Minor Walton Bean Co. v. Mich. Unemployment Comp. Comm'n

• Decision Date: 17 May 1944
• Docket Number: No. 97.,97.
• Citation: 14 N.W.2d 524,308 Mich. 636
• Parties: MINOR WALTON BEAN CO. v. MICHIGAN UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION COMMISSION et al.
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

308 Mich. 636

14 N.W.2d 524

MINOR WALTON BEAN CO.

v.MICHIGAN UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION COMMISSION et al.

No. 97.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

May 17, 1944.

Certiorari proceeding by the Minor Walton Bean Company against the Michigan Unemployment Compensation Commission to review a decision that the plaintiff came within the requirements of the Michigan Unemployment Compensation Act and was not exempt from paying the tax thereunder. From a judgment in favor of the plaintiff, the defendants appeal.

Reversed.

STARR, J., NORTH, C. J., and BOYLES, J., dissenting.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Eaton County; Archie D. McDonald, judge.

Before the Entire Bench.

Herbert J. Rushton, Atty. Gen., Edmund E. Shepherd, Sol. Gen., and Frank Day Smith, of Lansing, Florence Clement Booth, and Daniel J. O'Hara, Asst. Attys. Gen., for appellants.

Stanley H. Raidle and William P. Smith, both of Charlotte, for appellee.

WIEST, Justice.

I do not entertain the opinion expressed by Mr. Justice STARR.

The status of the employee of the elevator company is to be determined as of 1940 under the provisions of Act No. 324, Pub.Acts 1939, effective June 22, 1939, wholly unaffected by subsequent legislative amendment, Federal statute of Federal departmental or bureau holding.

If a farmer sells his crop of beans as the same come from the threshing machine and is paid the value thereof by a purchasing elevator company, is such purchaser, and his employee, in preparing the beans for resale, engaged in labor ‘incident to ordinary farming operations,’ or agricultural labor? The fact that a deduction, if any, in price paid the farmer, is figured by the purchaser to meet the expense of sorting the beans and thus render the smae marketable, is that an incident of ordinary farming operations or agricultural labor?

In the instance at bar the bean company bought and owned the beans, and labor thereafter, thereon, was by an employee of the company in behalf of its commercial industry and in no sense an incident to ordinary farming operations or agricultural labor.

The beneficent purposes of the Unemployment Compensation Act should be fulfilled so far as its provisions permit without strained construction.

Old-time, simple home methods have long since been supplanted by modern commercial methods and industrial progress.

The Michigan legislature, even if right in adopting Federal nomenclature of employment, did not and could not subject the act to future congressional action or subsequent Federal bureau construction for, to do so, would render the act not that of State will and determination but that of a body wholly foreign in point of law to State legislative power and sovereignty.

Upon this point, in Colony Town Club v. Michigan Unemployment Comp. Comm., 301 Mich. 107, 3 N.W.2d 28, 31, an opinion by Mr. Justice Boyles, was stated in no uncertain terms the opinion of this court, and we quote the following from that case:

‘Appellant further contends that the decision of the commissioner of internal revenue is final and binding because of an amendment to that effect added to the Michigan statute by the 1939 legislature. This amendment Act No. 324, § 42, Pub. Acts 1939 [Comp. Laws Supp. 1940, § 8485-82], Stat.Ann. 1940 Cum.Supp. § 17.545 provides:

“(7) The term ‘employment’ shall not include: * * *

“(n) Any service not included as ‘employment’ under title 9 of the social security act.'

‘This amendment, if given the construction claimed for it by appellant, is unconstitutional in that it attempts to delegate to a Federal agency the final decision regarding the interpretation and construction to be placed upon a State statute. It would make the decision of the commissioner of internal revenue as to who is entitled to exemption from paying the Michigan tax, conclusive and binding upon the Michigan unemployment compensation commission, the appeal board, and the State courts. Such authority cannot be delegated by the legislature.’ (citing many cases).

There was a time when the farmer sheared his sheep and the housewife carded the fleece and made homespun cloth but that is of long-time past. The farmer now sells the fleece to enter the channels of commerce and industry and it would be a far cry to hold that commercial weaving of cloth is an incident in the ordinary course of farming or agricultural labor. Many other examples might be recited where the old-time methods have been entirely supplanted by modern commercial and industrial enterprise. The present day regulations as to navy beans, in grading and other requirements, in fitting the same for market recognize the commercial and industrial side and not the agricultural or production side of the matter.

In the instance at bar, beans were purchased by the elevator company for the purpose of resale upon the purchaser complying with public regulations in culling, grading and fitting the same for market.

