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

Heading: Legislative History of Section 8-1004

Text: Turning to the legislative history, section 8-1004 was transferred from Maryland Code (1957, 1985 Repl.Vol.), Article 95A, section 6(e), in 1991 when the current Labor and Employment Article was adopted. [3] Prior to the transfer, section 6 read: An individual shall be disqualified for benefits: .... (e) Stoppage of work because of labor disputes. For any week with respect to which the Executive Director finds that his unemployment is due to a stoppage of work, other than a lockout, which exists because of a labor dispute at the factory, establishment, or other premises at which he is or was last employed, provided that this subsection shall not apply if it is shown to the satisfaction of the Executive Director that (1) He is not participating in or financing or directly interested in the labor dispute which caused the stoppage of work; and (2) He does not belong to a grade or class of workers of which, immediately before the commencement of the stoppage, there were members employed at the premises at which the stoppage occurs, any of whom are participating in or financing or directly interested in the dispute; provided, that if in any case separate branches of work which are commonly conducted as separate businesses in separate premises are conducted in separate departments of the same premises, each such department shall, for the purposes of this subsection, be deemed to be a separate factory, establishment, or other premises. [Emphasis added.] The Legislature, in the transfer between Code volumes, replaced the words factory, establishment, or other premises with premises. The legislative history provides no express statement as to why that change was made. A report to the Legislature, in describing the transfer of former section 6 into subtitle 10 of the Labor & Employment Article, does not discuss former section 6(e) or current section 8-1004. See Department of Legislative Reference, Report on H.B. 1, at 32 (Jan. 14, 1991). The report does indicate, however, that the primary purposes of the [revision] are modernization and clarification, not policymaking.... Every effort is made to ensure that a proposed revision conforms as nearly as possible to the intent of the General Assembly, and all these revisions are highlighted in the appropriate revisor's notes. Id. at 1. The revisor's note accompanying section 8-1004 notes that [t]his section is new language derived without substantive change from former Art. 95A, § 6(e). [4] (Emphasis added.) In addition, this Court consistently has presumed that general recodifications of statutes, such as ... the Labor & Employment Article, are for the purpose of clarity only and not [for] substantive change, unless the language of the recodified statute unmistakably indicates the intention of the Legislature to modify the law. DeBusk v. Johns Hopkins Hosp., 342 Md. 432, 444, 677 A.2d 73, 79 (1996); see also Duffy v. Conaway, 295 Md. 242, 257-58, 455 A.2d 955, 962-63 (1983); In Re: Special Investigation No. 236, 295 Md. 573, 576-77, 458 A.2d 75, 76 (1983); Bureau of Mines v. George's Creek Coal & Land Co., 272 Md. 143, 155, 321 A.2d 748, 754-55 (1974); Welch v. Humphrey, 200 Md. 410, 417, 90 A.2d 686, 689 (1952). Thus, we interpret the term premises in current section 8-1004 as the equivalent of its earlier limitation in section 6(e) to the factory, establishment, or other premises where the employees worked, i.e., the individual site of their employment. This interpretation of premises complies with the plain and simple definition given to the word. The Random House Dictionary of the English Language 1136 (unabr. ed.1983), for instance, defines premises as: a. a tract of land including its buildings. b. a building together with its grounds or other appurtenances. c. the property forming the subject of a conveyance or bequest. In addition to our interpretation of Maryland legislative history, this Court has previously analyzed the English statute pertaining to labor dispute unemployment disqualifications to evaluate our own version of the same provision. Maryland's unemployment insurance statutes were passed by the General Assembly in 1936 to alleviate the consequences of widespread involuntary unemployment caused by the depression. Employment Security Admin. v. Browning-Ferris, Inc., 292 Md. 515, 517, 438 A.2d 1356, 1358 (1982). Those provisions were patterned after portions of a federal Social Security Draft Bill pertaining to unemployment compensation. Most of that statute, including the labor dispute disqualification, was derived from the English unemployment statutes. Id. at 521-22, 438 A.2d at 1360. This Court noted in Saunders v. Maryland Unemployment Compensation Bd., 188 Md. 677, 