Saunders v. Maryland Unemployment Compensation Bd.

• Citation: 53 A.2d 579,188 Md. 677
• Decision Date: 11 June 1947
• Docket Number: 159.
• Parties: SAUNDERS v. MARYLAND UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION BOARD et al.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

53 A.2d 579

188 Md. 677

SAUNDERS v. MARYLAND UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION BOARD et al.

No. 159.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

June 11, 1947

Appeal from Superior Court of Baltimore City; John T. Tucker, Judge.

Harold D. Saunders employed by Bethlehem Steel Company filed a claim with the Maryland Unemployment Compensation Board for unemployment compensation for a week. The Board denied his claim and on appeal to the Superior Court the action was affirmed and from the judgment of the Superior Court the employee appeals.

Affirmed.

Wm Taft Feldman and I. Duke Avnet, both of Baltimore, for appellant.

Aaron A. Baer, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen. (Hall Hammond, Atty. Gen., on the brief), for Maryland Unemployment Compensation Board.

L. Vernon Miller, of Baltimore (Marbury, Miller & Evans, of Baltimore, on the brief), for Bethlehem Steel.

Before MARBURY, C.J., and DELAPLAINE, COLLINS GRASON, HENDERSON and MARKELL, JJ.

MARBURY Chief Judge.

A claim was filed by the appellant with the Maryland Unemployment Compensation Board for unemployment compensation for the week of February 18th to February 25, 1946. The Board denied his claim. On appeal to the Superior Court of Baltimore City that Court affirmed the action of the Board. From the judgment of the Superior Court the appeal comes here. The appellees are the Board and Bethlehem Steel Company, the employer.

The facts in the case are undisputed. Saunders had been employed by the Bethlehem Steel Company for approximately 26 years. He was a member of the United Steel Workers of America. This union called a strike, effective January 21, 1946. On February 16, 1946 an agreement between the employer and the union was entered into, under the terms of which the strike was terminated at 12:01 a. m., February 18, 1946. The unloading of cargo vessels and cars was begun on February 17 1946 and on February 18th first production operations were started. From that date until February 26, 1946 operations were resumed at periodic stages in accordance with schedules previously prepared by the Company. It was agreed by the Company and the union by a memorandum attached to the agreement of February 16th, that the employees at the respective plants would be returned to work as soon as the ordinary resumption of operations would permit.

The appellant was employed in what is known as B L department, or the job sheeting mill. He reported for work on February 18, 1946, was told there was no work in his plant yet, but to come back on the 20th. He reported on the 20th and was told to report on the 25th. This he did and from that time on worked. His department was one of the last to go into operation. It depended on the resumption of operations in other departments for material and fuel. Without going into detail, it appears that under the method of operation of the Steel Company, all of the plants could not start at the same time. They were interdependent, and until those engaged in the earlier processes had completed a sufficient amount of products, the later departments would have no material and would have nothing to work with. For that reason the appellant and the other workmen in his situation were unable to start work on the day the strike was ended, but had to wait until operations in the other plants had progressed sufficiently to enable their plant to begin its normal operation.

We are not concerned with any questions between the union or the employer, or any matters involved in the strike itself. The question is whether under the proper interpretation of the Unemployment Compensation Law, Code, Article 95A, workmen who have been on strike are entitled to unemployment compensation for the period immediately following the conclusion of that strike, when, under the circumstances above outlined, their employer has no work for them to do.

Unemployment compensation laws were passed in many, if not all, of the states of the Union following the depression of the early 30's. They were intended to supplement the federal Social Security Act, 42 U.S.C.A. § 301 et seq., and to provide a cushion against unemployment. There is a certain, if not complete, practical uniformity in these statutes and they are modeled after the English statutes. (10-11 Geo. V-Chapter 30, 25 Geo. V-Ch. 8). The Maryland Act contains a declaration of public policy which indicates that the Act is a remedial statute to prevent economic insecurity and involuntary unemployment. We have so held. Maryland Unemployment Compensation Board v. Albrecht, 183 Md. 87, 36 A.2d 666. We have also held, as to this statute, that if its language is plain and free of ambiguity and has a definite and sensible meaning, that meaning will be conclusively presumed to be the intent of the Legislature in enacting the statute. Celanese Corporation of America v. Davis, Md., 47 A.2d 379.

