Texas Co. v. Texas Employment Commission

• Decision Date: 17 September 1953
• Docket Number: No. 4816,4816
• Citation: 261 S.W.2d 178
• Parties: TEXAS CO. v. TEXAS EMPLOYMENT COMMISSION et al.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

Page 178

261 S.W.2d 178

TEXAS CO. v.TEXAS EMPLOYMENT COMMISSION et al.

No. 4816.

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas, Beaumont.

Sept. 17, 1953.

Rehearing Denied Oct. 7, 1953.

King, Sharfstein & Rienstra, Beaumont, for appellant.

John N. Barcus, Austin, Bliss Daffan, Houston, for appellees.

PER CURIAM.

The appellant, The Texas Company, brought suit in the district court of Jefferson County against the appellees, the Texas Employment Commission and forty-four individuals, to secure a judicial review of a final decision and award by Texas Employment Commission of unemployment compensation benefits to the forty-four individual appellees, employees of the appellant.The district court heard the case without a jury and rendered judgment in favor or appellees, holding that the decision of the Texas Employment Commission was supported by substantial evidence and that the substantial evidence rule applies to decisions and awards of such commission.The appellant has duly perfected its appeal from such judgment, under the provisions of the Texas Unemployment Compensation Act, Article 5221b-1 et seq., Vernon's Annotated Civil Statutes of Texas.

The core of this dispute is to be found in the construction of the following portion of said Texas Unemployment Compensation Act, Article 5221b-3(d):

'An individual shall be disqualified for benefits:

'(d) For any benefit period with respect to which the commission finds that his total or partial unemployment is due to a stoppage of work which exists because of a labor dispute at the factory, establishment, or other premises (including a vessel) at which he is or was last employed, provided that this subsection shall not apply if it is shown to the satisfaction of the commission that:

'(1)He is not participating in or financing or directly interested in the labor dispute which caused the stoppage of work'.

The forty-four individual appellees were non-striking employees of the appellant before and during the strike of the Oil Workers Union at the several plants of appellant in Jefferson County in 1950.They were machinists and were members of the Machinists Union, which is a separate union from the Oil Workers Union, the one which was on strike.The appellant had work for them at its plants where they were regularly employed and so notified them.They appeared at the plants ready to work but did not cross the picket lines of the striking oil workers union.They testified that their refusal to cross the picket lines was caused by their fear of physical violence to themselves and their families by the strikers.The appellant says that if they had such fear it was groundless, and that no violence had occurred at that time at any of the gates to any of its struck plants; that such refusal to cross the striking union's picket lines was in effect a participation in the strike of the members of the oil workers union, within the meaning of the language of the section of the statute quoted above, and that they are thereby disqualified from receiving such benefits of Unemployment Compensation.

The men have been paid their compensation, and the appeal does not have the effect of a supersedeas or stay of the award, by the express provisions of the Act itself.

Both the appellant and the appellees have presented most able and excellent briefs on appeal.The principal question to be decided here is one of first impression in the jurisprudence of this state, and the parties in their briefs have favored the court with thorough discussions of the various law questions involved.

By its first point, the appellant contends that the trial court erred in affirming and sustaining the decision of the Texas Employment Commission awarding unemployment compensation to the individual appellees, thereby holding that said individuals were not 'participating in' a labor dispute within the meaning of the Texas Unemployment Act, the section quoted above, when they refused to cross a picket line to perform their available work.By its second point it contends that the trial court erred in concluding as a matter of law that there is no participation in a labor disqute within the meaning of the quoted section of the Texas Unemployment Compensation Act when it is established that the non-striking employees failed to cross a picket line because of fear of violence which is well founded.These points are presented together in the brief, and we consider them together here.The appellant does not contend that the individual appellees, the non-striking employees, were financing or directly interested in the labor dispute then in progress.As stated in its brief, 'its sole contention is that the appelleeclaimants, in failing and refusing to cross the respective picket lines established by the striking unions, and to perform work available to them, were thereby 'participating in' the labor dispute in question and are thereby disqualified for benefits'.It cites no Texas case as authority for this statement, and there is none.We might add that there are no Texas decisions to the contrary.Appellant cites and relies upon three decisions by the Supreme Court of Washington and one by the Supreme Court of New Jersey in support of its view of the law.They are In re Persons Employed at St. Paul & Tacoma Lumber Company, 7 Wash.2d 580, 110 P.2d 877;Andreas v. Bates, 14 Wash.2d 322, 128 P.2d 300;In re Polson Lumber & Shingle Mills, 19 Wash.2d 467, 143 P.2d 316;Aitken v. Board of Review of Unemployment Compensation Commission, 136 N.J.L. 372, 56 A.2d 587.We find that these cases are predicated to a great extent upon the fact that the claimants refused to cross the picket lines because of their belief in union principles, and not because of any fear of bodily harm.They are not in point and are of no assistance to us in the immediate question under study.

