Court Opinion

ID: 9737776
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:34:28.275885+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:01.276269
License: Public Domain

HOFFMAN, Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the result reached by the majority in Issue I, concerning the labor dispute section of the Act, IC 1971, 22-4-15-3(a) (1979 Burns Supp.). I would, however, premise the conclusion that the work stoppage section is inapplicable to the facts at bar upon the existing precedent of Jackson et al. v. Rev. Bd., etc. (1966), 138 Ind.App. 528, 215 N.E.2d 355. Jackson involved a factual situation closely parallel to the instant case. Within that context the court sought to carry forth the purpose of the Employment Security Act by ruling that the statutory disallowance of benefits to claimants resulting from “stoppage of work which exists because of a labor dispute” must be interpreted to mean a cessation of the employer’s business, rather than the curtailment of an individual employee’s labors. The Jackson court found that because the evidence failed to disclose any work stoppage or any interruption of output, the section would not operate to disqualify the claimants for benefits.
Further, in Jackson it was determined that where permanent replacements had been hired to supplant strikers the employ*1007ment relationship would be sufficiently severed so as to render this section inapplicable. Such an interpretation of the statute appears to carry out the design of the Legislature in providing for unemployment benefits, and I would therefore reaffirm the precept of Jackson, supra.