Winchester Repeating Arms Co. v. Radcliffe

• Decision Date: 14 November 1947
• Citation: 56 A.2d 1,134 Conn. 164
• Parties: WINCHESTER REPEATING ARMS CO. v. RADCLIFFE et al.
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court

134 Conn. 164

56 A.2d 1

WINCHESTER REPEATING ARMS CO.

v.RADCLIFFE et al.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

Nov. 14, 1947.

Appeal from Superior Court, New Haven County; Roberts, Judge.

Proceeding under the Unemployment Compensation Act by William Radcliffe and others, opposed by Winchester Repeating Arms Company, for unemployment benefits. From the decision of a panel of three unemployment commissioners in the third district dismissing the appeals of Winchester Repeating Arms Company from the action of the Administrator of the Unemployment Compensation Act in granting unemployment benefits to claimants, the Winchester Repeating Arms Company appealed to the Superior Court, which court consolidated the appeals and the named claimant moved to dismiss the appeal. The claimants filed a motion for an order that the costs of printing their brief be deemed expenses to be paid by the administrator, which was denied. From judgment dismissing the appeal, Winchester Repeating Arms Company appeals.

Appeal dismissed.

John I. Ely and Frederick H. Wiggin, both of New Haven, for appellant.

James F. Rosen and Ellen L. Bree, both of New Haven, and George W. Ross, of South Norwalk, for appellees.

Before MALTBIE, C. J., and BROWN, JENNINGS, ELLS, and DICKENSON, JJ.

MALTBIE, Chief Justice.

The claim of the named defendant, a former employee of the plaintiff, for unemployment compensation, as well as the claims of some 40 other of its former employees, was approved by the administrator acting by a proper representative. The plaintiff was given notice of the ruling, filed an appeal and applied for a hearing before an unemployment commissioner, based upon the claim that the unemployment was due to the existence of a labor dispute at the plaintiff's factory. General Statutes, Cum.Sup.1939, Sec. 1339e(b)(3). The defendant made a motion to dismiss the appeal and it was granted by a panel of three commissioners on the ground that the commission had no jurisdiction of the appeal. From that decision the plaintiff appealed to the Superior Court, and in that court the appeal was on motion dismissed. The plaintiff then appealed to this court.

When the ruling of the commissioners was made, the Unemployment Compensation Act provided that a compensable separation should be charged against an employer if he had employed the employee during at least ‘four different calendar weeks in the fifty-six day period preceding the beginning of such compensable period.’ Cum.Sup.1939, Sec. 1337e(c). The employees ceased work on September 21, 1946, and compensation was awarded for the period beginning October 20, 1946. Consequently, the conditions upon the basis of which compensation is chargeable against the plaintiff's merit rating were not present. The commissioners ruled that they lacked jurisdiction because the plaintiff was not an employer against whose merit rating account the compensation awarded the employee could be charged.

The act as it stood when the commissioners cismissed the appeal required the administrator to give prompt notice of a decision upon a claim for compensation to the claimant and ‘the employers against whose merit rating accounts compensable separations due to any benefits awarded by the decision might be charged,’ and provided further that the decision should be final ‘unless the claimant or any of such employers' should file an appeal and apply for a hearing. General Statutes, Sup.1945, Sec. 967h. The plaintiff claims before us that it has a sufficient interest to entitle it to appeal, for the following reasons: The word ‘might’ gives to the provision for appeal a broader significance than it would have had if the word ‘will’ had been used, and a mere possibility that the plaintiff would be financially affected, therefore, gave it a right of appeal; an act passed by the General Assembly in 1947, Public Act No. 235, Sec. 3, provides that, if the unemployment compensation fund on June 30 of that year or any subsequent year exceeds a certain amount, the administrator shall issue credit memoranda notices to merit rated employers in proportion to their contributions during the year previous to that day, and this gives the plaintiff an interest in maintaining the fund; if the general fund from which compensation is paid is depleted by the allowance of improper claims, the plaintiff will suffer injury in common with all contributing employers; public policy dictates that employers should have a right to appeal and be heard as regards such an award of compenstion as was made in this case; and to deny a hearing to the plaintiff would violate the provision of the fourteenth amendment to the constitution of the United States which forbids any state to deprive any person of property without due process of law, and the provision of Sec. 12 of article first of the Connecticut constitution which guarantees a remedy by due course of law to every person injured.

The situation before us does not require that we determine these claims. The awards of compensation allowed in these cases will not affect the amount of contributions the plaintiff must make, because that is determined upon the basis of the plaintiff's merit rating, which the awards concededly will not affect; nor will they affect the refunds provided for in the 1947 act, because these are to be made in proportion to such contributions. According to the last available...