687-88, 53 A.2d 579, 583-84 (1947), that the history of the English version of the disqualification provision and its subsequent interpretation were relevant to the interpretation of Maryland's similar statute: The exception in the English statutes (1920, 10 and 11, Geo. V, Chap. 30, 8-(1), 1935, 25 Geo. V, Chap. 8, 26-(1)) is practically identical with our statute. It reads An insured contributor who has lost employment by reason of a stoppage of work which was due to a trade dispute at the factory, workshop, or other premises at which he was employed shall be disqualified for receiving unemployment benefit so long as the stoppage of work continues,    A practically similar clause is in the 1946 Act. 9 and 10 Geo. VI, Chap. 67, 13-(1).... [I]t has been held that the contemporaneous construction of the copied statute is intended to be the construction of the copying act. Lavender v. Rosenheim, 110 Md. 150, at page 156, 72 A. 669, [671 (1909) ]; Heyn v. Fidelity Trust Co., 174 Md. 639, at page 658, 197 A. 292, 1 A.2d 83, [87 (1938) ]. [Emphasis added.] Thus, section 8-1004 as derived from the English Act originally limited the scope of the disqualification to the factory, workshop or other premises involved. See Unemployment Insurance Act, 1935, 25 & 26 Geo. 5, ch. 8, § 26(1) (Eng.). A subsequent revision of the disqualification provision substituted place of employment for factory, workshop or other premises. National Insurance Act, 1965, ch. 51, § 22(I) (Eng.). The National Insurance Act defined place of employment in a separate subsection: the expression `place of employment' in relation to any person, means the factory, workshop, farm or other premises or place at which he was employed.... Id. § 22(6)(a). That definition remained virtually unaltered until 1995. See Social Security Contributions & Benefits Act, 1992, ch. 4, § 27(3)(a) (Eng.); Social Security Act, 1975, ch. 14, § 19(2)(a) (Eng.). The English disqualification provision currently uses the term place of work, which in relation to any person, means the premises or place at which he was employed. Jobseekers Act, 1995, § 14(4) (Eng.). [5] The English disqualification statute, since its inception, has maintained a definition of place of employment or work limited to each individual site of employment, not the employer's entire operations. We interpret the Maryland statute similarly. Finally, we note that under subsection (a)(2) of section 8-1004, if separate branches of work that usually are conducted as separate businesses in separate premises are conducted in separate departments on the same premises, each department shall be considered a separate premises .... (Emphasis added). When we examine the plain meaning of the words of a statute, [o]ur examination of such words is guided by the principle that we should read `pertinent parts of the legislative language together, giving effect to all of those parts if we can, and rendering no part of the law surplusage.' Holman v. Kelly Catering, Inc., 334 Md. 480, 485, 639 A.2d 701, 704 (1994) (quoting Sinai Hosp. v. Department of Employment, 309 Md. 28, 40, 522 A.2d 382, 388 (1987)); see also Rose v. Fox Pool Corp., 335 Md. 351, 359, 643 A.2d 906, 909-10 (1994) ([A] statute must be construed as a whole so that no word, clause, sentence or phrase is rendered surplusage, superfluous, meaningless or nugatory.) (citing Condon v. State, 332 Md. 481, 491, 632 A.2d 753, 758 (1993); Maryland Port Admin. v. Brawner Contracting Co., 303 Md. 44, 60, 492 A.2d 281, 289 (1985)). Viewing section 8-1004 as a whole, to interpret the word premises in subsection (a)(1) as including all sites of an entire multi-site business would render subsection (a)(2) meaningless. Because subsection (a)(2) compares separate branches of work conducted within one premises to separate branches of work typically conducted in different premises, i.e., different work sites, and requires that the separate branches or departments within one facility be treated as individual premises, the Legislature clearly intended for premises generally to refer to each individual work site of an employer. We infer from subsection (a)(2) that the Legislature's intent was to apply section 8-1004 to the smallest unit of employment discernable under the facts and circumstances of each case. Turning to the issue of whether the stoppage of work need only occur at an individual premises under the disqualification provision, we note that former section 6(e)(2) exempted from disqualification those who did not belong to a grade or class of workers of which, immediately before the commencement of the stoppage, there were members employed at the premises at which the stoppage occurs, any of whom are participating in or financing or directly interested in the dispute.... (Emphasis added.) Although