Opinion ID: 878187
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: did a stoppage of work occur which disqualified claimants?

Text: In appeals to this Court, when we determine that the District Court applied an incorrect interpretation of law or overlooked a statute in determining facts, we ordinarily, instead of determining the ultimate conclusion ourselves, remand to the District Court for further proceedings under the correct interpretation of law or statute. Two factors militate against such action here. First, it is the intent of the Unemployment Insurance Law that claims for benefits be given accelerated judicial attention. The District Court is required to hear appeals from the Board of Labor Appeals in a summary manner, giving precedence to all other civil cases except for those arising under the Workers' Compensation law. Section 39-51-2410(5), MCA. Obviously, the legislature intended that claims for unemployment benefits be given the quickest possible judicial determination. Secondly, the District Court in this case did not end with determining that the Board of Labor Appeals had no power to set aside the fact-findings of the appeals referee. The District Court went further and concluded that the decision of the appeals referee (not the Board) was not clearly erroneous and that there was substantial evidence in the record to support the decision of the appeals referee. Thus the District Court has predetermined an issue which ordinarily we would remand for determination. The judgment of the District Court determined that there was a work stoppage which disqualified the claimants from benefits. The Board of Labor Appeals had determined that the evidence overwhelmingly establishes that within the meaning of the term `stoppage of work' ... there was no significant reduction in the ultimate services performed to the residents of Billings. The appeal by the claimants to this Court squarely places upon us the duty to determine if the findings of the Board are supported by evidence as set forth in section 39-51-2410(5), MCA, and if so, whether the Board properly applied the law to those facts. Essentially, the Board of Labor Appeals determined that during the short period of the strike, supervisory personnel of the City were able to take over the governmental services provided by the City to the public and that such services were not reduced in any substantial degree. The Board found the evidence establishes that the critical government functions of providing police and fire protection, sewage disposal, and water, were not diminished in any significant amount, if at all, but such services were furnished to the public without any significant interruption or diminution no matter how they may have been furnished. We find the record supports the board in those findings. With respect to sewage, there were garbage collection points set up to which residents had to walk or carry garbage, but apart from that there was no pile-up of garbage on the streets in the manner that other cities have suffered. The Board further found the evidence does establish that there was some delay in patching holes in the streets and some delay in performing work in the public parks, however, there is not any evidence to establish that the public's enjoyment of the parks was in any way interrupted or reduced or that on a long-term basis, there was any diminution in the maintenance and upkeep thereof. Our search of the record reveals nothing to negate these findings. Going on, the Board found although there was some reduction in the bus service, the evidence supports the finding and it is the finding of this Board that approximately 90 percent of the passengers that are ordinarily served in a period other than a strike were served during the course of the strike. The record shows that although the number of bus runs were reduced from 11 each day to 7 each day, those runs that were maintained during the strike were the runs that accomodated rush-hour traffic; therefore the 90 percent figure found by the Board is valid and was testified to in the record. Next the Board found, there was no diminution in the services furnished to the public insofar as the functioning of the cemetery is concerned. The finding states the record. The Board found the evidence further establishes that upon the return to work even by office personnel, there was no backlog of paperwork to be performed upon their return. We find this is undisputed in the record. The Board found although it is suggested by the appeals referee that there had to be a stoppage of work where there are this many people in the governmental agency out on a labor dispute, the conclusion is equally fair to say, considering the short period of the strike, that the supervisory personnel without people to supervise were capable of carrying on these functions. The statements by the appeals referee and by the Board are merely argumentative. Again the Board found the evidence further establishes that many of the people who are working for the City are in a caretaker or watchtaker type of function and there were no emergencies that came about and caused disruption to the service to the public during the short period of the strike. These findings are supported. There were several kinds of jobs which required routine checking of machines or gauges, water tests, greasing, oiling and patching and other such functions which, while postponed, or performed partially by supervisory personnel, resulted in no disruption of service to the public. At least the record does not show any such disruption. The City had argued before the appeals referee, based upon testimony from its management personnel, that the man-hours (the City's expression) available to it had been reduced by the strike. The City supplied lists of large reductions of work hours performed in its civil departments to show there was a stoppage of work. The appeals referee adopted the City's contentions in this regard. The Board of Labor Appeals rejected that methodology saying that the percentages were not supported in any substantial degree when looked upon from the standpoint of the services furnished to the public by the government of the City of Billings. Since we find that the essential facts found by the Board of Labor Appeals are supported by substantial evidence in the record, the question that remains to us is did the Board properly determine that there was not a stoppage of work as that term is used in the unemployment insurance law. The applicable statute is section 39-51-2305(1), MCA. Effective April 1, 1977, an individual shall be disqualified for benefits for any week with respect to which the department finds that his total 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 ... In examining the statute, note that the inclusion