Modern commercial and industrial enterprises gave need to regulations wholly apart from any thought of agricultural labor and the holdings connecting such labor with farm labor have a basis of reasoning too tenuous for me to adopt.

It may be well at this point to quote the statute involved in this case:

‘(7) The term ‘employment’ shall not include: * * *

‘(d) Labor performed on a farm by an employee of the owner or tenant of the farm in connection with the cultivation of the soil and harvesting of crops or the raising and feeding of livestock, bees, and poultry, or in connection with the packing, packaging, transportation or marketing of these materials or articles when carried on as an incident to ordinary farming operations.’ § 42.

There may have been a time when a farmer raised a few beans and handpicked the same around the home table winter evenings but, in modern times, on the advent of the threshing machine in place of the flail, under the commercial demand for Michigan beans, the home method has gone the way of wool carding and home spinning, and the cleaning of beans has become an industry, wholly apart from being an incident of ordinary farming operations.

Upon the subject here involved, see National Labor Relations Board v. Tovrea Packing Co., 9 Cir., 111 F.2d 626, where the packing company's employees, working in a feed mill and feeding pens adjacent to the packing plant, were held not agricultural laborers.

Latimer v. United States, D.C., 1943, 52 F.Supp. 228, workers were engaged in washing, grading, packing, selling, marketing and shipping citrus fruits purchased outright from growers.

Bowie v. Gonzalez, 1 Cir., 117 F.2d 11, processing sugar cane, held the practice, in order to be included within the term ‘agriculture,’ must be performed by a farmer as an incident to farm operations.

H. Duys & Co. v. Tone, 125 Conn. 300, 5 A.2d 23, warehouse purchasing from growers, tobacco in the leaf and processing the same for market.

Cowiche Growers, Inc., v. Bates, 10 Wash.2d 585, 117 P.2d 624, washing, sorting, packing and storing fresh fruits for market.

Chester C. Fosgate Co. v. United States, 5 Cir., 125 F.2d 775, processing and marketing fruit by employees of a purchasing company, was held not agricultural labor. See, also, North Whittier Heights Citrus Ass'n v. National Labor Relations Board, 9 Cir., 109 F.2d 76, certiorari denied 310 U.S. 632, S.Ct. 1075,84 L.Ed. 1402.

I hold that where a farmer raises a field of beans and, when threshed, takes the machine run to an elevator, receives pay for the same, the elevator stores the beans with many other like purchases, later cleans them for market and, in this industrial process, employs workmen, as a matter of law, his workmen, so employed, are not engaged in farm or agricultural labor. The judgment should be reversed, with costs to appellant.

BUTZEL, BUSHNELL, SHARPE, and REID, JJ., concurred with WIEST. J.

STARR, Justice (dissenting).

Upon review by certiorari the trial court entered judgment which reversed a decision of the appeal board of defendant commission, and determined that claimant Ina L. D. Willis, an employee of plaintiff company, was not entitled to unemployment compensation benefits. Defendant commission appeals from such judgment.

Plaintiff, a Michigan corporation, was engaged in the bean business and operated an elevator in the city of Charlotte. It purchased dry edible beans from farmers, which, when delivered to plaintiff, were usually of ‘thresh run’ quality, that is, in the same condition as they came from the threshing machines. The price paid to farmers was on the basis of choice, handpicked beans, and the beans were tested to determine what amount should be deducted for dockage to bring them to that basis. Beans purchased were commingled together and were then passed through various processing operations to establish grades.

Claimant Willis was employed by plaintiff during 1940 as a ‘bean picker.’ Her work was the removal of culls, off-color beans, and foreign substances from the beans as they passed before her on a conveyer belt. For her work on so-called small-belt machines she was paid 7 cents a pound for the amount of tare or pickage she removed from the beans; for her work on large-belt machines she was paid 25 cents an hour. The tare or pickage was sold to farmers for feed or given away.

Claimant's employment was terminated in March, 1941, and in April of that year she filed claim for benefits under the Michigan Unemployment Compensation Act, Act No. 1, Pub. Acts 1936, Ex.Sess., as amended by Act No. 347, Pub. Acts 1937, and Act No. 324, Pub. Acts 1939, Comp. Laws Supp. 1940, § 8485-41 et seq., Stat.Ann.1940 Cum. Supp. § 17.501 et seq. (later amended by Act No. 364, Pub. Acts 1941, Act No. 18, Pub. Acts 1942, 2d Ex.Sess., and Act No. 246, Pub. Acts 1943). On May 9, 1941, her claim was denied by the commission, and on reconsideration was again denied on June 11, 1941. On appeal a referee of the commission reversed the former ruling and determined that she was entitled to unemployed benefits. Plaintiff appealed from...