U.S. Steel Corp. v. Brown
| Decision Date | 21 March 1969 |
| Citation | 441 S.W.2d 405 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES STEEL CORPORATION, Appellant, v. Lonnie BROWN et al., Appellees. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court — District of Kentucky |
W. Bruce Baird, Middleton, Seelbach, Wolford, Willis & Cochran, Louisville, for appellant.
Grant F. Knuckles, James S. Wilson, Pineville, Carl Newman, Appalachia, Va., Paul E. Tierney, Dept. of Economic Security, Frankfort, for appellees.
DAVIS, Commissioner.
This is an unemployment insurance compensation case requiring determination of whether the appellees-employees were caused to lose employment by reason of a labor dispute in the 'establishment' in which they were employed, as that term is used in KRS 341.360. The Kentucky Unemployment Insurance Commission ruled that the employees were not entitled to compensation, but on appeal the Franklin Circuit Court reversed that ruling and adjudged them to be entitled to unemployment compensation.
We have been favored with excellent briefs by the contending litigants, and from them and the record, we glean the pertinent legal principles and the controlling factual background: The appellant-corporation operates two coal mines at Lynch. Ninety miles away at Corbin, the same company operates a preparation plant which process all of the coal mined at Lynch from the company's mine. No other coal is processed in the Corbin plant. For convenience we shall refer to the preparation plant as Corbin and the mining operation as Lynch.
It is undisputed that there was a bonafide labor dispute or strike at Corbin which caused the shutdown of the Corbin plant. It became necessary to discontinue mining at Lynch since there were no facilities at Lynch to handle the coal production which normally was transported daily to Corbin. The Lynch employees who were laid off by reason of the discontinuance of mining there are asserting their entitlement to unemployment compensation pursuant to KRS Chapter 341. It is recognized that these employees are entitled to compensation (with certain exceptions not material here) unless they are foreclosed by the provisions of KRS 341.360, the pertinent portion of which is:
'No worker may serve a waiting period or be paid benefits for any week of unemployment with respect to which:
(1) A strike or other bona fide labor dispute which caused him to leave or lose his employment is in active progress in the establishment in which he is or was employed, * * *.' (Emphasis added.)
On two occasions we have considered the application of this statute, reaching opposite results in the two cases because of the vastly differing factual situations. Our first case was Ford Motor Company v. Kentucky Unemployment Compensation Commission (1951), Ky., 243 S.W.2d 657, in which we held that the workers at the Ford Assembly Plant in Louisville were not precluded by the statute when they became unemployed as the result of a strike which occurred at the Dearborn Assembly Plant of the River Rouge Group of the Ford Motor Company at Dearborn, Michigan. In Ford Motor, we cited with approval and relied much upon Nordling v. Ford Motor Company, 231 Minn. 68, 42 N.W.2d 576, 28 A.L.R.2d 272. We noted as 'unfortunate' that the term 'establishment' was not statutorily defined. No legislative definition has been forthcoming since our decision in Ford Motor.
Our other case treating the problem is Snook v. International Harvester Company (1955), Ky., 276 S.W.2d 658, in which we held that certain foundry employees of the company worked in the same 'establishment' as did the machine-shop employees who went on strike. Consequently, we held that the foundry workers were barred from unemployment compensation by reason of the statutory proscription.
In Snook, it was pointed out that the foundry and machine shop were housed in separate buildings with separate entrances, although a common entrance could be used. The opinion noted that the foundry and machine shop had separate locker rooms, cafeterias, first-aid stations, and time clocks; and the buildings were in close proximity and enclosed within a common fence. In Snook, we remarked that varying results have obtained in other jurisdictions, depending upon the factual situations and to some extent upon slight variation in statutory wordins. We observed that some of the tests applied in determining whether separate plants or activities are conducted in one 'establishment' are '(1) functional integration, (2) general unity, and (3) physical proximity.' Id. 276 S.W.2d 661. We commented in Snook that 'establishment' was used in the statute in its commonly understood sense and had no special or technical meaning. After quoting the definition of 'establishment' from Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition, we said that the aspect of a fixed geographical place was perhaps the most distinctive component of the definition. There, we analogized that the legislature must have considered the matter of location in its use of the word since KRS 341.060(2) specifically recognizes that one employing unit may have more than one 'establishment' within Kentucky.
The appellant cites and discusses several decisions in which courts of other jurisdictions have concluded that idled workers were within the same 'establishment' as striking workers, even though their physical sites of employment were widely separated. Two of these decisions are from the Ohio Court of Appeals. McGee v. Timken Roller Bearing Company, 161 N.E.2d 905, and Adamski v. State, Bureau of Unemployment Compensation, 108 Ohio App. 198, 161 N.E.2d 907. In McGee, it was held that employees who lost work at Zanesville, Ohio, because of a strike in Canton, Ohio, ninety miles away, were precluded from unemployment compensation because they were in the same 'establishment.' The Ohio court pointed out '* * * that the work in Zanesville was utterly dependent upon the supplies being furnished from Canton,' and added ...
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