Source: https://openjurist.org/367/us/389
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 06:34:24+00:00

Document:
Martin P. CATHERWOOD, as Industrial Commissioner.
'Section 2. The Congress (hereby) finds and declares that the Communist Party of the United States, although purportedly a political party, is in fact an instrumentality of a conspiracy to overthrow the Government of the United States * * *. Therefore the Communist Party should be outlawed.
Following the familiar rule that decision of Constitutional questions should be avoided wherever fairly possible, we turn at once to the federal statute which this Court has not heretofore had occasion to construe. Apart from unrevealing random remarks during the course of debate in the two Houses, there is no legislative history which in any way serves to give content to the vague terminology of § 3 of the Communist Control Act. The statute contains no definition, and neither committee reports nor authoritative spokesmen attempt to give any definition, of the clause 'rights, privileges, and immunities attendant upon legal bodies created under the jurisdiction of the United States or any political subdivision thereof.' Respondent would have us construe this language to mean that wherever a situation advantageous to the petitioners occurs by reference to the statutory or common law of a State or any other government in the United States, this is to be considered a 'right,' 'privilege,' or 'immunity,' and must be deemed to be withheld by the Act. On this basis New York has reasoned that liability to taxation as an employer, though not a privilege in the ordinary sense of the term, is nonetheless a recognition of the common-law contractual capacity to employ, and as such is advantageous to petitioners; and further, that an employer whose employees are unable to benefit from state and federal unemployment insurance programs will be disadvantaged in finding and keeping employees. Therefore it was thought that the Communist Control Act required termination of the registration of petitioners as employers.
This interpretation, raising as it does novel constitutional questions, the answers to which are not necessarily controlled by decisions of this Court in connection with other legislation dealing with the Coomunist Party, must, we think, be rejected. Not only does the languageo f the statute fall far short of compelling such an interpretation, but there are good indications that the particular result of barring petitioners as employers under state and federal unemployment insurance systems was not within the contemplation of this Act. The Internal Revenue Service has continued to collect taxes from petitioners under the Federal Unemployment Tax Act,7 and Congress in 1956 has dealt in terms with a like matter, excluding from federal old-age, survivors and disability benefits, 42 U.S.C., c. 7, subchapter II, 42 U.S.C.A. c. 7, subchapter II, employment with any organization required to register by the Subversive Activities Control Board and removing from the coverage of the Federal Insurance Contributions Act, 26 U.S.C., c. 21, 26 U.S.C.A. c. 21, any such organization,8 thus tying the exclusion to the administrative fact findings and determinations required by the Internal Security Act of 1950, 64 Stat. 987; 50 U.S.C.A. § 781 et seq.; see Communist Party v. Subversive Activities Control Board, 367 U.S. 1, 81 S.Ct. 1357, 6 L.Ed.2d 625.
In face of these considerations we should hesitate long before attributing to Congress a purpose to effectuate the similar exclusion in this instance by legislative fiat. Our reluctance to accept a state interpretation which would have that effect is fortified both by the difficult constitutional questions that would result and by the undesirability of having conflicting state and federal administrative interpretations of a federal statute establishing this 'coordinated and * * * dual system' (Buckstaff Bath House Co. v. McKinley, 308 U.S. 358, 364, 60 S.Ct. 279, 282, 84 L.Ed. 322) of employment insurance.
We hold that the Communist Control Act of 1954 does not require exclusion of the petitioners from New York's unemployment compensation system. Since the New York Court of Appeals' decision unmistakably rested on the contrary premise, its judgment must be reversed and the case remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. It is so ordered.
Judgement reversed and case remanded.
The basic federal rate was increased to 3.1% by Public Law 86—778, § 523(c), 74 Stat. 924, 982, effective 1961. 26 U.S.C. § 3301, 26 U.S.C.A. § 3301.
Petitioners argue that the Act on its face and as applied violates the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment and Art. I, § 9, cl. 3 of the Federal Constitution, which provides that 'no Bill of Attainder or ex post fat o Law shall be passed.' Petitioners also contingently assert a Fourteenth Amendment claim, see note 6, infra.
See 8 N.Y.2d 77, at page 83, 202 N.Y.S.2d 5, at page 8, 168 N.E.2d 242, at page 243, for the opinion of Chief Judge Desmond, with whom Judge Dye concurred, and 8 N.Y.2d at pages 90 91, 202 N.Y.S.2d at pages 14—15, 168 N.E.2d at pages 248—249, for the opinion of Judge Van Voorhis, with whom Judge Burke concurred. Two judges of the court dissented, and one judge did not participate.
42 U.S.C. § 410(a)(17), 42 U.S.C.A. § 410(a)(17) and 26 U.S.C. § 3121(b) (17), 26 U.S.C.A. § 3121(b)(17), Act of August 1, 1956, § 121(c) and (d), 70 Stat. 839. No similar exclusion, however, has been made from the coverage of the Federal Unemployment Tax Act, 26 U.S.C., c. 23, 26 U.S.C.A. c. 23, which imposes the federal tax against which the state taxes involved in this case are credited. See 367 U.S. at page 391, 81 S.Ct. at page 1467, supra.

References: § 3
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 § 523
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