of the phrase stoppage of work by the legislature is not intended to be a synonym for strike, or lockout. If the legislature meant that a striking or locked out employee would be disqualified for benefits it had only to eliminate the phrase stoppage of work so as to make the section read that the individual is disqualified for benefits if his total unemployment is because of a labor dispute at the factory. When the legislature inserted the words due to a stoppage of work, it meant that the factors to be considered in connection with disqualification meant more than that the individual claimant was on strike, or locked out in a labor dispute. There may be a labor dispute, and yet no stoppage of work. Montana has aligned itself with the majority of courts holding on the question that the phrase stoppage of work refers to the employers' operations rather than to the individual employee's work. Continental Oil Company v. Board of Labor Appeals (1978), 178 Mont. 143, 582 P.2d 1236. This so-called American rule allows strikers to collect benefits so long as their activities have not substantially curtailed the productive operations of their employer. See New York Telephone Company v. New York Department of Labor (1979), 440 U.S. 519, 99 S.Ct. 1328, 59 L.Ed.2d 553, note 24; Hawaiian Telephone Company v. Hawaii Department of Labor and Industrial Relations (D.Haw. 1976), 405 F. Supp. 275, 287-288, cert. den. 435 U.S. 943, 98 S.Ct. 1522, 55 L.Ed.2d 539. Application of the American rule under statutes similar to Montana's stoppage of work provision brought about the constitutional question of whether the Supremacy Clause of Art. VI of the United States Constitution was contravened by disrupting the operation of federal labor policy requiring state neutrality in the collective bargaining process. The question is answered in the Ninth Circuit by virtue of the decision of Hawaiian Telephone Company v. State of Hawaii (9th Cir.1980), 614 F.2d 1197, cert. den. 446 U.S. 984, 100 S.Ct. 2965, 64 L.Ed.2d 840 (1981). In that case it was held that federal policy did not preempt the adoption of a work stoppage statute in the state of Hawaii. As the federal court noted in Hawaiian Telephone, supra, the wisdom or even the fairness of such economic legislation is not before us, nor do we pass upon its merits. The determination of legislative economic policy is for the legislature, not us. What the legislature has granted, it can take away. We note that after the New Mexico Supreme Court had interpreted the phrase stoppage of work to mean a substantial curtailment of the employers productive operations ( Albuquerque Express v. Employment Security Commission (1975), 88 N.M. 596, 544 P.2d 1161), New Mexico amended its laws to eliminate the work stoppage language. N.M.Stat.Annot. 51-1-7(D) (1979). Even so, courts have divided on how to apply the substantial curtailment interpretation of stoppage of work. See 61 A.L.R.3d 693. The case we find nearly analogous to the case at bar is Cumberland and Allegheny Gas Company v. Hatcher (W.V. 1963), 147 W. Va. 630, 130 S.E.2d 115. In that case, a gas company claimed an 80 percent curtailment in its overall activities based on the proportionate relation of the number of employees affected by the lockout to the total number of employees of the company in all categories including supervisory, managerial and clerical employees. The gas company claimed that during the period no work was done on meter changes, there was no handling of routine service orders, no domestic meter-reading work was performed, no work was performed on constructing new lines, or the renewal of old lines, no meter tasks were performed, no routine inspection work, installation of parts on customer's appliances, nor houseline plumbing was performed. All maintenance and building work ceased during the entire period and all engineering and design work ceased. Nevertheless, the West Virginia Court found that there was no substantial showing of unfulfilled customer demands or unfulfilled requirements in those categories during the lockout, nor any accumulated backlog of work or services requiring overtime or additional personnel after the lockout, nor any reduction in the service and delivery of gas to the company's customers. Moreover, the West Virginia Court saw no distinction between a public utility supplying natural gas to its customers and other types of employers. In the same manner, we see no distinction in applying the stoppage of work American rule to a governmental employer, as distinguished from any other type of employer. West Virginia also noted the same kind of problem that we have in the case at bar: A determination of the existence or non-existence of a stoppage of work in a case of this nature must necessarily depend upon the facts of each case. It cannot be determined solely on the basis of the proportionate number of employees affected. It is conceivable that in some situations, a strike or lockout affecting relatively few employees would produce a stoppage of work if such men were employed in the performance of duties of such vital nature that their unemployment would result in a substantial curtailment of the normal overall activities or operations of the employer. On the other hand, in other situations, the unemployment of a proportionately greater number of employees might have no substantial effect on the normal activities of the employer. In some situations, a substantial curtailment of work in a single category or department of the employer's operations might be of such vital a nature as to result in a substantial curtailment of the employer's overall activities if all categories or departments were of an interdependent nature; while, conceivably, in another and different situation, a complete cessation of work in a single category or department of some incidental or minor nature might produce no appreciable curtailment of the overall operations of the employer. We hold therefore, that the Board of Labor Appeals in this case correctly determined the application of the phrase stoppage of work. The City of Billings is engaged in delivering municipal government services to persons and property within its jurisdiction. In objecting to the claims of the claimants, it has failed to establish a substantial curtailment of its normal operations in delivering such governmental services. It cannot be said, therefore, as a legal proposition under the Unemployment Insurance Law, that there was a stoppage of work brought about by the strike. We hold that the Board of Labor Appeals correctly applied the correct rule of law to the findings of fact which it made on substantial evidence. Accordingly, the judgment of the District Court is reversed and the order of the Board of Labor Appeals is reinstated. SHEA and MORRISON, JJ., concur.