Detroit Gravure Corp. v. Employment Security Commission

115 N.W.2d 368, 366 Mich. 530

• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Decided: May 18, 1962
• Docket: Docket 81, Calendar 49,090
• Status: Published

Opinions

Black, J.

This is an unemployment compensation case. The referee held that claimant Curry was not disqualified “for misconduct connected with his work” within pertinent meaning of section 29 of the employment security act (CLS 1956, §421.29 [Stat Ann 1960 Rev § 17.531]). Benefits were ordered accordingly. The referee was upheld by the appeal board, without opinion. On certiorari to the Wayne ■circuit Judge Bowles affirmed the appeal board’s decision. The employer appeals.

The agreeably stated question (copied from the attorney general’s brief) is:

“Was the discharge of the defendant and appellee Leon C. Curry from his employment with the Detroit Gravure Corporation because of his refusal to work his regularly scheduled shift on Sundays a discharge for misconduct connected with his work within the meaning of section 29 (1) (a) (2) of the Michigan -employment security act so as to disqualify him for .unemployment compensation benefits under said act for the duration of his unemployment?”

The referee found that Mr. Curry was hired by appellant in January of 1957 to be the “porter in the pressroom”; that the job required Mr. Curry to work 7 days per week, “as cleaning of the floor around the presses must be done on Saturdays and Sundays, when the presses are not in operation” y that the regular work week of other employees was. 5 days; that Mr. Curry was paid overtime for working Saturdays and Sundays; that during the forepart of 1960 Mr. Curry went to his superintendent saying he “wanted some Sundays off, to go to his. church”; that he proposed to the superintendent that he clean around the presses on one side thereof, on one Saturday, and do the other side on the next Saturday, and so on; that the superintendent did not give him “a decisive answer”; that on February 6, 1960, while Mr. Curry was at work, the superintendent told him “to be in the next day, Sunday, and claimant said he would not be in, that he was not going to work Sundays any more;” and that Mr. Curry thereupon was dismissed for what appellant claims is disqualifying misconduct.

Decision is controlled by the reasoning and authority appearing in the dissenting and later elevated (Linski v. Employment Security Commission, 358 Mich 239) opinion of Cassar v. Employment Security Commission, 343 Mich 380. If Mr. Curry’s conduct justified his discharge (a question not before us)r the referee nonetheless had a right to find that such did not amount-to “misconduct connected with his work.” Mr. Curry, not having wantonly or wilfully disregarded his employee’s interest, did not risk a matter-of-law judgment that his conduct aforesaid constituted statutory “misconduct” and it matters not that the appeal board might—we say “might”— have concluded that such conduct did in fact constitute such- “misconduct.”

Some day, hopefully before we meet in the sweet hye and bye according to the old hymn, all lawyers and judges—and possibly all others who wort themselves into a pluperfect tizzy every time this Court ■divides on the decisional rock of an unemployment •compensation case—will have learned that administrative decisions have to be left to the broad discretion of appointed administrators and that the courts may interfere and reverse only when it is found judicially that some controlling rule of law quite unfounds what such administrators have done. See discussion starting on page 629 (separate opinion for affirmance) of the report of Peaden v. Employment Security Commission, 355 Mich 613. "Which is to say again that our circuit judges should not, nor should we in turn, hear and decide unemployment benefit cases de novo.

In this case of Curry, as in all like section 29 cases, -the commission has exercised its judgment within the statutory area of discretion entrusted to it. Once the circuit judge, reviewing on certiorari, reaches .such conclusion, his function ends and affirmance is in order. So it is here, on review, once we reach fhe same conclusion.

Judge Bowles, writing to affirm the appeal board, •applied to the facts the following quotation which, in Cassar aforesaid at page 405, was adopted by Mr. .Justice Carr from the text of American Jurisprudence :

“Misconduct within the meaning of an unemployment compensation act excluding from its benefits an employee discharged for misconduct must be an act •of wanton or wilful disregard of the employer’s interest, a deliberate violation of the employer’s rules, a disregard of standards of behavior which the employer has the right to expect of his employee, or negligence in such degree or recurrence as to manifest ■culpability, wrongful intent, or evil design,., or .show an intentional and substantial disregard of tbe employer’s interest or of tbe employee’s duties and obligations to the employer.”

*

We agree with tbe conclusion of tbe judge that such quotation is applicably pertinent, and therefore affirm. No costs.

Kayanagh, Souris, and Adams, JJ., concurred with Black, J. Dethmers, J., concurred in result.

48 Am Jur, Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, and Retirement Funds, § 38, pp 541, 542.