21 A.2d 690 | N.J. | 1941
These three cases arise under the "Unemployment Compensation Act," chapter 270 of the laws of 1936, Pamph. L., pp. 1045, etseq., carried into R.S. 1937 as chapter 21 of title 43. The individual defendants in certiorari, Holzman, Smith and Sutphen, were employees of the corporate prosecutor Henry A. Dreer, Inc., which (to quote the brief submitted by its counsel) "was and is the owner and operator of a large tract of land at Riverton, New Jersey, run as a farm and incidentally to sell plants and bulbs." All three individual defendants were "unemployed" at the time of applying for compensation under the act, but the employer prosecutor claimed that they were subject to the exception which appears at page 1085 of Pamph. L. 1936,R.S. 43:21-19 (i) (7) (A) and which reads: "(7) The term `employment' shall not include (A) agricultural labor." And the basic question that we are asked to decide is whether the tasks in which they were respectively engaged when employed, constituted "agricultural labor" in the true intent and meaning of the statute. The prosecutor employer claimed that they did, and defended before the several statutory judicial agencies on that ground. These agencies, as pointed out in Provident Mutual,c., Co. v. Unemployment Commission,
A preliminary question arises with regard to the jurisdiction in the premises, if any, of the Unemployment Commission. That body is in substance a prosecutor in this case, though it makes a return to the writ. By that return it appears that in March, 1939, considerably over a year before these cases were adjudicated by the deputy and the reviewing bodies, the Commission sent to the Dreer concern (and conceivably to others in similar business) a "Ruling Letter" stating in substance that all the employees in that business were engaged in "agricultural labor" and specifying the work done by the three claimants in general terms. The "appellate tribunal" and "board of review" ignored that letter and held to the contrary. It is now argued that the "ruling letter" should have been regarded by them as compelling authority. But we do not think so. The statute is lengthy and complicated; but our study of it leads to the conclusion that the Commission is an administrative and not a judicial body; that it is authorized and required by the act to establish its own courts; but not empowered to control them in their decisions, any more than an executive who appoints a judge may control that judge's decisions. So we see nothing in the point that the ruling letter is controlling. *152
This brings us to the construction and interpretation of the statute. The language under consideration, and above quoted, is in essence a proviso. Being contradictory to the purview, it is controlling. Gerstung v. Sauer,
The statute being remedial, should of course be liberally construed as to its purview. But the controlling proviso excluding "agricultural labor" is broad and sweeping, and should not be whittled down by narrowness of construction.
So far, only the language particularly applicable to the *153
case in hand has been quoted; but the whole proviso may well be considered. There are seven paragraphs, lettered from (A) to (G), and in each, except perhaps in (B), the emphasis is laid on the characterization of the employer, and not on the service performed. (B) reads: "domestic service in a private home;" not, for example, in a hotel or boarding house; (C) "service" (any service) performed as a member of the crew of a vessel, c.; (D) service in the employ of certain near relatives; (E) service in the employ of the state or a political subdivision; (F) service under the government of the United States; and (G) service under certain classes of charitable corporations. We have not undertaken to reproduce here the language of the act verbatim.
Viewing these seven as a group, it would seem, as we have just said, that emphasis is laid on the character, relationship, and business of the employer, rather than on the kind of work done by the employee. For example, under paragraph (E), an employee of the state, whether a gardener tending the flowers in the State House grounds, or a woman stenographer in a state office, would not reap the benefits of the act. As regards paragraph (A), however, the intent seems to be twofold; first, that whoever and whatever the employer, an agricultural laborer is not entitled, so that the gardener of a private individual would not be entitled, and the gardener in the State House grounds doubly disentitled; and secondly, that where the business of the employer is agricultural, as in this case, and the work of the employee is germane and incidental to that business, the proviso is applicable and the employee disentitled. This view seems to be adequately supported by such cases in other jurisdictions asKeeney v. Beasman,
We conclude, therefore, that the prosecutor in the three cases before us is not liable for compensation to the three named employees; and that the decision of the Board of Review, affirming that of the Appeal Tribunal, is set aside, and the decision of the deputy in each affirmed, without costs. *154