Court Opinion

ID: 9663244
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:33:04.360624+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:47.068535
License: Public Domain

SCOTT, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. We should reverse the denial of unemployment compensation benefits and, because of its long, arduous history, agree that the “constructive voluntary quit” rule of Anson v. Fisher Amusement Corp., 254 Minn. 93, 93 N.W.2d 815 (1958), has had its last legal gasp. Our 1980 opinions in Loftis v. Legionville School Safety Patrol Training Center, Inc., 297 N.W.2d 237 (Minn.1980), and Commissioner of the Department of Economic Security v. City of Duluth, 297 N.W.2d 239 (Minn.1980), clearly express our intention that Anson be overruled.
As the majority opinion points out, the doctrine of “constructive voluntary quit” was entirely a judicial creation. By statute, an employee is disqualified from receiving unemployment compensation benefits if the employee “voluntarily and without good *882cause attributable to the employer” discontinues his or her employment. Minn.Stat. § 268.09, subd. 1(1) (1980). The legislature, however, has not defined “voluntary.”
This court, in Anson, used the judicially created doctrine of “constructive voluntary quit” to hold that an employee is deemed to have voluntarily quit his employment when in fact he has not done so. In Anson, as in the case before us, where the employee had voluntarily accepted the employment as governed by the union’s collective bargaining agreement, the termination was deemed voluntary when he was “bumped” by union seniority rules, even though the employee did not want to give up his job and had no choice in the matter.
This rule is contrary to the policy underlying the unemployment compensation statutes. The declaration of public policy in section 268.03 stresses that “unemployment reserves [are] to be used for the benefit of persons unemployed through no fault of their own.” Minn.Stat. § 268.03 (1980). A position more consistent with this stated policy is that expressed in the leading case of Campbell Soup Co. v. Board of Review, 13 N.J. 431, 100 A.2d 287 (1953). In that case Justice Brennan, then a member of the New Jersey court, developed a test based upon the employee’s situation at the time of the termination. Under this test, a termination is voluntary only “where the decision whether to go or to stay lay at the time with the worker alone.” Id. at 435, 100 A.2d at 289.
The only sense in which relator can be said to be unemployed because of his own fault is that he took a job in a field with a seniority system already intact which he could foresee would lead to his being unemployed if the electrical trade ever enjoyed less than full employment. This should not make his eventual termination voluntary so as to deny him unemployment benefits.
We have previously recognized the inequities in the constructive voluntary quit rule as enunciated in Anson.1 While deciding the case on other grounds, in Hanson v. I.D.S. Properties Management Co., 308 Minn. 422, 242 N.W.2d 833 (1976), we expressed the following:
Counsel for the employee illustrated well at oral argument a principal problem with Anson. The statutory scheme underlying unemployment compensation tends to force an individual to sign a union contract to take an available job, then denies him benefits when he is “bumped” on the theory that he voluntarily consented to termination.
Id. at 425, 242 N.W.2d at 835.
The legislature has also recognized the inequities of the rule. Every case in which this court has applied the constructive voluntary quit rule of Anson to disqualify otherwise eligible claimants has been overruled by legislative action.
The most recent interaction began with Stawikowski v. Collins Electric Construction Co., 289 N.W.2d 390 (Minn.1979), in which this court considered the voluntariness of a termination resulting from a seniority provision in a collective bargaining agreement. We concluded that the equities favored an award of benefits:
The department [of Economic Security] urges that our prior decisions be reversed, that the constructive voluntary termination rule be repudiated, and that the test for voluntariness enunciated in the Campbell Soup case be adopted. We fully agree that the underlying purpose and objective of our unemployment compensation statute would be better served by applying the test advocated by claimants and the department * * *.”
Id. at 394. We nevertheless denied benefits, with an exhortation to the legislature to consider statutory changes in the definition of voluntary. Id. at 395.
Even before the opinion was filed, the legislature addressed the specific fact situation of Stawikowski and enacted an amendment allowing unemployment benefits to be *883paid to an individual who became unemployed due to the completion of an apprenticeship program.2 Stawikowski was thus legislatively overruled at the time the opinion was filed.
The court then granted petitions to rehear Loftis and City of Duluth, whose initial opinions denying benefits in situations involving temporary employment and termination of civil service employees were filed simultaneously with Stawikowski.3
While these rehearings were pending, the legislature added the second sentence to the definition of “voluntary leave”4 to negate legislatively the impact of any decision denying benefits. The section now reads as follows:
Voluntary leave. The individual voluntarily and without good cause attributable to the employer discontinued his employment with such employer. For the purpose of this clause, a separation from employment by reason of its temporary nature or for inability to pass a test or for inability to meet performance standards necessary for continuation of employment shall not be deemed voluntary.
Minn.Stat. § 268.09, subd. 1(1) (1980).
Upon rehearing, the original opinions in Loftis and City of Duluth were withdrawn and the constructive voluntary quit rule of Anson was not applied to these employees. Their termination was not deemed voluntary and benefits were awarded, even though, as in Anson, these employees had accepted work knowing it was of a limited or limitable duration. The opinions specifically state in four places that the effect of the amendments is to overrule Anson5 and that Anson is no longer viable.6
Respondent Peoples Electric contends that the legislature, by failing to enact an amendment specifically overruling the constructive voluntary quit rule, has intended to reaffirm the Anson rule. The applicable rule of construction,7 however, requires precisely the opposite conclusion. Our most recent construction of the voluntary quit statute in Loftis and City of Duluth states that the Anson rule is dead. Even though the facts of Anson may differ, its vitality is fully undermined by the decisions in Loftis and City of Duluth. By inaction, the legislature is presumed to have adopted this construction.
Relator is also entitled to benefits because he was terminated for good cause attributable, at least in part, to-the employer. Minn.Stat. § 269.09, subd. 1(1) (1980). Relator did not choose of his own volition to leave Peoples Electric. He left because he had no alternative but to comply with the seniority system in effect. That seniority system was the result of collective bargaining between the union and the bargaining representative of the employer, the St. Paul Chapter of the National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA). To suggest that Peoples Electric does not benefit by the outcome of this collective bargaining process, as well as its employees, is to ignore the .realities of the bargaining process. It is more reasonable to say that an employer is equally responsible for the outcome of industry-wide collective bargaining. When the industry hires or fires as the economy rises and falls, the theory is that the costs to the employer will balance out on an *884industry-wide basis over the period of the contract.
Because the constructive voluntary quit rule has been abolished since Loftis, and because relator is entitled to benefits under the statute, I would reverse the denial of benefits.

. Loftis v. Legionville School Safety Patrol Training Center, Inc., 297 N.W.2d 237, 238-39 (Minn.1980); Stawikowski v. Collins Electric Construction Co., 289 N.W.2d 390, 394 (Minn.1979).

. Act of May 24, 1979, ch. 181, § 11, 1979 Minn.Laws 272, 273, codified at Minn.Stat. § 268.09, subd. l(2)(f)(1980).

. No petition for rehearing was filed for Stawi-kowski ; it was presumably considered unnecessary because of favorable legislative action.

. Act of April 7, 1980, ch. 508, § 9, 1980 Minn. Laws 478, 479. The effective date for that particular provision was July 27, 1979, the date the original Loñis and City of Duluth opinions were filed.

. 297 at 238 & nn.l, 3.

. 297 at 241 n.l.

. The rule is found in Minn.Stat. § 645.-17(4)(1980):
When a court of last resort has construed the language of a law, the legislature in subsequent laws on the same subject matter intends the same construction to be placed upon such language.