Title: In Re Beatty
Citation: 210 S.E.2d 193, 286 N.C. 226
Docket Number: 104
State: north-carolina
Issuer: north-carolina Supreme Court
Date: December 11, 1974

210 S.E.2d 193 (1974)
286 N.C. 226
In the Matter of Willie BEATTY, Jr., S. S. No. XXX-XX-XXXX Longshoreman-claimant, et al.
No. 104.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.
December 11, 1974.
*195 Andrew A. Canoutas, Wilmington, and Thomas W. Gleason, Gleason &amp; Miller, New York City, for claimants-appellants.
H. D. Harrison, Jr., Howard G. Doyle, and Garland D. Crenshaw by H. D. Harrison, Jr., Raleigh, for the Employment Security Commission.
BRANCH, Justice.
The sole question presented by this appeal is whether claimants, by adhering to the contractual obligations of the Guaranteed Annual Income agreement, met the availability requirement of G.S. § 96-13(3).
G.S. § 96-13(3), in relevant part, provides:
The phrase "available for work" is not susceptible of precise definition, and whether a person is available for work differs according to the facts of each individual case. In re Watson, 273 N.C. 629, 161 S.E.2d 1; In re Miller, 243 N.C. 509, 91 S.E.2d 241. We recognize that the General Assembly "intended to provide a wide field of usefulness for this agency [the Employment Security Commission] for social security and for mitigating the economic evils of unemployment." Unemployment Compensation Commission v. Willis, 219 N.C. 709, 15 S.E.2d 4. In creating the statutory framework for the attainment of this laudable objective, however, the General Assembly required, inter alia, that a claimant for benefits under the statute remain available for suitable employment.
The key to decision of this appeal lies in our interpretation of the statutory phrase "available for work." More specifically, the question is whether claimants, by their adherence to the terms of the guaranteed annual income provisions of their collective bargaining agreement, have placed themselves in a position which, for all practical purposes, eliminated their availability for work.
It is fundamental that the intent of the General Assembly controls judicial interpretation of a statute. In re Watson, supra; In re Abernathy, 259 N.C. 190, 130 S.E.2d 292; Shue v. Scheidt, 252 N.C. 561, 114 S.E.2d 237. In this respect, we find assistance in the legislative declaration of public policy set forth in G.S. § 96-2, which, in part, provides:
This availability requirement has generally been viewed as an indication of a claimant's attachment to the labor force, and is designed to test each claimant's attachment to the labor market. 34 N.C.L.Rev. 591. See generally 81 C.J.S. Social Security and Public Welfare § 203. One writer has attempted to explain the availability requirement in the following manner:
Freeman, Able to Work and Available for Work, 55 Yale L.J. 123, 124.
There are, of course, limits to the availability requirement because carrying the concept too far would result in the unwarranted disqualification of otherwise qualified workers and thwart the legislatively declared objectives of the Act. Id. at 126. ". . . The problem is . . . whether or not the restrictions [which the claimant places on his employment] serve to limit the work which a claimant can accept to such a degree that he is no longer genuinely attached to the labor force. It is essentially a matter of degree to ascertain to what extent a claimant can impose restrictions and on what these restrictions must be based." Note, 34 N.C.L.Rev. 591, 604.
In a lead article by Lee G. Williams, entitled Eligibility for Benefits, 8 Vand.L. Rev. 286, 292, we find the following pertinent statement:
The recent advent of supplemental unemployment benefit plans and guaranteed annual income plans has introduced a new dimension into the field of unemployment compensation. Although the question here presented seems to be one of first impression, we find guidance in analogous cases dealing with the effect of collective bargaining agreements on eligibility for unemployment compensation benefits, when the claimants refused proffered employment.
