Saunders v. Maryland Unemployment Compensation Board

Marbury, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. A claim was filed by the appellant with the Maryland Unemployment Compensation Board for unemployment compensation for the week of February 18th to February 25, 1946. The Board denied his claim. On appeal to the Superior Court of Baltimore City that Court affirmed the action of the Board.

From the judgment of the Superior Court the appeal comes here. The appellees are the Board and Bethlehem Steel Company, the employer. The facts in the case are undisputed. Saunders had been employed by the Bethlehem Steel Company for approximately twenty-six years.

He was a member of the United Steel Workers of America. This union called a strike, effective January 21, 1946. On February 16, 1946, an agreement between the employer and the union was entered into, under the terms of which the strike was terminated at 12:01 A. M., February 18, 1946. The unloading of cargo vessels and cars was begun on February 17, 1946, and on February 18th first production operations were started.

From that date until February 26, 1946, operations were resumed at periodic stages in accordance with schedules previously prepared by the Company. It was agreed by the Company and the union by a memorandum attached to the agreement of February 16th, that the employees at the respective plants would be returned to work as soon as the ordinary resumption of operations would permit. The appellant was employed in what is known as B L department, or the job sheeting mill. He reported for work on February 18, 1946, was told there was no work in his plant yet, but to come back on the 20th.

He reported on the 20th and was told to report on the 25th. This he did and from that time on worked. His department was one of the last to go into operation. It depended on the resumption of operations in other depart ⁶⁸¹ xnents for material and fuel.

Without going into detail, it appears that under the method of operation of the Steel Company, all of the plants could not start at the same time. They were interdependent, and until those engaged in the earlier processes had completed a sufficient amount of products, the later departments would have no material and would have nothing to work with. For that reason the appellant and the other workmen in his situation were unable to start work on the day the strike was ended, but had to wait until operations in the other plants had progressed sufficiently to enable their plant to begin its normal operation. We are not concerned with any questions between the union or the employer, or any matters involved in the strike itself.

The question is whether under the proper interpretation of the Unemployment Compensation Law, Code, Article 9 5A, workmen who have been on strike are entitled to unemployment compensation for the period immediately following the conclusion of that strike, when, under the circumstances above outlined, their employer has no work for them to do. Unemployment compensation laws were passed in many, if not all, of the States of the Union following the depression of the early 30’s. They were intended to supplement the Federal Social Security Act, 42 U. S. C. A. Sec. 301 et seq., and to provide a cushion against unemployment. There is a certain, if not complete, practical uniformity in these statutes and they are modeled after the English statutes.

(10-11 Geo. V-Chapter 30, 25 Geo. V-Ch. 8.) The Maryland Act contains a declaration of public policy which indicates that the Act is a remedial statute to prevent economic insecurity and involuntary unemployment. We have so held.

Maryland Unemployment Compensation Board v. Albrecht, 183 Md. 87 , 36 A. 2d 666 . We have also held, as to this statute, that if its language is plain and free of ambiguity and has a definite and sensible meaning, that meaning will be conclusively presumed to be the intent of the Legislature ⁶⁸² in enacting the statute. Celanese Corporation of America v. Davis, 186 Md. 463 , 47 A. 2d 379 . The purpose of the statute was to alleviate the consequences of involuntary unemployment.

It was not intended to penalize or subsidize either employees or employers, lawfully engaged in a labor dispute. It was not intended to compel striking workmen to remain without its benefits longer than their own action made necessary. Nor was it intended to compel employers to finance their employees in a strike against them. It was not concerned at all with labor disputes, except in so far as it became necessary to consider them in deciding when unemployment was voluntary and when it was involuntary.

And it stated how they should be considered with reference to unemployment in plain, simple and easily understood words. An individual is disqualified for benefits for the week in which he has left work, voluntarily without good cause, Section 5 (a), for the week he has been discharged for misconduct, Section 5(b), when he has failed without good cause to apply for available, suitable work, or to accept suitable work, when offered, or to return to his customary self-employment, Section 5(c), and “for any week with , respect to which the Board finds that his unemployment is due to a stoppage of work which exists because of a labor dispute at the factory, establishment, or other premises at which he is or was last employed.” Section 5(d). This last section is qualified by making it inapplicable to employees who did not participate in the labor dispute. The appellant in the case before us, of course, did participate in the labor dispute and, therefore, the qualifications do not apply to him.

The immediate question, therefore, is what does Section 5(d) mean? Appellant claims this is an exemption from a remedial statute, that it must be strictly construed, and that so construed it disqualifies him only while the strike lasted and does not disqualify him for the period of unemployment following the settlement of the strike. He ⁶⁸³ cites a number of cases on the general principle that exclusions in remedial statutes should be strictly construed. Without attempting to discuss these cases they are: Grant Contracting Co. v. Murphy, 1944, 387 Ill. 137 , 56 N. E. 2d 313 ; Bliley Electrical Co. v. Unemployment Comp.

Bd. of Rev., 1946, 158 Pa. Super. 548 , 45 A. 2d 898 ; MacFarland v. Unemployment Compensation Bd. of Rev., 1946, 158 Pa. Super. 418 , 45 A. 2d 423 ; California Employment Stab. Comm. v. Morris, Cal.

