Court Opinion

ID: 9573661
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:57:29.813057+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:42:17.178017
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Doyle
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent from the views expressed by the majority of the Court. My disagreement is with the majority’s interpretation of the Act as being limited to “industrial activity” — a limitation which is not apparent in the Act but which has been actually written in by the majority. I firmly believe that we are not empowered to supply legislative omissions in order to provide standards which the Legislature has not included and thus to change the entire character of the Act.
The question presented is whether the non-professional employees of a hospital — the engineers, housekeepers, laundry workers and dietary workers — are within the terms of the Labor Peace Act, C.R.S. ’53, 80-5-1, et seq. This question can only be determined from an analysis of the definitions and exemptions which are included in the Act and not from a chance word or phrase contained in the declaration of policy. Section 80-5-2 broadly describes person and employer. The latter includes:
“A person who regularly engages the services of eight or more employees other than persons within the classes expressly exempted under the terms of sub-section 3.”
*41The exemptions here referred to exclude from the term “employee”:
“An independent contractor, domestic servants and ranch labor * * * ”
A further exemption encompasses a state or any political sub-division thereof or any carrier by railroad subject to the Federal Railway Labor Act. These definitions broadly bring within the scope of the Act all employers and employees other than those which are expressly exempted. There is no exemption in favor of the charitable corporation and such an association cannot be considered as a sub-division of the state.
The trial judge disposed of this issue correctly and pointed out that this contention was predicated upon the fact that charitable hospitals enjoy a tax exemption. The court then declared:
“Can we say, then, that by reason of the tax exemptions granted by our Constitution to these hospitals and, indeed, to the churches that these religious groups operate, to their orphanages and to their other institutions, that they have become political subdivisions of this State and are part of the government of the State of Colorado, subject to its control and regulation?
“Can it be said that because the United States Government grants a twenty-seven per cent depletion allowance to the oil industry, which is, in fact, a subsidy to that industry, that it has become a political subdivision of the United States Government?
“I think the question posed must answer itself, and that it is clear that charitable hospitals, operated by private organizations, are in no way political subdivisions of the State of Colorado.”
The majority opinion relies on the Massachusetts case of St. Luke’s Hospital v. Labor Relations Commission, 320 Mass. 467, 70 N.E. 2d 10, which case held that a hospital is not engaged in industrial activity. This decision of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts is not authority here for the simple reason that our statute *42includes no such requirement, whereas the Massachusetts statute contains this limitation. This is apparent from the opinion of the Massachusetts Court:
“ * * * To come within the ambit of the authority of the commission the selection of a bargaining representative must be connected with and related to industry and trade.”
The true basis for the majority opinion, as I view it, is its belief that charitable hospitals ought to be exempted even if they are not. The majority proceeds from this premise to the conclusion that the Legislature intended to exempt this type of activity but failed to do so expressly and under such circumstances an implied exemption ought to be read into the statute. This analysis was frankly disclosed in an intermediate Appellate Court decision of New York, that of Jewish Hospital of Brooklyn v. Doe, 252 App. Div. 581, 300 N.Y. Supp. 1111, 119. The Court said:
“We believe it is not open to doubt that the Legislature did not intend the statute to be applicable to such institutions even though it did not expressly exempt them.”
A Federal case, that of National Labor Relations Board v. Central Dispensary & Emergency Hospital, 145 Fed. (2d) 852 dealt with this subject as it existed prior to the adoption of amendments expressly excluding hospitals. The Court said:
“Respondent argues that the spirit or policy of the Act is such that we should read into - it an exemption of charitable hospitals. In the interpretation of its state labor relations act the Pennsylvania court held that even though the words might be broad enough to include a hospital, nevertheless they could not conceive that the legislature intended to apply the act to such institutions. We are unable to follow the reasoning of the Pennsylvania court. We cannot understand what considerations of public policy deprive hospital employees of the privilege granted to the employees of other institutions. The opinions of the Minnesota and the Wisconsin Supreme *43Courts, holding that charitable hospitals and their nonprofessional employees are subject to the labor relations acts of those states, present what seems to us the only tenable view as to the spirit and policy of such statutes.”
