Wash. Nat. Ins. Co. v. Bd. Of Review Of Unemployment Comp. Comm'n

• Decision Date: 14 September 1948
• Docket Number: No. 201.,201.
• Citation: 61 A.2d 178,137 N.J.L. 596
• Parties: WASHINGTON NAT. INS. CO. v. BOARD OF REVIEW OF UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION COMMISSION et al.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

137 N.J.L. 596

61 A.2d 178

WASHINGTON NAT. INS. CO.

v.BOARD OF REVIEW OF UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION COMMISSION et al.

No. 201.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Sept. 14, 1948.

Certiorari proceeding by the Washington National Insurance Company, prosecutor, against the Board of Review of the Unemployment Compensation Commission and others to review five decisions of the board that individual defendants were entitled to the benefits of the Unemployment Compensation Act.

Writ dismissed.

January term, 1948, before DONGES, COLIE, and EASTWOOD, JJ.

Frank S. Farley and Murray Fredericks, both of Atlantic City, for prosecutor.

Clarence F. McGovern and Charles A. Malloy, both of Trenton, for defendants.

DONGES, Justice.

This writ of certiorari was allowed to review five decisions of the Board of Review of the New Jersey Unemployment Compensation Commission. The five cases are identical in their essential facts and have been consolidated. The prosecutor, Washington National Insurance Company, is engaged in the insurance business in this and most of the states of the country handling various forms of insurance, including ordinary life insurance, monthly and commercial health and accident insurance, industrial accident and health insurance and industrial life insurance. The individual defendants, who have been determined by the Board of Review to be entitled to the benefits of the Unemployment Compensation Act, N.J.S.A. 43:21-1 et seq., are former agents of the prosecutor.

The controversy concerns the validity of and construction of R.S. 43:21-19, as amended by Chapter 385 of the Laws of 1941, N.J.S.A. 43:21-19. The portion of the statute in question reads as follows:

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

‘(J) Service performed by agents of insurance companies, exclusive of industrial life insurance agents, or by agents of investment companies, who are compensated wholly on a commission basis.’

The Board of Review held that the individual defendants were ‘industrial life insurance agents' and therefore are within the exception of the exclusion from the statute.

The prosecutor contends (1) that chapter 385 of the Laws of 1941 is violative of both the federal and state constitutions; (2) that it has no application to the present case because its classification relates to the general character of the business of the employer rather than to the particular work done by the employee; (3) that the individual defendants herein were not in fact ‘industrial life insurance agents' because they also wrote other types of insurance.

The prosecutor contends that the statutory classification which distinguishes between industrial life insurance agents and other agents of insurance companies and investment companies is unwarranted and in violation of the constitutional provisions. It was said in Wiley Motors, Inc., v. Unemployment Compensation Comm. of New Jersey, 130 N.J.L. 30, 31 A.2d 39, 42: ‘The power of the legislature to act in this field is unlimited, except in so far as it may trench upon the Fifth Amendment or the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal...