Opinion ID: 2336277
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Interpretation by Other States

Text: When Maryland statutes are adopted around the same time as similarly-worded statutes in other states, this Court has looked to judicial interpretation of those foreign statutes as persuasive authority. See St. Joseph Hosp. v. Quinn, 241 Md. 371, 377, 216 A.2d 732, 735 (1966); Public Service Comm'n v. Baltimore Transit Co., 207 Md. 524, 534, 114 A.2d 834, 838 (1955); Continental Oil Co. v. Horsey, 177 Md. 383, 385, 9 A.2d 607, 608 (1939). That courts of other states have interpreted the disqualification statute as examining stoppage of work in relation to an individual premises bolsters our interpretation of Maryland's version of the unemployment benefits law. The Supreme Court of Hawaii, for instance, reviewed whether a work stoppage had occurred at an airport and at a separate ticket office in Ahnne v. Department of Labor & Industrial Relations, 53 Haw. 185, 489 P.2d 1397 (1971). The court first noted that [t]he sole issue before us is whether during the strike there was `stoppage of work' at the `establishment or other premises' of Qantas, where the employees were last employed.... Id. at 187, 489 P.2d at 1399. Turning to the history behind the disqualification statute, the court noted that [t]he British courts ... quickly interpreted the phrase `stoppage of work' to refer `not to the cessation of the workman's labor, but to a stoppage of work carried on in the factory, workshop or other premises at which the workman is employed.' Id. at 188, 489 P.2d at 1399. In addition, the court itself had previously held that `stoppage of work' means a `substantial curtailment of the business activities at the employer's establishment rather than unemployment on the part of the striking employee.' Id. at 189, 489 P.2d at 1400 (emphasis added) (quoting Meadow Gold Dairies-Hawaii, Ltd. v. Wiig, 50 Haw. 225, 227-28, 437 P.2d 317, 319 (1968); Inter-Island Resorts v. Akahane, 46 Haw. 140, 148, 377 P.2d 715, 720 (1962)). The court ultimately held that there was a substantial curtailment of activities at the ticket office, but not of the overall business activities at the airport establishment. Id. at 192-94, 489 P.2d at 1402-03. The Supreme Court of Nebraska is in accord. In IBP, Inc. v. Aanenson, 234 Neb. 603, 609, 452 N.W.2d 59, 64 (1990), the court was not persuaded by the lockout claimants' argument that the word establishment, as used in the disqualification section, should be so broadly construed in the case before us as to encompass the entire multiplant operations of IBP. In defining factory, establishment, or other premises for the purpose of ascertaining whether a stoppage of work existed ... establishment and premises are so commonly understood as units of place that further definition is superfluous. The court also noted that it had previously held that a work stoppage exists when it is proven that there has been a substantial curtailment of work produced by a labor dispute in an employing establishment. Id. at 610-11, 452 N.W.2d at 64 (citing George A. Hormel & Co. v. Hair, 229 Neb. 284, 426 N.W.2d 281 (1988); Magner, 141 Neb. 122, 2 N.W.2d 689); see also Magner, 141 Neb. at 130, 2 N.W.2d at 693 (noting that a stoppage or curtailment of work may occur in one of three forms: (1) total cessation of work in the premises; (2) cessation of work by part of the employees, which prevents others in the premises from working; or (3) diminished patronage by customers, which produces unemployment). The appellate courts of Illinois have also consistently equated stoppage of work to a substantial curtailment of business within each individual premises, not the employer's business as a whole. See Central Foundry Div. v. Holland, 36 Ill.App.3d 998, 1002, 345 N.E.2d 143, 147 (1976) (Stoppage of work refers `to a stoppage of work of the plant or particular department of a plant and not to the individual unemployment of the worker or workers.') (quoting Robert S. Abbott Publ'g Co. v. Annunzio, 414 Ill. 559, 