this subsection is not directly applicable to the case at bar, we note that it applied only to those employed at the premises at which the stoppage occur[red], prior to its 1991 recodification in section 8-1004(b)(2). Recalling that section 8-1004(b)(2) was derived without substantive change from section 6(e)(2), the former language from that exception reflects inferentially that the General Assembly viewed a stoppage of work as occurring in an individual premises. Though this Court has never squarely addressed this issue, prior comments by this Court reflect that our original interpretation of the disqualification provision was that a stoppage of work need only occur within an individual premises to trigger a disqualification. As noted, supra, we utilized the subsequent interpretations of the English Unemployment Act of 1935 in Saunders to review the similar Maryland provision. Regarding the stoppage of work requirement, we noted the interpretation of that phrase by the English Umpires, administrative judges within the British Ministry of Labour: The English Umpires who administer the English statutes, have handed down a number of administrative decisions construing this clause. These decisions are final because there is no provision for judicial review.... The English Umpires hold that stoppage of work refers primarily not to the cessation of an employee's labor, but to a stoppage of work carried on at the premises, factory or workshop in consequence of the dispute. (Umpire's Decisions, 609, 3809, XXXX-XXXX.) Id. at 688, 53 A.2d at 584 (emphasis added). Saunders also made similar interpretations of the work stoppage requirement in reviewing decisions by courts in two sister states. In interpreting an Oklahoma case, Board of Review v. Mid-Continent Petroleum Corp., 193 Okla. 36, 141 P.2d 69 (1943), we noted the decision of the court... only goes so far as to say that a `stoppage of work' does not mean that a whole plant has to be shut down. Saunders, 188 Md. at 685, 53 A.2d at 582 (emphasis added). Later, in reviewing Magner v. Kinney, 141 Neb. 122, 2 N.W.2d 689 (1942), we noted that [t]he court referred to the fact that the unemployment compensation law was a substantial reenactment of the English [Unemployment] Insurance Act and that the construction by the English officials administering that act ... is that `stoppage of work' is a substantial curtailment of work in an establishment.... Saunders, 188 Md. at 685-86, 53 A.2d at 583 (emphasis added). In Lloyd E. Mitchell, Inc. v. Maryland Employment Security Board, 209 Md. 237, 121 A.2d 198 (1956), we reviewed a case in which the claimants, though not striking, had not crossed the picket lines. We noted that before a special examiner, it was stipulated by all the parties that beginning on June 2, 1952, there was a complete stoppage of work at the Sparrows Point plant of the Bethlehem Steel Company. Id. at 241, 121 A.2d at 200. For this reason, we had concluded that [i]t is undisputed that there was a stoppage of work at their place of employment due to a labor dispute between other parties, so that the proviso comes into play and the claimants must show affirmatively that they did not participate in the labor dispute. Id. at 240, 121 A.2d at 199-200 (emphasis added). In MEMCO v. Maryland Employment Security Administration, 280 Md. 536, 375 A.2d 1086 (1977), we were concerned with whether employees involved in a multi-employer labor dispute were disqualified from receiving unemployment benefits. After labor contract negotiations failed, butchers at a number of grocery stores in the Washington area decided to strike against one of the employers (which, coincidentally, was petitioner) to put pressure on the other employers. The employers subsequently locked out all of the butchers. We held, inter alia, that the factory, establishment, or other premises where the labor dispute had occurred was each individual place of employment, not [the] multi-employer association. Id. at 545, 375 A.2d at 1092. We also held that the stoppages of work were directly caused by the employers' lockouts. Id. at 549, 375 A.2d at 1094 (emphasis added). By using the plural stoppages and lockouts, we infer that MEMCO viewed a work stoppage as occurring at each individual grocery store, i.e., each premises, once the lockouts at each site began. Finally, in Browning-Ferris, 292 Md. at 522, 438 A.2d at 1360, we quoted Milton I. Shadur, Unemployment Benefits and the Labor Dispute Disqualification, 17 U. Chi. L.Rev. 294, 308 (1950), which notes: Like most other aspects of the Draft Bill, the stoppage of work requirement had its origin in the British Unemployment Insurance Acts. When this country's fifty-one statutes were adopted, the phrase had long since acquired a settled construction from the British Umpires as