In Lybarger Unemployment Compensation Case, 203 Pa.Super. 336, 201 A.2d 310, the claimant was a union member working under a collective bargaining agreement which provided, inter alia, that to facilitate an adjustment of personnel, the employer would retain by seniority the number of chain machine operators necessary to maintain production at the normal forty-hour-per-week level. When the senior group of employees had earned, from January 1 of the calendar year, gross earnings of $5,000, plus or minus $50, those workers would go on lay-off status for the remainder of the year or until all younger workers were recalled and additional senior workers were required in seniority order. This cycle of work and lay-off continued throughout the duration of the collective bargaining agreement. Plaintiff had earned the maximum amount by October. Under the terms of the agreement, he would have remained in non-working status until the subsequent January 1. Claimant filed for state unemployment compensation. In denying benefits, the Court stated:
In Mills v. Mississippi Employment Security Commission, 228 Miss. 789, 89 So. 2d 727, the claimant refused to accept non-union employment on the ground that he would not work for less than the union scale fixed *197 by a duly negotiated collective bargaining agreement. Noting that the Employment Security Act made no distinction between union and non-union workers, the Court held that the claimant had rendered himself unavailable for work.
The language of the Delaware Supreme Court in Bigger v. Unemployment Compensation Commission, 4 Terry 553, 43 Del. 553, 53 A.2d 761, clearly states the cardinal principle upon which these decisions and our decision in instant case rest:
See also Lemelin v. Administrator, Unemployment Compensation Act, 27 Conn.Sup. 446, 242 A.2d 786; Bedwell v. Review Board of Indiana Employment Security Division, 119 Ind.App. 607, 88 N.E.2d 916; Mattey v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 164 Pa.Super. 36, 63 A.2d 429 (dictum).
A leading case in this area is Chambers v. Owens-Ames-Kimball Co., 146 Ohio St. 559, 67 N.E.2d 439. There claimant was referred to an otherwise suitable job but refused to accept the referral on the sole ground that acceptance of the proffered work, a non-union job, would violate the rules of his union. The Court denied benefits and emphatically rejected such a basis for an approach to compensation:
We find only two cases in which this Court has considered the "available for work" requirement. In In re Miller, supra, we held that a textile worker whose Seventh Day Adventist teachings impelled her not to work from sundown Friday until sundown Saturday, and who actively sought employment which would not require her to perform secular work during this period, was not unavailable for work. We held *198 explicitly that the "availability for work" criterion did not require one to engage in work offensive to the moral conscience of the claimant.
Similarly, in In re Watson, supra, we held that an electrical plant worker who had been involuntarily discharged from her job on the first shift, and who thereafter rejected a second-shift job soley on the grounds that she could not obtain adequate care and supervision for her nine-year-old child, did not thereby render herself unavailable for employment. Speaking through Justice Lake, the Court stated:
Decision of the question presented by this appeal is not complicated by evidentiary questions since the Commission's findings of fact are amply supported by the evidence in the record. Under these circumstances, this Court is bound by the Commission's findings of fact. Employment Security Commission v. Freight Lines, 248 N.C. 496, 103 S.E.2d 829; Employment Security Commission v. Monsees, 234 N.C. 69, 65 S.E.2d 887.
In instant case the hours prescribed for "badging-in" and "badging-out" pursuant to the GAI plan obviously conflicted with the hours in which suitable temporary, outside employment could well have been available to claimants. The unchallenged findings of the Commission included the following statement:
It is obvious that claimants, by adhering to the contractual requirements making them eligible for GAI benefits, effectively removed themselves from the labor market in contravention of the requirements of G.S. § 96-13(3). The rights of claimants to unemployment compensation must be determined by the statutory provisions of Chapter 96 rather than by rules promulgated by a union, other employee groups, an employer, employer groups, or anyone else.
The Court of Appeals correctly found no error in the judgment of the Superior Court affirming the legal conclusion of the Commission, which determined that claimants were not available for work within the meaning and intent of Chapter 96 of the General Statutes and therefore were not eligible for unemployment benefits.
*199 The decision of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.