App., 1946, 165 P. 2d 503 ; Unemployment Comp. Comm. of Virginia v. Collins, 1944, 182 Va. 426 , 29 S. E. 2d 388 ; International Union, etc., v. Industrial Commission, 1946, 248 Wis. 364 , 21 N. W. 2d 711 ; Singer Sewing Machine Co. v. New Jersey Unemployment Comp. Comm., 1942, 128 N. J. L. 611, 27 A. 2d 889 , affirmed 130 N. J. L. 173, 31 A. 2d 818 ; Florida Industrial Commission v. Growers Equipment Co., 152 Fla. 595 , 12 So. 2d 889 . We are in agreement with the general principle of these cases, but we have no right or authority to read into the statute something which is plainly not there.

If, therefore, the plain intention is found in Section 5(d) to exclude the appellant from benefits under the circumstances of this case, we cannot give them to him. It is only where there is a doubt as to the meaning of words in a statute that the courts step in to resolve that doubt. Any other attitude on the part of the courts would constitute judicial usurpation of legislative functions. The appellant contends that the words “stoppage of work” are synonymous with “strike,” and that since a strike did not exist because of a labor dispute in the plant during the week from February 18th to February 26th, he was not disqualified for benefits for that week.

He cites in support of this contention an Oklahoma case, Board of Review v. Mid-Continent Petroleum Corporation, 193 Okla. 36 , 141 P. 2d 69, 72 . This case held that stoppage of work in a statute similar to the one before us refers to the activities of the workmen and not to the operation of a factory. It said “A strike in the labor sense ⁶⁸⁴ is generally defined as a stoppage of work, by common agreement of workingmen. 15 C. J. S., Conspiracy, Sec. 11, p. 1008. That was the definition evidently in the mind of the Legislature; the term ‘stoppage of work’ was considered as synonymous with ‘strike’.” It seems to us that the conclusion of the Oklahoma Court does not follow from its premise.

A strike may be generally defined as a stoppage of work, but it does not necessarily follow that every stoppage of work is a strike. However, that case is entirely dissimilar from the case we are considering. The claimant, with some 200 employees of the Corporation, went out on a strike. But this did not cause the plant to be shut down.

The claimant in that case made the contention that “stoppage of work” meant a stoppage of operations and nót a stoppage of work by the individual- The Court held against the claimant and said that although the plant was not shut down there was a stoppage of work as to him, which was due to his being on strike and, therefore, he was not entitled to compensation. The question there was whether a striker was entitled to compensation while striking, and the Court, following numerous cited decisions in other jurisdictions held that he was not so entitled. The Court said that the conclusion of the claimant that unless the plant actually stopped operations by reason of the labor dispute, the striker who remained out might receive compensation for unemployment was not supported by the decision of any court of last resort to which its attention had been called. This decision was subsequently overruled by an amendment to the statute made in 1941 by the Oklahoma Legislature, 40 O. S. 1941, Sec. 215(d).

The contention of the claimant in that case, as to the meaning of “stoppage of work,” was directly opposed to the contention of the claimant in the case before us. But the decision of the court does not uphold appellant’s contention here. It only goes so far as to say that a “stoppage of work” does not mean that a whole plant has to be shut down. What it held was that the strike, whether it affected the whole plant ⁶⁸⁵ or not, was the cause of the unemployment, and that, therefore, the claimant was not entitled to compensation.

The only other appellate court case cited by appellant is one from the Supreme Court of Illinois. Walgreen Company v. Murphy, 386 Ill. 32 , 53 N. E. 2d 390 . In that case about 320 employees in the wholesale warehouse of a wholesale and retail company went out on strike. They made application for unemployment benefits for the period while they were on strike.

The warehouse was practically out of business during the strike, but the retail stores of the company, located elsewhere, continued normal operation. While the court adopted the language of the Oklahoma Court, above quoted, that “stoppage of work” was synonymous with “strike,” it held that the case before it showed both a cessation of the operation of the warehouse and a cessation of work. There was stoppage of work due to a labor dispute at the warehouse, and the claims for compensation were denied. In the case of Magner v. Kinney, 141 Neb. 122 , 2 N. W. 2d 689, 692 , truck drivers employed by a storage and van company and belonging to a striking union, quit their employment when the strike was called.

The employer stopped the use of its trucks because it did not want them injured by the strikers, and the claim was made that this caused a lockout rather than a strike. The Court held that it had before it a strike and not a lockout, citing the difference in the following words: “A strike is cessation of work by employees in an effort to get for the employees more desirable terms. A lockout is a cessation of the furnishing of work to employees in an effort to get for the employer more desirable terms.” The claim was made by the employees for the period while they were on strike. The court referred to the fact that the unemployment compensation law was a substantial reenactment of the English National Insurance Act and that the construction by the English officials administering that act (no judicial review is pro ⁶⁸⁶ vided) is that “stoppage of work” is a substantial curtailment of work in an establishment and not the cessation of work by the claimant.

Applying this definition it said that the labor dispute which operated as a strike occasioned a stoppage of work, and, therefore, the claimants were not entitled to any compensation. In the case of Lawrence Baking Company v. Michigan Unemployment Compensation Commission, 308 Mich. 198 , 13 N. W. 2d 260, 264 , 154 A. L. R. 660, sixteen union members employed by a wholesale baking company went on strike. Ninety-eight employees did not strike, and the operation of the bakery was interrupted for only about fifteen minutes. The employer hired new workmen, and there was no further interruption or