The purpose of the statute was to alleviate the consequences of involuntary unemployment. It was not intended to penalize or subsidize either employees or employers, lawfully enaged in a labor dispute. It was not intended to compel striking workmen to remain without its benefits longer than their own action made necessary. Nor was it intended to compel employers to finance their employees in a strike against them. It was not concerned at all with labor disputes, except in so far as it became necessary to consider them in deciding when unemployment was voluntary and when it was involuntary. And it stated how they should be considered with reference to unemployment in plain, simple and easily understood words.

An individual is disqualified for benefits for the week in which he has left work, voluntarily without good cause, Section 5(a), for the week he has been discharged for misconduct, Section 5(b), when he has failed without good cause to apply for available, suitable work, or to accept suitable work, when offered, or to return to his customary self-employment, Section 5(c), and 'for any week with respect to which the Board finds that his unemployment is due to a stoppage of work which exists because of a labor dispute at the factory, establishment, or other premises at which he is or was last employed'. Section 5(d). This last section is qualified by making it inapplicable to employees who did not participate in the labor dispute. The appellant in the case before us, of course, did participate in the labor dispute and, therefore, the qualifications do not apply to him. The immediate question, therefore, is what does Section 5(d) mean?

Appellant claims this is an exemption from a remedial statute, that it must be strictly construed, and that so construed it disqualifies him only while the strike lasted and does not disqualify him for the period of unemployment following the settlement of the strike. He cites a number of cases on the general principle that exclusions in remedial statutes should be strictly construed. Without attempting to discuss these cases they are: Grant Contracting Co. v. Murphy, 1944, 387 Ill. 137, 56 N.E.2d 313, Bliley Electrical Co. v. Unemployment Comp. Bd. of Rev., 1946, 158 Pa.Super. 548, 45 A.2d 898, MacFarland v. Unemployment Compensation Bd. of Rev., 1946, 158 Pa.Super. 418, 45 A.2d 423; California Employment Stab. Comm. v. Morris, Cal. App., 1946, 165 P.2d 503, Unemployment Comp. Comm. of Virginia v. Collins, 1944, 182 Va. 426, 29 S.E.2d 388, International Union, etc., v. Industrial Commission, 1946, 248 Wis. 364, 21 N.W.2d 711, Singer Sewing Machine Co. v. New Jersey Unemployment Comp.Comm., 1942, 128 N.J.L. 611, 27 A.2d 889, affirmed 130 N.J.L. 173, 31 A.2d 818, Florida Industrial Commission v. Growers Equipment Co., 152 Fla. 595, 12 So.id 889.

We are in agreement with the general principle of these cases, but we have no right or authority to read into the statute something which is plainly not there. If, therefore, the plain intention is found in Section 5(d) to exclude the appellant from benefits under the circumstances of this case, we cannot give them to him. It is only where there is a doubt as to the meaning of words in a statute that the courts step in to resolve that doubt. Any other attitude on the part of the courts would constitute judicial usurpation of legislative functions.

The appellant contends that the words 'stoppage of work' are synonymous with 'strike', and that since a strike did not exist because of a labor dispute in the plant during the week from February 18th to February 26th, he was not disqualified for benefits for that week. He cites in support of this contention an Oklahoma case, Board of Review v. Mid-Continent Petroleum Corporation, 193 Okl. 36, 141 P.2d 69, 72. This case held that stoppage of work in a statute similar to the one before us refers to the activities of the workmen and not to the operation of a factory. It said 'A strike in the labor sense is generally defined as a stoppage of work by common agreement of workingmen. 15 C.J.S., Conspiracy, § 11, p. 1008. That was the definition evidently in the mind of the Legislature; the term 'stoppage of work' was considered as synonymous with 'strike'.' It seems to us that the conclusion of the Oklahoma Court does not follow from its premise. A strike may be generally defined as a stoppage of work, but it does not necessarily follow that every stoppage of work is a strike. However, that case is entirely dissimilar from the case we are considering. The claimant, with some 200 employees of the Corporation, went out on a strike. But this did not cause the plant to be shut down. The claimant in that case made the contention that 'stoppage of work' meant a stoppage of operations and not a stoppage of work by the individual. The Court held against the claimant and said that although the plant was not shut down there was a stoppage of work as to him, which was...