Commonwealth v. Cioni Accessories

33 Pa. D. & C.2d 429, 1964 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 311
CourtPennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Dauphin County
DecidedMarch 18, 1964
Docketno. 267
StatusPublished

This text of 33 Pa. D. & C.2d 429 (Commonwealth v. Cioni Accessories) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Dauphin County primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Commonwealth v. Cioni Accessories, 33 Pa. D. & C.2d 429, 1964 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 311 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1964).

Opinion

Bowman, J.,

Orlando F. Cioni, doing business as Cioni Accessories, appellant, has appealed1 from the action of the Bureau of Employ[430]*430ment Security of the Department of Labor and Industry in disallowing appellant’s petition for reassessment of contributions theretofore assessed against appellant with respect to moneys paid to individuals by appellant in the conduct of his business. The assessment in question was made June 6,1958, in the amount of $1,753.23 principal contributions with interest thereon of $174.95 calculated to November 30, 1956. An indeterminate portion of the assessed contributions relates to wages paid to an individual whom appellant admitted to be an employe at the hearing conducted by the department and, hence, is not involved in this appeal. The remainder of the assessed contributions involves payments made by appellant to “homeworkers” for work performed by them in their respective residences.

After the appeal was perfected in July 1958, neither party proceeded to have the same heard until November 1962, when the department obtained a rule on appellant to show cause why the appeal should not be dismissed for want of prosecution. An answer to the rule was filed in December 1962, and again the matter lay dormant until it was listed for argument on the rule and answer in January 1964. At argument, however, the parties stipulated that the matter be disposed of on its substantive merits which will here be done.

It is appellant’s contention that the record of the hearing conducted by the bureau on appellant’s petition for reassessment does not support its decision that the payments made by the appellant to these homeworkers were “wages” and that these individuals were in the “employment” of appellant within the meaning of these words as defined in section 4 of the Unemployment Compensation Law.2

Before setting forth the principal facts which are [431]*431deemed to have been fairly established at the aforesaid hearing, disposition must be made of one of the department’s contentions, upon which much testimony was elicited of the witnesses but which, in the court’s opinion, is not decisive of the legal issues here involved and the testimony so taken to be irrelevant to such legal issues.

A principal contention of the department is that appellant, being subject to the provisions of the Industrial Homework Law,3 and thereby required to accept responsibility for compliance with the provisions of said act pertaining to ages of workers, hours and places of work and sanitary conditions of the work place,4 of necessity had to exercise certain direction and control over the homeworkers in question who were thereby not free of such control and direction as required by the exclusionary provisions from the word “employment” as contained in section 4(1) (2) (B) of the Unemployment Compensation Law.5

In this contention the department ignores the fact that in its scope the Industrial Homework Law is applicable to any person who causes work to be done on articles or materials in another’s home regardless of the existence or nonexistence of the employer-employe relationship under common law definition or as defined [432]*432in other statutes. To accomplish this end said statute does define “employer” 6 but does so in such broad terms, including that of a relationship of independent contractors, that no significance can be assigned to the fact that a person is subject to said act in determination of whether he is an employer within the meaning of another statute, and particularly in this matter, within the meaning of the Unemployment Compensation Law. To sustain the department’s contention would necessarily result in every person subject to the provisions of the Industrial Homework Law being an employer within the meaning of the Unemployment Compensation Law. The disparity of definitions in the two acts will not support this conclusion. This contention of the department is, therefore, rejected and all testimony elicited in support thereof is considered irrelevant to the legal issues here raised, except to the extent that it might show direction and control in general by appellant over the homeworkers rather than in compliance with the provisions of the Industrial Homework Law.

The record made at the hearing on appellant’s petition for reassessment consists of his testimony as a witness for the bureau, the testimony of his one admitted employe, whose primary duties consisted of delivering to and picking up articles and materials from homeworkers, and that of two homeworkers. This record establishes that appellant was in the business of sewing decorative beads by hand on slippers and moccasins for shoe manufacturers. He had no place of business other than his home and his automobile wherein articles and materials were stored and from which they were distributed. Under sundry oral contracts appellant, from time to time, would receive from a shoe manufacturer a quantity of certain unfinished parts [433]*433of shoes known as vamps or plugs to which were to be added beads in prepunched holes, the color scheme and layout of each pattern being shown by sample.

To fulfill his obligation to the shoe manufacturer, appellant would contact homeworkers, many of whom solicited work from him and some of whom were known to him by reason of previous work performed for him, appellant would then meet with one or more of them to discuss the pattern and work and to agree upon a piece rate for that particular work. When such rate was so established it tended to establish the rate for work performed by other homeworkers who thereafter agreed to work on any particular pattern and design. All homeworkers contacted by appellant and performing work for him were women, the majority of whom were housewives. After the piece rate for such work had been agreed upon, appellant would deliver to such homeworkers the unfinished shoe part together with the needed beads to complete the pattern and the thread and needle necessary to perform the work. Originally, the material and tools were supplied to the homeworkers by appellant at no cost, but subsequently appellant charged the homeworkers for these materials and tools at the cost price to him. The homeworkers performed their work depending upon their efficiency and the time devoted thereto within an indefinite time period and were generally paid for their work upon completion of the number of pieces which had been delivered to them. On occasion appellant would pay a homeworker for work completed on a portion but not all of the pieces originally delivered to such homeworker.

Appellant in his oral contract with shoe manufacturers was also paid on a per piece basis and his margin of profit was substantially the difference between the price paid to him by the shoe manufacturer and the amount paid by him to the homeworker, less some expenses for the delivery and pickup of the unfinished [434]*434and finished pieces and minor overhead expenses of operating the business.

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Bluebook (online)
33 Pa. D. & C.2d 429, 1964 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 311, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/commonwealth-v-cioni-accessories-pactcompldauphi-1964.