Little Rock Furniture Mfg. Co. v. Commissioner of Labor, 5-1120

• Decision Date: 04 February 1957
• Docket Number: No. 5-1120,5-1120
• Citation: Little Rock Furniture Mfg. Co. v. Commissioner of Labor, 298 S.W.2d 56, 227 Ark. 288 (Ark. 1957)
• Parties: LITTLE ROCK FURNITURE MANUFACTURING COMPANY, Appellant, v. COMMISSIONER OF LABOR, C. R. Thornbrough, et al., Appellees.
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

Page 56

298 S.W.2d 56

227 Ark. 288

LITTLE ROCK FURNITURE MANUFACTURING COMPANY, Appellant, v.COMMISSIONER OF LABOR, C. R. Thornbrough, et al., Appellees.

No. 5-1120.

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

Feb. 4, 1957.

Moore, Burrow, Chowning & Mitchell, Little Rock, for appellant.

Luke Arnett and McMath, Leatherman & Woods, Little Rock, for appellees.

McFADDIN, Justice.

This is an appeal from a judgment of the Circuit Court in two consolidated cases involving claims arising under the Employment Security Act, § 81-1101 et seq.,Ark.Stats.The questions presented in the two cases are materially different, so we refer to the cases by the numbers in the Circuit Court.

Circuit CourtCase No. 41167.

On October 14, 1953, certain employees of the appellant, Little Rock Furniture Manufacturing Company(hereinafter called 'Company'), went on strike and established a picket line.Among such strikers were the fifty-five workers ¹--hereinafter called 'claimants'--who are appellees in this Court.C. R. Thornbrough, as Commissioner of Labor, is also an appellee.The strike was called by the Labor Union, in an effort to obtain certain desired economic benefits.So far as the record here shows, the strike was not in violation of any contract.On October 23, 1953, the Company notified all the claimants by letter that work would be resumed on November 2nd and claimants' places would be filled by other workers on that date.The Company did resume work on November 2nd.

On November 27th the Union called off the strike; and on November 30th the strikers returned for work.Some of the strikers were used, but these fifty-five claimants were not put back to work because their jobs had been filled.Claimants then filed application for unemployment benefits accruing after November 30th, when they had sought to return to work.The claims are under the Employment Security Act, which is § 81-1001 et seq., Ark.Stats. and amendments to and including ActNo. 162 of 1953--but, of course, not including ActNo. 395 of 1955, because the claims were filed in November, 1953.Therefore, our decision in this case is governed by the law that was in force in November, 1953.

The Company, in resisting the efforts of the claimants to obtain unemployment benefits, insisted that the claimants had voluntarily left their work when they went on strike and were disqualified from drawing benefits for ten weeks after the filing of the claims.The Company relied on § 81-1106(a), as amended by§ 3 of ActNo. 162 of 1953, which section, with amendment, reads:

'If so found by the Commissioner, an individual shall be disqualified for benefits: (a) if he voluntarily and without good cause connected with the work, left his last work.Such disqualification shall be for ten weeks of unemployment as defined in Subsection 'i' of this section.'

The Company contended that each of these fifty-five claimants, voluntarily and without good cause, went on strike and should therefore be disqualified for ten weeks from November 30, 1953, the date each sought to return to work.The supervisor of the local office of the Employment Security Division held the claimants to be so disqualified; and claimants appealed.The Appeal Tribunal (a hearing agency set up under § 81-1107 of the Employment Security Act) held that the ten weeks' disqualification provision did not apply to a worker who went out on strike; reasoning that when such worker offered to return to work and could not obtain employment, he was entitled to the unemployment benefits without the ten weeks' disqualification provision applying to him.The Board of Review, § 81-1107, Ark.Stats., affirmed the holding of the Appeal Tribunal; the Company sought judicial review under § 81-1107(d)(7);the Circuit Court agreed with the administrative holding; and the case is here on appeal.So the issue in Circuit CourtCase No. 41167 is whether the ten weeks' disqualification under § 81-1106, Ark.Stats. applies to a person who engaged in a labor dispute and later ended the strike and sought to return to work.

We emphasize that this case does not involve any claim for benefits during the time the workers were on strike.It involves only claims for benefits after the strike had been ended and the claimants tried to go back to work.As the law existed at the time this case arose, § 81-1106(d) related to disqualifications in labor disputes, ² and § 81-1106(a) related to one who voluntarily left work.Our original Employment Security Act was ActNo. 155 of 1937.It has frequently been amended.Many states have comparable acts.These are listed following § 81-1101 in the Annotated Volume of Arkansas Statutes.The purpose of all of such Employment Security Acts is an effort to afford compensation under some circumstances to a covered worker who is unemployed.Section 81-1101, Ark.Stats. gives the declaration of state public policy regarding our Act, and is worthy of study.In § 81-1102 of the Actthe Legislature declared its intention to provide for the carrying out of the purposes of the Act in cooperation with the appropriate agencies of other states and of the Federal Government.The Act must be given an interpretation in keeping with the declaration of state policy.