The Minnesota and Wisconsin opinions which are referred to in the opinion are Northwestern Hospital of Minneapolis v. Public Building Service Employes’ Union, 208 Minn. 389, 294 N.W. 215; Wisconsin Employment Relations Board v. Evangelical Deaconess Society of Wisconsin, 242 Wis. 78, 7 N.W. (2d) 590. Both decisions are fully reasoned and applicable. The Minnesota decision is particularly pertinent because the statutory provisions defining employer and employee are substantially similar to the corresponding provisions of the Colorado Act. It expressly rejects the New York decision referred to above and also a Pennsylvania case, Western Pennsylvania Hospital v. Lichliter, 340 Pa. 382, 17th Atl. (2d) 206.
A relatively recent decision, that of Utah Labor Relations Board v. Utah Valley Hospital, 120 Utah 463, 235 P. (2d) 520 contains a succinct analysis. It is there said:
“The reasoning of the cases relied upon by the defendants seems to be largely to the effect that it would have been a good idea for the Labor Relations Act to except said charitable hospitals and therefore the courts should imply such an exception.
* * *
“These cases point out that the purpose of the act and the function of the Labor Board is to minimize strikes and strife in labor relations; that for the hospital not to be subject to control would give no assurance that there would be no strike or other labor disturbance. The court in the Wisconsin case just referred to says in substance that the principal purpose of the act is to safeguard the interest of the three groups concerned with labor relations, that is, the public, the employer, and the employee; that instead of promoting strikes the real purpose of the act is to provide new methods of peacefully *44settling disputes which may arise and thus prevent strikes, and that there can be no greater hazard to the lives of patients in the hospital under the statute than there was before its enactment. Labor and sweat, hours, wages, and the desire to be important as individuals are much the same whether they exist in a charitable hospital or an industrial plant. There seems to be no reason why the position and rights of workers in a hospital are not just as important to the well being of the whole community as those of any other employees.”
The district court in the present case analyzed this problem with care and came up with a valid conclusion. It put the matter very plainly:
“There is no need for the Court to discuss the good or the evil which would come from the exempting of charitable hospitals from unionization under the Labor Peace Act. It is no function of this Court to substitute its judgment for that of the Legislature and to say that the Legislature should have exempted charitable hospitals from the terms of the Labor Peace Act. This Court believes strongly in the principle of separation of powers set down by the founding fathers; it believes that it is the function of the sixty-five representatives and thirty-five senators elected by the people of this State to pass legislation; and it believes that no Court should usurp that power by reading into acts provisions that are not there because the particular Court believes they ought to be there.
“The wording of this statute is clear. All persons who hire eight or more employees, except certain persons enumerated in the statute, are covered by the Act, and the Court feels that it is constrained to so hold. Charitable hospitals, not being exempted by the provisions of the Act, cannot be exempted by judicial legislation.”
It is of course proper for the court to ascertain legislative meaning from doubtful or ambiguous language and indeed there may be instances where the inapplicability of the statute is obvious from the spirit and *45philosophy of the legislation as it appears from a reading of the statute as a whole. But are we justified in psychoanalysis of the General Assembly in our quest for a legislative intent consistent with our policy notions? I believe that we are not.
I concede that there are good sound reasons of policy for either exempting or treating differently a hospital because of the close relation to the public interest. I can sympathize with the viewpoint of the majority that a serious problem could arise if a strike were to be called. I wish to point out, however, that a determination that the employees here in question are not subject to the terms of the Labor Peace Act does not solve the problem. This is true because it does not mean that these employees cannot organize and bargain collectively, and it does not mean that they cannot threaten to strike or actually strike. What it does mean is that such institutions are deprived of whatever protection the restrictions and procedures afforded by the statute provide against irresponsible and ill considered action by organized employees. Invariably when the court departs from its natural function and seeks to legislate in accordance with its own views as to what the law should be it does not solve the over-all problem, but only serves to avoid the problem’s friction momentarily.
In the instant case it is clear beyond doubt that the definition in question includes the employees whose status is here in question. That being so, we should so hold and should leave to the General Assembly that which is properly its function.
Mr. Justice Moore joins in this dissent.