T. R. Miller Mill Co. v. Johns

• Decision Date: 04 November 1954
• Docket Number: 3 Div. 692
• Citation: 261 Ala. 615,75 So.2d 675
• Parties: T. R. MILLER MILL COMPANY, Inc. v. Philip T. JOHNS et al.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Page 675

75 So.2d 675

261 Ala. 615

T. R. MILLER MILL COMPANY, Inc. v. Philip T. JOHNS et al.

3 Div. 692.

Supreme Court of Alabama.

Nov. 4, 1954.

McMillan, Caffey & McMillan, Brewton, Caffey, Gallallee & Caffey, Mobile, for petitioner.

Flournoy Lovelace, Brewton, for appellees.

J. Eugene Foster, Richard S. Brooks, Montgomery, for Dept. of Industrial Relations.

SIMPSON, Justice.

This is a petition for certiorari to the Court of Appeals to review its opinion and judgment affirming an order of the trial court awarding unemployment compensation to workers who had been on strike and on returning to work found their places filled and no work available to them. The Alabama Department of Industrial Relations has appeared by counsel and presented briefs and argument to support the award.

Relevant provisions of the law are subsections A and B of § 214, Title 26, Code 1940, as amended, which read as follows:

'Disqualification for benefits.--An individual shall be disqualified for total or partial unemployment:

'A. For any week in which his total or partial unemployment is directly due to a labor dispute still in active progress in the establishment in which he is or was last employed; for the purposes of this section only, the term 'labor dispute' includes any controversy concerning terms, tenure or conditions of employment, or concerning the association or representation of persons in negotiating, fixing, maintaining, changing, or seeking to arrange terms or conditions of employment, regardless of whether the disputants stand in the proximate relation of employer and employee. This definition shall not relate to a dispute between an individual worker and his employer.

'B. If he has left his employment voluntarily without good cause connected with such work. * * *'

The fundamental theory of unemployment compensation in connection with the above-quoted subsections of the statute is that workers are not entitled to compensation where their unemployment was directly due to a 'labor dispute' still in active progress in the establishment where last employed, but that when the strike shall have been ended if his unemployment so resulted he would be entitled to unemployment compensation if thereafter, without his fault, he should be rendered unemployed. Petitioner contends that the employees in striking violated their contract with their employer and that such a controversy was not a labor dispute within the meaning of the statute. It is then argued that since there was no labor dispute, complainants are disqualified under subsec. B above because they left their employment voluntarily without good cause. This seems to have been the thesis of petitioner on original submission, but in its reply brief the argument is also advanced that since the complainants violated their contract they are disqualified under subsec. B regardless of whether or not the controversy was a labor dispute.

The Court of Appeals found that claimants did not violate their contract and that finding is assailed here, but our study of the case has proceeded on a different theory and we have concluded that it is immaterial whether or not there was a violation by the employees of their contract with the employer.

Since much of petitioner's reasoning seems to be rested on the case of Dept. of Industrial Relations v. Stone, 36 Ala.App. 16, 53 So.2d 859, attention will first be directed to that case. It appears from the opinion that the claimants there returned from a vacation to find a notice to the effect that pay was to change from a shift to a tonnage basis, drilling was to be done with a breast auger instead of an electric drill, and workers were to pump accumulating water from the mines and push their own coal cars. The opinion states:

'In this aspect of the evidence the claimants and other experienced coal miners testified that it was humanly impossible for one man to push or convey a loaded coal car; that the drilling could not be conveniently or successfully done with a breast auger; and that one pump was not adequate to keep the pit free of water.

'In short, they testified that work could not be performed under the demanding conditions and any appreciable amount realized from their labors on a tonnage basis.' 36 Ala.App. at page 17, 53 So.2d at page 860.