569, 112 N.E.2d 101, 106 (1953)); Be-Mac Transp. Co. v. Grabiec, 20 Ill.App.3d 345, 351, 314 N.E.2d 242, 247 (1974) (same); Walgreen Co. v. Murphy, 386 Ill. 32, 37, 53 N.E.2d 390, 393 (1944) (holding that there was a work stoppage at a warehouse because of a shutdown substantially interfering with warehouse operations, curtailing them to approximately twenty per cent of normal production.). The appellate courts of Missouri are in accord. See O'Dell v. Division of Employment Security, 376 S.W.2d 137, 142, 145 (Mo.1964) (noting that premises means the place, location or situs of the claimant's employment; thus, two factories within the same complex were a single employing unit where the claimants had stopped work); Kroger Co. v. Industrial Comm'n, 314 S.W.2d 250, 254 (Mo.Ct.App.1958) ([T]he significant word of the phrase `at the factory, establishment or other premises ...' is the word `premises,' it being the purpose of such phrase to fix the place of the work stoppage and labor dispute on which the claim is predicated.). See also Blakely v. Review Bd., 120 Ind.App. 257, 267, 90 N.E.2d 353, 358 (1950) (A stoppage of work commences at the plant of the employer when a definite check in production operations occurs. (quoting Carnegie-Illinois Steel Corp. v. Review Bd., 117 Ind. App. 379, 72 N.E.2d 662 (1947))); Shell Oil Co. v. Brooks, 88 Wash.2d 909, 913, 567 P.2d 1132, 1134 (1977) (`[S]toppage of work' is most often defined in terms of a substantial curtailment of the employer's overall operations at the particular situs in question.). Finally, we note that Lewis, supra, at 343, summarized the case law with a similar interpretation to that which we adopt today: The general rules in stoppage of work jurisdictions, as they have been judicially construed, are: benefits will be denied for any week during which (1) a claimant-striker will not perform available work and there is a substantial curtailment of production or operations at the employer's establishment which curtailment would not exist but for a labor dispute at said establishment .... [Emphasis added.] We also note that other courts in our sister states have interpreted the term premises or related terms as meaning a single unit of employment. In Walgreen Co., 386 Ill. at 39, 53 N.E.2d at 394, for instance, the Supreme Court of Illinois held that Illinois' disqualification provision makes every `factory, establishment, or other premises' a unit for the purpose of ascertaining whether a stoppage of work due to a labor dispute exists. The Indiana Appellate Court held in Blakely, 120 Ind.App. at 275, 90 N.E.2d at 361, that the disqualification provisions render ineligible for benefits the employees of a separate department of an employer's business when a labor dispute between such employees and the employer has caused a work stoppage which resulted in a curtailment or complete stoppage of work in such department. The New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, has followed this limited definition of premises or, in their statute, establishment, consistently. See In re Falco-Ward, 129 A.D.2d 929, 930, 514 N.Y.S.2d 568, 569 (1987); DiLella v. Levine, 48 A.D.2d 91, 93, 368 N.Y.S.2d 300, 302 (1975); Machcinski v. Ford Motor Co., 277 A.D. 634, 643, 102 N.Y.S.2d 208, 216 (1951). See also George Hunt Constr. Co. v. Florida Dep't of Commerce, 271 So.2d 19, 20 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1972) (holding that one of the employer's many construction sites constituted an establishment); Snook v. International Harvester Co., 276 S.W.2d 658, 660 (Ky.1955) (noting that establishment, as used in the statute, has no special or technical meaning and can be defined as a fixed geographical `place'.); Abnie v. Ford Motor Co., 175 Ohio St. 273, 275, 194 N.E.2d 136, 138 (1963) (The word, `establishment,' has a clear and natural meaning as a distinct physical place of business.); Abbott v. Employment Sec. Dep't of State, 27 Wash. App. 619, 623, 621 P.2d 734, 736 (1980) (holding that premises means each individual jobsite.). [7]