Court Opinion

ID: 9663576
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:43:16.654323+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:52.228433
License: Public Domain

*228Black, J.
(concurring). Two opinions of this case are proposed. One stands for affirmance. The other for reversal. One concludes that the decision of the appeal hoard “was either based upon a misconstruction of the term ‘voluntarily,’ or it was clearly against the great weight of the evidence.”1 The other arrives at conclusion that “the disqualifying provision of the statute clearly applied, and required the order entered by the appeal board of the employment security commission.” Thus each scribe votes — with his supporters — -to affirm or reverse upon premise that the appeal board decided a question of law. At this junction I get off the fully segregated train. It goes nowhere, at least toward any station of worthy precedent.
Whether the plaintiff employee did or did not voluntarily leave his employment, without good cause “attributable to his employer,” became under the' proofs an issue of fact for administrative determination. This surely is proven by the conflicting opinions of Brothers Edwards and Carr. The record of testimony, detailed by them as in stirring jury arguments for and against an award of benefits to plaintiff, would in my view justify a jury verdict either way and, by that hitherto acceptable test, fully warrants this particular administrative decision. The appeal board concluded, well within the range of proof before it:
“The above-quoted statement of the claimant and the entire record establishes that the claimant’s leaving was voluntary and for purely personal reasons. We find, therefore, that the referee properly held that the claimant’s leaving was voluntary and without any good cause attributable to the employer. *229It is accordingly our finding that the referee’s decision holding that the claimant’s separation was under disqualifying circumstances is in accord with and fully supported by the facts and law and cannot be disturbed.”
I reaffirm the rule which limits the scope of judicial review of administrative decisions. See Peaden v. Employment Security Commission, 355 Mich 613, 629, and the respective opinions of Justices Smith and Voelker in Knight-Morley Corporation v. Employment Security Commission, 350 Mich 397, 411, and Jerry McCarthy Highland Chevrolet Co. v. Department of Revenue, 351 Mich 558. The appeal board’s determination of plaintiff’s claim is legally akin to the verdict of a jury upon a like issue of fact, and I refer to Mr. Justice Smith’s comparison — in Knight-Morley — of the administrative function with that of the jury province. He said, and I subscribed:
“We conclude that under the statute here before us our scope of review is no broader than that exercised by us in setting aside a jury’s verdict, our latitude no greater. It may, indeed, due to the differing considerations of skill, policy, and function of the fact-finding tribunals in the governmental process, be far narrower.” (p 421)
The statute “before us” in Knight-Morley is the same statute which confronts us now. The only noteworthy difference between the 2 cases is that the appeal board decided Knight-Morley’s question of fact for the plaintiff employee; whereas in this case the board decided a visibly identical question against the plaintiff employee. If it was right to affirm the appeal board in the one case, so it is right to affirm the board in the latter.
I join no team which approaches review, of a decision by the appeal board, with seeming askant eye when that decision happens to favor the defendant *230employer. And I stand aloof from others who, by their consistent writing, view with apparent suspicion any decision of the appeal board which turns out in favor of the plaintiff employee. I prefer to stand upon Aragon’s  canonical rule of administrative law, quoted from Peaden above (p 624) :
“Here, as in National Labor Relations Board v. Hearst Publications, Inc. (1944), 322 US 111, 131 (64 S Ct 851, 88 L ed 1170), the question presented ‘is one of specific application of a broad statutory term in a proceeding in which the agency administering the statute must determine it initially.’ To sustain the commission’s application of this statutory term, we need not find that its construction is the only reasonable one, or even that it is the result we would have reached had the question arisen in the first instance in judicial proceedings. The ‘reviewing court’s function is limited.’ All that is needed to support the commission’s interpretation is that it has ‘warrant in the record’ and a ‘reasonable basis in law.’ ”
As in Aragon, we deal here with administrative application of the disqualification provisions of an unemployment compensation act. The judicial function “is limited.” The circuit court does not hear and consider de novo, with right of rendition of a new - administrative verdict. Neither does this Court. • All that is necessary to conclude judicial inquiry is appearance in the record of some evidence upon which it may be said that there is a legally rational basis for the scrutinized decision of the appointed administrative authority. This claimant’s handwritten statement—yes, just that statement— constitutes such evidence. 3
*231Professor Cooper, of the Law School of the University of Michigan, noted recently the visible trend of our decisions in administrative cases, which trend I would maintain until that day comes when courts of original jurisdiction are both equipped and authorized, fully as they should be, to decide such controversies as by law are presently committed to the judgments of statutory administrators. He said (7 Wayne L Rev, p 1) :
“While none of the Michigan Supreme Court’s decisions in the 12-month period under review lay down general principles of far-reaching significance in the administrative law field, the general tenor of the Court’s rulings indicates a departure from the philosophies that characterized the Court’s rulings 10 years ago, and suggests a general trend toioard a philosophy of noninterference with administrative adjudication.”
I hold that the circuit court, having been called upon to review this administrative record via the limitations of certiorari, attempted to substitute its judgment of factual issues for that of the appeal board. This was error. My vote to reverse is cast accordingly.
Kavanagh, J., concurred with Black, J.

 This alternative conclusion, taken either way by disjunction, is a proposed ruling of law distinguished from determination of an issue of fact. See discussion in Jones v. Eastern Michigan Motorbuses, 287 Mich 619, 648.

 The statement is quoted verbatim in. Mr. Justice Carr’s opinion, ante, 220, 221.