Title: Wailuku Sugar Co. v. Agsalud
Citation: 648 P.2d 1107
Docket Number: 7965
State: Hawaii
Issuer: Hawaii Supreme Court
Date: July 16, 1982

648 P.2d 1107 (1982) WAILUKU SUGAR COMPANY, Yukitana Ansai, and John Murray, Jr., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Joshua C. AGSALUD, Director of the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, State of Hawaii, Defendant-Appellee. No. 7965. Supreme Court of Hawaii. July 16, 1982. *1109 Richard M. Rand and Ernest C. Moore, III, Honolulu, on the briefs (Torkildson, Katz, Jossem &amp; Loden, Honolulu, of counsel), for plaintiffs-appellants. Edward L. Correa, Jr., Deputy Atty. Gen., Dept. of Labor and Industrial Relations, Honolulu, on the brief, for defendant-appellee. Before RICHARDSON, C.J., LUM, PADGETT and HAYASHI, JJ., and OGATA, Retired Justice, in place of NAKAMURA, J., recused. PADGETT, Justice. This is an appeal from an order by the Circuit Court of the Second Circuit affirming two decisions and orders entered by a referee of the Unemployment Compensation Division, Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, State of Hawaii, which determined that the individual appellants were ineligible for trade readjustment allowances under 19 U.S.C. § 2291. We reverse. The individual appellants were supervisory employees of Wailuku Sugar Company, Limited. Because of the adverse effects of foreign sugar competition in late 1976, Wailuku Sugar Company determined to make a reduction in its work force. The following appears in the transcript of the testimony of Appellant Yukitaka Ansai before the referee: Later on, he testified: Although his testimony is not consistent, at one point, Appellant John Murray, Jr., testified: The referee determined that the individual appellants did not qualify for the trade readjustment allowance. The question presented to us is whether the finding of the referee is "clearly erroneous." Section 91-14(g)(5), HRS. The standard to be applied is whether the finding was "clearly erroneous in view of the reliable, probative, and substantial evidence on the whole record." DeFries v. Association of Owners, 57 Haw. 296, 555 P.2d 855 (1976). As we said in DeFries, supra, at 302, 555 P.2d 855: On February 28, 1977, a petition on behalf of workers and former workers producing sugar cane and raw sugar on the Wailuku Sugar Company plantation was filed with the Office of the Secretary of the United States Department of Labor in Washington, D.C. by the International Laborers and Warehousemen Union in accordance with 19 U.S.C. § 2272, to seek a formal certification from the Secretary of Labor, certifying that separated or partially separated employees of Wailuku Sugar Company were eligible to apply for worker adjustment assistance benefits under the provisions of 19 U.S.C. § 2291. On June 6, 1977, the Secretary of Labor certified that: In order to be eligible for a trade readjustment allowance, an applicant must be an "adversely affected worker." Title 19 U.S.C. § 2319(2) provides: 19 U.S.C. § 2294 provides: Appellee's argument is that the individual appellants could have stayed on as employees of Wailuku Sugar Company despite the reduction in force but voluntarily accepted retirement and hence, would be disqualified from benefits under § 383-30, HRS, which provides: The referee, in his decisions in the cases of both of the individual appellants, stated: Obviously, the referee ignored the whole phrase "voluntarily without good cause" in the statute and concentrated on the word "voluntarily" alone. This is not correct. Compare Noor v. Agsalud, 2 Haw. App. 560, 634 P.2d 1058 (1981). At the time they retired, Rule 5(c) of Regulation II of the Rules and Regulations relating to the Hawaii Employment Security Law, Chapter 383, HRS, provided: Although the referee stated that the employer and the employees agreed that claimants could have continued to work had they elected not to retire, we find no testimony from the employer in the record and we do not find, on the whole, that the testimony of the claimants supports that finding. It is apparent from the record, that some supervisory employees would have been laid off due to the reduction in work force. Given that reality, the company chose to approach the individual appellants and persuade them to step aside in return for a little better pension, appealing to their loyalty to the company and to their concern for younger supervisory employees who had young wives and children to support and who might otherwise be laid off without the appellants' pension advantages. It seems to us, the company acted humanely and wisely. We distinguish the holdings in York v. Indiana Employment Security Division, 425 N.E.2d 707 (Ind. App. 1981) and Mosqueda v. Commonwealth Unemployment Board, 431 A.2d 371 (Pa.Cmwlth. 1981), which reached different results. In York, it is apparent that the standard of review applied to administrative decisions by the Indiana court was the equivalent of the standard on review of a jury verdict and not the "clearly erroneous" standard required by § 91-14, HRS. In Mosqueda, the employee could have entered the employer's apprenticeship program had he so chosen. The evidence here, in our view, does not establish the existence of the alternative of continued employment despite the referee's finding that it does. The record leaves us convinced that the retirement of the claimants was due to *1112 pressure and persuasion on the part of the employer, and to the circumstances, rather than voluntary, and that there were real, substantial and compelling reasons which would cause the employees, who were sincerely desirous of maintaining employment, to retire. We are left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake was made by the referee in holding that appellants were not "adversely affected workers," because, on the record, that the appellants did not leave their employment voluntarily without good cause. Accordingly, the judgment below is reversed.