The court then proceeded to state that 'Unquestionably the unemployment of instant concern was due to a dispute or disagreement over terms and conditions of employment.' Nevertheless the court affirmed the award of compensation for the period the claimants refused to work under the above conditions on the theory that the dispute was not 'bona fide' and there was no 'integrity of dealings' due to the 'unwarranted demand' of the employer. We think the conclusion in the Stone Case affirming the award of compensation was correct, but that some of the language of the opinion was inapposite thereto. If the court correctly concluded that the unemployment was unquestionably 'due to a dispute or disagreement over terms and conditions of employment', this placed claimants squarely within the disqualification of subsec. A of § 214. From the facts set out in the opinion, however, we are unable to discern such was the case, but on the contrary that the employer had set out such rigorous conditions under which anyone could work the complainants were unable to comply therewith even though they were ready, able and willing to undertake employment. These facts, as observed by the Court of Appeals, did not show a 'dispute,' 'controversy' or 'disagreement,' but that claimants were out of work due to no fault of their own and were within the letter and spirit of the unemployment compensation law so as to be entitled to benefits.

The almost universal concept seems to be that the courts do not concern themselves with a determination of the merits of the labor dispute or who is at fault--employer or employee.

Enough has probably been said concerning the provisions of the Unemployment Compensation Act and the rules of construction relative thereto, but we are moved to make one further comment. The purpose of unemployment compensation is to alleviate some of the social and economic ills of unemployment and not a device with which to punish an employer (or employee) for industrial sin, see Lawrence Baking Co. v. Michigan Unemployment Compensation Commission, 308 Mich. 198, 13 N.W.2d 260, 154 A.L.R. 660.

All of the states and the District of Columbia now have unemployment compensation statutes containing provisions comparable to subsections A and B of § 214. We have made considerable research and have not found a single instance in decisions of courts or administrative bodies of other jurisdictions where the propositions advanced by the petitioner have prevailed. There are, however, instances where they have been rejected.

The definition of 'labor dispute' found in our law is taken from the National Labor Relations Act, § 2(9), as amended 29 U.S.C.A. § 152(9). Courts of other jurisdictions, in construing laws in which the term 'labor dispute' was not defined, have looked to the definition contained in the National Labor Relations Act and similar state enactments. See Alvarez v. Adm'r of Unemployment Compensation Act, 139 Conn. 327, 93 A.2d 298; Dallas Fuel Co. v. Horne, 230 Iowa 1148, 300 N.W. 303; Miners in General Group v. Hicks, 123 W. Va. 637, 17 S.E.2d 810. Decisions from other jurisdictions are therefore of value in considering our own statute.

In considering the Arizona provision disqualifying a person for compensation for any week that his unemployment is due to a stoppage of work due to a labor dispute, the court in Sakrison v. Pierce, 66 Ariz. 162, 185 P.2d 528, 530, said:

'At the outset it should be made clear that this court is not concerned with any questions relative to the merits of the labor controversy itself. Our decision is not and cannot be determined by such factors.'

In a case arising under the National Labor Relations Act, the Supreme Court of the United States in National Labor Relations Board v. Mackay Radio & Telegraph Co., 304 U.S. 333,58 S.Ct. 904, 910, 82 L.Ed. 1381, had occasion to observe:

'Under the findings the strike was a consequence of, or in connection with, a current labor dispute as defined in section 2(9) of the act [the definition found in our law] * * *. But it is said that the record fails to disclose what caused these negotiations to fail or to show that the respondent was in any wise in fault in failing to comply with the union's demands; and, therefore, for all that appears, the strike was not called by reason of fault of the respondent. The argument confuses a current labor dispute with an unfair labor practice defined in section 8 of [261 Ala. 619] the act * * *. The finding is that the strike was deemed 'advisable in view of the unsatisfactory state of negotiations' in New York. * * * The wisdom or unwisdom of the men, their justification or lack of it, in attributing to respondent an unreasonable or arbitrary attitude in connection with the negotiations, cannot determine whether, when they struck, they did so as a consequence of, or in connection with, a current labor dispute.' (Italics supplied.)

The North Carolina Court stated in In re Steelman, 219 N.C. 306, 13 S.E.2d 544, 548, that:

'The existence and effect of a labor dispute may have an essential bearing upon the eligibility of claimants, the suitableness of work offered, and the disqualifications for benefits, all of which are to be determined by the Unemployment Compensation Commission according to certain objective standards or criteria, but the merits of the labor dispute do not belong to the Commission. These are matters more properly pertaining to the field of labor relations.' (Italics supplied.)

To a contention that a labor dispute did not exist after its merits had been determined by the National Labor Relations Board, the Illinois Court in Fash v. Gordon, 398 Ill. 210, 75 N.E.2d 294, 297...