Some states hold that when a worker goes out on a strike he has 'voluntarily left his work' and so is subject to the disqualification period (varying in weeks from state to state).For cases so holding, see: Walgreen Co. v. Murphy, 386 Ill. 32, 53 N.E.2d 390;Baker v. Powhatan Mining Co., 146 Ohio St. 600, 67 N.E.2d 714;and see also cases collected inSec. 3 of the Annotation in 28 A.L.R.2d 294.

Other states hold that the spirit of the Act is not to penalize a worker who follows the Union's orders and goes on a strike, but to afford such worker unemployment benefits when he offers to return to work and is unable to find it.In other words, when he offers to return to work and can find no work, he then becomes involuntarily unemployed.For cases looking in this direction, see: T. R. Miller Mill v. Johns, 261 Ala. 615, 75 So.2d 675;M. A. Ferst, Ltd. v. Huiet, 78 Ga.App. 855, 52[227 Ark. 292] S.E.2d 336;Intertown Corp. v. Appeal Board, 328 Mich. 363, 43 N.W.2d 888;andGreat A. & P. Tea Co. v. New Jersey Dept., 29 N.J.Super. 26, 101 A.2d 573.

A careful study of § 81-1106, Ark.Stats. convinces us that this case should be affirmed.This § 81-1106 is the section disqualifying an individual from benefits.The section consists of eight subdivisions, lettered (a) to (h), inclusive, and we hold that each sub-division is mutually exclusive.In other words, if a person is disqualified from benefits under Sub-division (b) of § 81-1106, he cannot again be disqualified for the same conduct under Sub-division (a) of § 81-1106.In the case at bar, the claimants were disqualified under Sub-division (d) of § 81-1106, which is the section relating to labor disputes: they could not also be again disqualified under Sub-division (a) of § 81-1106 when they offered to return to work.The case of T. R. Miller Mill Co. v. Johns, 261 Ala. 615, 75 So.2d 675, 680, is in point.Section A of the Alabama Employment Security Act, Code 1940, Tit. 26, § 214, contained the provision on disqualification in labor disputes and Section B contained the provision as to disqualification of the worker 'if he has left his employment voluntarily without good cause connected with such work'.The Alabana Court held that one suffering disqualification under Section A was not to be further disqualified under Section B, saying:

'We note that subsec.A provides that the disqualification contained therein is to continue so long as the labor dispute is in active progress in the establishment.The conclusion seems necessarily to follow that when the dispute is settled the disqualification ceases.It thus appears that it contains all of the disabilities that the legislature intended to impose because of a labor dispute.Subsec.B then appears to be without the influence of the conditions of disqualification set out in subsec.A and stipulates for disqualification under other and different conditions.Such seems to be the explicit holding of the Michigan case of Intertown Corp. v. Appeal Board of Michigan Unemployment Commission, 328 Mich. 363, 43 N.W.2d 888, 890.'

When the claimants offered to return to work on November 30th, they removed themselves from the disqualification of Sub-division (d) of § 81-1006 and thereby became involuntarily unemployed and should not be subject to the ten weeks' disqualification under Sub-division (a) of § 81-1106.So the judgment in Circuit CourtCase No. 41167 is affirmed.

Circuit CourtCase No. 42261.

The question in this case is one of procedure: that is, which party had the burden of going forward with the proof on the issue of availability of claimants under the state of the record existing, when the Board of Review sent that issue back to the Appeal Tribunal for further determination.In an effort to clarify the situation presented, we sketch in the numbered paragraphs, I to VIII below, the procedure ³ that was followed in this case in the handling of the unemployment claims:

I.Each worker filed a claim for unemployment benefits according to the procedure set out in § 81-1107(b).An individual record was made for each claimant.

II.The examiner (in this case Mr. Ritchie, the supervisor of the local office of the Employment Security Division) made a determination of each claim pursuant to § 81-1107(c).The supervisor disqualified each claimant under § 81-1106(a)(for voluntarily quitting work), as previously stated.

III.Each claimant, being dissatisfied with the determination so made by Mr. Ritchie, appealed his claim to the Appeal Tribunal, set up under § 81-1107(d)(1) and (2).Testimony was taken ⁴ at the hearing before the Appeal Tribunal.A number of witnesses testified, and the hearing covered not only the disqualification under § 81-1106(a), but also the question...