shoes, clothes, and person. There were at the plant no bathing facilities and only limited washing facilities available for employees' use. Hot water was seldom provided.

The judge found that Larson could not have reasonably been expected adequately to perform both his jury duty and the employment requirements and that, under all the circumstances, the conditions imposed by the employer were unreasonable He stated the view that jurors must be free of compulsory nonjury assignments under threat of discharge inasmuch as any such assignment might interfere with the juror's availability or his peace of mind. The judge construed the statute as a command to those individuals within the corporation who act for it and ruled that the contempt of the corporation was Bath's contempt also. He ruled that the violation of the statute by the petitioners was derogatory of the proper administration of justice. The judge found that both petitioners had wilfully violated the statute.

The review is limited to questions of law apparent on the record. New England Novelty Co. Inc. v. Sandberg, 315 Mass. 739, 747-748, 57 N.E.2d 915, and cases cited (cert. den. 323 U.S. 740, 65 S.Ct. 63, 89 L.Ed. 593; rehearing den. 323 U.S. 815, 65 S.Ct. 128, 89 L.Ed. 648). Hansen v. Commonwealth, 344 Mass. 214, 222, 181 N.E.2d 843. No error is shown.

The petitioners contend that the subsidiary findings show that Larson was discharged for insubordination rather than because of his 'attendance or service' as a juror, so that it was error in law to find violation of the statute. They ask us, in effect, as we understand their position, to rule that there was in the requirement that Larson work each day before going to court no necessary interference with jury duty, that it is inferable that the requirement would have been reasonably enforced by the employer so as not to cause any such interference, and that Larson's refusal to comply was not because of anticipated inability, but rather because of an unreasonable insistence on jury duty as an excuse for not working.

The issue, however, is not whether the employee might have worked each morning without impairing his effectiveness as a juror. The issue, as we view it, is whether the work requirements imposed upon the employee risked impairment of that effectiveness. Imposition of such risk was an interference with a...