Court Opinion

ID: 9719550
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:55:49.323958+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:45:01.319928
License: Public Domain

LARSEN, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent. When appellants filed their claims with the Bureau of Unemployment Compensation, the claims were denied primarily because of representations made to the Bureau by the employer, the George Sail Metal Company, that the company was negotiating with appellants’ union and was willing to execute a new contract with the union. The employer further stated that work remained available to appellants. Based on these representations, the Bureau *185decided appellants’ unemployment was due to a labor dispute and denied benefits.
Subsequent events occurred which established that the employer’s representations were false. In the case of Charlie Davis, the Bureau’s Board of Review was sufficiently impressed by these subsequent events to find that the work stoppage was the result of a lockout. The Board of Review made the following findings of fact:
2. Prior to March 19, 1973, claimant and the production employees of the [George Sail] company were members of the Firemen and Oilers Union.
3. In March 1973, claimant and the production workers of the company elected to become members of Teamsters Union Local 115, and on March 19, 1973, Teamsters Union Local 115 became the certified bargaining representative for all the production workers of the company.
4. The existing Union-management agreement between the Fireman and Oilers Union and the company was rejected April 1, 1973.
5. Teamsters Local 115, upon being certified as the bargaining representative for the production workers, notified the company that they wished to negotiate terms of a new agreement.
6. The company and Local 115 met on various occasions during the month of April to reach agreement on new terms for a contract.
7. On or about May 1, 1973, the company informed the union that in November 1972, the parent company of George Sail Metal Company, Inc., had decided to sell George Sail Metal Company, Inc., and the Company also informed the union it should bargain with the prospective buyer of the parent facilities of George Sail Metal Company, Inc.
*1868. The Union met with the prospective purchaser to negotiate terms for a new agreement.
9. The prospective buyer failed to purchase the facilities of George Sail Metal Company, Inc.
10. On May 17, 1973, the employer began moving all of its machinery and inventory out of the plant facilities.
11. On May 18, 1973, the Union placed picket lines around the employer’s premises.
12. The claimant and the production workers of the company continued to work under the same terms and conditions of the pre-existing contract from April 1, 1973, to May 17, 1973.
13. As of the date of the Referee’s hearing, September 3, 1974, no purchaser has bought the George Sail Metal Company, Inc., facilities.
Based on these findings, the Board concluded the work stoppage was the result of the employer’s refusal to maintain the status quo pending contract negotiations with the new union and that this placed the responsibility for the stoppage on the employer. The Board held:
[T]he record further indicates that the company did not wish to negotiate with Teamsters Local 115, which represented claimant, and the production workers of the company; and even though the company was negotiating with Local 115, it had already decided to sell the facilities. Further, when the company on May 17, 1973, began moving all its equipment and inventory from the plant facilities, it was not maintaining the status quo pending further negotiations. Therefore, since the employer failed to maintain the status quo, the responsibility of the work stoppage must be borne by the employer, and the work stoppage constitutes a lockout.
The Bureau had initially rejected appellants’ assertion that the employer had decided to close its plant and ignored their request for an investigation of the employer’s operations to determine whether George Sail intended to close *187down or maintain operations. While the Bureau was aware, at the time it rendered decisions in appellants’ cases, that the employer had moved some machinery and inventory from the plant on the day preceding the work stoppage, the evidence was considered insufficient to demonstrate a lockout had occurred. Only after all of the plant’s machinery and inventory had been removed, and a hollow shell remained, was the Bureau (the Board of Review) convinced the work stoppage was the result of George Sail’s unwillingness to maintain the status quo pending contract negotiations.
When appellants filed their claims, they did not have the benefit of the employer’s subsequent conduct, which conduct refuted its assertions that work was available to appellants and that it was not shutting down its facility. Since this conduct demonstrated the employer had misrepresented the facts in appellants’ cases, I would hold that this deceit amounts to fraud and I would allow appellants to appeal the Bureau’s determinations nunc pro tunc under these circumstances. It seems to me that an employee should not be denied unemployment compensation benefits which would have been granted him but for his employer’s misrepresentations to the Bureau. To recognize such an exception to the ordinarily desirable rules of finality of administrative decisions would further the remedial purposes of the Unemployment Compensation laws which are to be construed liberally to accomplish those purposes. See Frumento v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 466 Pa. 81, 351 A.2d 631 (1976). As we stated in Unemployment Compensation Board of Review v. Jolliffe, 474 Pa. 584, 586, 379 A.2d 109, 110 (1977), “[i]t is clear that [the Unemployment Compensation] Act is remedial in nature and ‘its benefits and objectives shall not be frittered away by slavish adherence to technical and artificial rules’ ” (cites omitted), and especially, as here, when falsehoods are involved.
FLAHERTY, J., joins in this dissenting opinion.