referring not to the cessation of the workman's labour, but to a stoppage of the work carried on in the factory, workshop or other premises at which the workman is employed. [Emphasis added.] Since its passage, our understanding of the operation of the labor disqualification provision has been that, in order for claimants to be disqualified from receiving benefits, there must be both a labor dispute and a work stoppage at the individual place, site, factory, workshop, establishment, or premises where they worked. Respondents cite numerous cases in which courts of other states have applied a standard of substantial curtailment of the employer's entire operations to determine whether there has been a work stoppage. We noted in Browning-Ferris that [m]ost jurisdictions hold that stoppage of work means a substantial curtailment of the employer's operations.... However, the difficulty of applying a fixed percentage rule to define substantial has led courts to consider various other factors: Since the mid-fifties, there has been a new emphasis placed upon the term `operations.' As production increasingly represents less than totality of the employing unit's performance, decreases in business revenue, services rendered, marketing, research, and maintenance, transportation, and construction activities have come to the fore as indicia of substantialness. 292 Md. at 528-30, 438 A.2d at 1364-65 (emphasis added) (footnotes omitted) (quoting Willard A. Lewis, The Stoppage of Work Concept in Labor Dispute Disqualification Jurisprudence, 45 J. Urb. L. 319, 332 (1967)). Thus, the original intent of the substantial curtailment test may have been not to increase the geographic scope of the disqualification provision, as respondents allege, but to expand the criteria from industrial production to other business-related factors in determining whether a work stoppage had occurred at the individual work site. [6] See, e.g., Cumberland & Allegheny Gas Co. v. Hatcher, 147 W.Va. 630, 638, 130 S.E.2d 115, 120 (1963) (`[S]toppage of work' as used in statutes of this nature is held to refer to the employer's plant operations ... and to mean a substantial curtailment of work or operations in the employing establishment .... (emphasis added)), overruled on other grounds by Lee-Norse Co. v. Rutledge, 170 W.Va. 162, 291 S.E.2d 477 (1982). In other words, whether operations have been substantially curtailed at a particular job site depends on the type of business the employer conducts there and on the specific facts and circumstances of the case. See Twenty-Eight (28) Members of Oil, Chem., & Atomic Workers Union v. Employment Security Div., 659 P.2d 583, 591, 592 (Alaska 1983); Continental Oil Co. v. Board of Labor Appeals, 178 Mont. 143, 155, 156, 582 P.2d 1236, 1243, 1244 (1978). In this case, the main purpose of each work site was to either produce grocery products or store and distribute them. Not only were these activities substantially curtailed, they completely ceased at each location. Thus, a stoppage of work occurred at each of these premises. Cf. Continental Oil Co., 178 Mont. at 156, 582 P.2d at 1244 ([I]n determining whether there is a stoppage of work at a plant ... engaged in the production of a final product or set of final products, the first and major measure must be whether such production is curtailed or stopped.). Respondents also urge us to apply a multi-site definition of premises in this case based on the functional integrality and general unity tests we discussed in Tucker v. American Smelting & Refining Co., 189 Md. 250, 256, 55 A.2d 692, 694-95 (1947). We note that Tucker, though not expressly rejecting those tests, refused to use them in that case because in the ordinary use of words a plant at Garfield[, Utah] and one at Baltimore would not be called one `establishment' and facts are lacking which might give a special and unusual application to the word `establishment.'  Id. We again find those tests useless in the case at bar because the facts are not so special and unusual as to require their application. Cf. Matson Terminals, Inc. v. California Employment Comm'n, 24 Cal.2d 695, 707, 151 P.2d 202, 208 (1944) (equating establishment to all work sites covered by a union contract because hiring and work assignments were conducted through the union halls); Abendroth v. Wisconsin Dep't of Indus., Labor & Human Relations, 69 Wis.2d 754, 764, 233 N.W.2d 343, 348 (1975) (rejecting an argument founded on functional integrality and general unity tests that airline ground employees in Wisconsin worked in the same establishment as pilots in Seattle and Minneapolis). There clearly was a stoppage of work at each individual premises where the respondents worked. The remainder of petitioner's operations are irrelevant to that determination in this case.