Child v. Board of Review of the Industrial Commission
This text of 332 P.2d 928 (Child v. Board of Review of the Industrial Commission) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Utah Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.
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Review of an Industrial Commission denial of unemployment compensation. Affirmed, with no costs awarded.
Under our statute1 and in the light of our pronouncements to the effect that the decision of the Commission will not be disturbed if reasonably supported by the evidence, 2 we conclude that the Commission did hot act arbitrarily in this case, being supported by evidence we believe can be reported fairly as follows:
For 20 years Child had been self-employed, when, in April, 1956, he carried on- his operations by means of four separate corporations, each of which he controlled, and for which he was president, and [241]*241in one of which he caused himself to become the manager at an agreed $165 per week. This last mentioned corporation, called the Child Construction Co., was that through which he funneled construction contracts and jobs. The second was a year-round operation of service stations. A third was a year-round company holding and operating rental equipment, and the fourth was a company owning many kinds of construction equipment, including caterpillar tractors, trucks, cement mixers, power shovels, etc.
The construction company had to do with many jobs, including construction of schools, canals, sewers, bridges and the like, in many cases through a process of competitive bidding. It was an all year operation when jobs were available. In December, 1957, when jobs had run out, Child caused a termination of his employment as manager and stopped his salary, applying for compensation payments as an unemployed worker, and registering as one being available for work. There is no indication that the corporation was relieved of any obligation still to pay him his salary.
Thereafter, he managed the affairs of the four corporations, including the making of collections and bank deposits, contacting architects, examining bid proposals, negotiating for a small business loan, directing an audit of the four companies’ books in aid thereof, supervising the work of a secretary and the service station attendants, attending to negotiations for repair of equipment and supervising thereof, paying bills, expending time and effort seeking new contracts and attending to other matters that arose incident to the operation of all four corporations, including the acceptance and deposit in the construction company bank account, of the service station corporation’s funds and paying wages out of the same account to the employees of the service station company.
A president of a corporation who is also manager, who has year-round responsibility to operate the business of the corporation and does so, cannot by purportedly laying himself off as manager in those periods when there may be no actual business activity, but when his corporate duties and management activity persist in the pursuit of future or continued business of the company, obtain unemployment benefits. He is much in the same position as a man working on a deferred commission payment basis who certainly cannot be said to be unemployed during the time the commission actually is not paid, but earned.
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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack
332 P.2d 928, 8 Utah 2d 239, 1958 Utah LEXIS 217, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/child-v-board-of-review-of-the-industrial-commission-utah-1958.