Court Opinion

ID: 9573663
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:57:29.820964+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:42:17.739090
License: Public Domain

Mr. Chief Justice Sutton,
formerly concurring, now dissents:
Originally I was convinced that the intention of our legislature was not to include non-profit organizations within the statute in question. It had earlier seemed to me as if no one had thought of saying one way or the *47other as to which classification charitable and non-profit institutions should fall in.
A re-review of the authorities relied upon now demonstrates to me that this is not so.
In National Labor Relations Board v. Central Dispensary and Emergency Hospital (1944), 145 Fed. (2d) 852 (certiorari denied (1945) 65 S. Ct. 684), a hospital such as St. Luke’s was held to be engaged in “trade” and “commerce” within the terms of the National Labor Relations Act. As a result of that decision the National Labor Relations Act was amended by the Congress to remove such non-profit hospitals from the coverage of that statute. Utah Labor Relations Bd. v. Utah Valley Hospital (1951), 120 Utah 463, 235 P. (2d) 520. This disclaimer then placed the matter under state law since the federal preemption was repealed.
In the Utah case the two conflicting lines of decisions now in existence on this problem are analyzed. There it was determined that the Utah Labor Relations Act did apply to this type of fact situation. In view of the danger to patients through possible work stoppages or strikes in attempts to organize labor under the act if held applicable, I reluctantly state that I must concur that our Labor Relations Law applies here. To hold otherwise when the statute is so clear is, in my opinion, to deny the well established rule of law that to include one is to exclude others, and to usurp the functions of an independent branch of government. I now believe the hospital here should have addressed its complaint to the Legislature and not to this court.