Court Opinion

ID: 9865017
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 16:20:44.804603+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:36:50.803504
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Knous
specially concurring.
While it may be that the Industrial Commission would be without authority under the Employment Security Act to adjudge the suitability of the employment offered one unemployed solely upon the basis of what the commission feels should be the patriotic duty of the workman involved, I am satisfied from the records that such was neither the intent nor action of the commission in the cases at bar. Upon this basis I am unable to concur in the ground expressed in the court’s opinion for affirming the judgments of the district court.
I believe that section 5 (c) (1) of the act, quoted in *73the opinion of the court, confers upon the commission the broad power to consider prevailing economic conditions, whether they arise from the dislocations of war or from peace time depressions or trends, in deciding whether, in a given case, the offered employment is suitable and so determinative of the right to unemployment benefits. In the situation here involved, due to the burden imposed on the transportation systems of the country by the war, the national and state governments, in an effort to stabilize the flow of traffic thereon, in the spring and summer of 1942, made a wide appeal to users of coal to buy and store such, rather than, as ordinarily, to wait until the fall or winter months to fill their bins. As a result of this program and the cooperation of the public therewith, an abnormal demand for summer production of coal in the Hayden field arose, and with it came stable peak employment periods for the miners. To complicate the situation, as a result of the flow of manpower to the armed services and war industries, there also was a shortage of labor in the coal mining industry. I am satisfied that these circumstances, legitimate of consideration, rather than any unwarranted effort to impose patriotism on the claimants, prompted the comments on the war situation contained in the commission’s decision.
Notwithstanding the right of the commission to notice such factors, I am convinced, however, that any considerations arising therefrom are so overwhelmed by other unchallenged evidence adduced as to make the decision of the commission arbitrary and unjust. The record discloses: (1) That for many years Lazar’s place of residence has been at Frederick, Colorado, and Parra’s at Erie; both are family men, Lazar with several children; both own their own home and Lazar maintains an extensive family garden in connection with his. (2) For more than a decade the basic employment of both has been in the Frederick-Erie coal fields where both have established seniority rights in particular mines which *74they would lose should they not report for work on the opening of such mines. Except for a few shifts worked elsewhere in 1941, Lazar in the past thirteen years has not been employed outside of the Frederick field. (3) Because of the precise war emergencies causing peak employment at Hayden, the mines in the home fields of claimants would open early in July, 1942. (4) The offered employment at Hayden, some 200 miles away, was not tendered until the fore part of May, 1942, and the first hearings before the deputy was not held until the latter part of that month. (5) The type of mining carried on in the Hayden field differed materially from that prevailing in the Erie-Frederick fields, to which the claimants were accustomed. (6) There were no accommodations for families available at Hayden, as a result of which claimants, if they accepted employment there, would have to pay their board at Hayden and also maintain separate family establishments at Erie and Frederick. (7) Both had worked at Hayden in 1941 at which time their earnings averaged approximately $2.00 per day less than the pay received in their home field. Both claimants testified that the wages received by them at Hayden were not sufficient to board themselves and maintain their families at home. Lazar testified that because of his unfamiliarity with the type of mining followed at Hayden he was unable to work efficiently there in any event and admittedly Parra did not have sufficient funds with which to defray transportation charges to Hayden.
It is to be observed that the “stop-gap” employment offered until the opening of the mines in claimants’ own field, to which of necessity they would be obliged to return, would not exceed a few weeks at most.
Considering the inevitable dislocation in the claimants’ finances which would result from the payment of two-way traveling expenses and the separate maintenance of their families, in the event the short employment at Hayden had been accepted by them, and the *75further circumstances detailed above, I am statisfied that under the intent of the statute involved, the men were within their rights in refusing the offered employment and that the commission acted arbitrarily in ordering the withholding of unemployment benefits from them because of such refusal.