The appellees freely concede in their brief that if the individual appellees refused to cross the picket lines of the striking union in this case because of union principles in opposition to crossing any picket lines, then they would be participating in the strike and would be ineligible to the benefits of the Unemployment Compensation Act.The case of Meyer v. Industrial Commission of Missouri, 240 Mo.App. 1022, 223 S.W.2d 835, dealt with the question of whether one who refuses to cross a picket line because of well-founded fear of physical violence and harm is participating in a labor dispute, within the meaning of an unemployment compensation act similar to the Texas act.The principle is announced there that such a refusal would not be a voluntary refusal to cross the picket line and hence would not constitute participating in the labor dispute.In that casethe court upheld the state commission in refusing unemployment compensation because of its holding that the claimants had no actual reason to fear violence.The rule is stated, however, as is contended for by the appellees.In the case of Steamship Trade Association of Baltimore, Inc., v. Davis, 190 Md. 215, 57 A.2d 818, 820, the Maryland Court of Appeal passed upon the the question and arrived at the same conclusion as to the law.The court there held:

'The basic question before this Court is whether there were material facts to support the findings of the Board that the appellees did not participate in the strike * * * from * * * to * * *.It is admitted by the claimants that they did not cross the picket lines established by the strikers on the dates in question.They alleged, and the Board found, that the reason the appellees did not cross these picket lines was because of a fear of physical violence evidenced by the threatening attitude of the strikers.

'The courts must presume that strikers are law-abiding.There must be more than a mere theatrical threat of violence.The fear of violence must be real and not nebulous.Just because claimants say that they are afraid of the pickets is not enough and the mere presence of the pickets is not enough to excuse claimants from crossing picket lines.'

The court then reviewed the evidence of threats of violence proved, and found that it was in support of the finding of the Board; that the men were entitled to unemployment compensation and were not participating in the strike.It also distinguished its holding in the recent case of Brown v. Maryland Unemployment Compensation Board, 189 Md. 233, 55 A.2d 696, 698, in which it held that a non-striking workmen who voluntarily refused to cross a picket line was participating in a labor dispute and was therefore ineligible to unemployment compensation.It pointed out that in the Brown case there was no evidence of any threating attitude on the part of the strikers and no evidence of fear of violence.It held that in the case before it, the Davis case, the evidence of threats and fear of violence was sufficient to support the order of the Board, and affirmed it, allowing compensation benefits.

The appellant argues under these two points that if it be held in the present case that a claimant who refuses to cross a picket line of another union because of a well-founded fear of violence and physical harm is not participating in a labor dispute then the court would be entering the legislative field and engrafting upon the Texas Unemployment Compensation Act a clause which the legislature did not include in the act.We do not agree.It is believed to be logical that had the legislature foreseen that such a situation would arise in the administration of the Unemployment Compensation Act as the present one, and it had intended that a non-striking workman who refuses to cross a picket line because of well-founded fear of physical violence to him or his family should be ineligible to receive the benefits of the Act, it would have so stated in plain unambiguous language.Quite evidently the legislature foresaw that a situation would arise in the administration of the Act when some workmen were going to be unemployed...