Opinion
January 4, 1951.
March 19, 1951.
Unemployment compensation — Employers' contributions — Rates — Charges against account — Valid payments of benefits — Unemployment resulting from industrial dispute — Constitutional law — Due process — Equal protection of the law — Local or special laws — Title of act — Unemployment Compensation Law — Fourteenth Amendment to Federal Constitution — Pennsylvania Constitution — Article I, § 9, Article III, § 7, Article IX, § 1, and Article III, § 3.
1. A valid payment of unemployment compensation benefits made pursuant to the provisions of § 402(d) of the Pennsylvania Unemployment Compensation Law, as amended by § 9 of the Act of May 29, 1945, P. L. 1145, to employes whose unemployment was due to their voluntary suspension of work in 1946 resulting from an industrial dispute at the establishment at which they were last employed, creates a valid charge against the account of the base year employer of such employes in the computation of the employer's contribution rates for the years 1947 and 1948. [575-92]
2. Such construction of the Unemployment Compensation Law does not violate either the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution or § 9 of Article I, § 7 of Article III, or § 1 of Article IX of the Pennsylvania Constitution. [579-92]
3. The Unemployment Compensation Law, as amended by § 9 of the Act of 1945, as above construed, does not violate § 3 of Article III of the Pennsylvania Constitution (which provides that no bill shall be passed containing more than one subject, which shall be clearly expressed in its title). [579-92]
Mr. Justice CHIDSEY took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Before DREW, C. J., STERN, STEARNE, JONES, BELL and LADNER, JJ.
Appeals, Nos. 9 and 10, May T., 1951, from orders of Court of Common Pleas of Dauphin County, Commonwealth Docket, 1948, Nos. 139 and 140, in case of Boyertown Burial Casket Co., v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Orders affirmed.
Appeals by employer from determinations by Bureau of Unemployment Compensation of contribution rates.
The facts are stated in the opinion, by SMITH, J., of the court below, as follows:
These are appeals by the Boyertown Burial Casket Co. from determinations by the Bureau of Employment and Unemployment Compensation of the Department of Labor and Industry of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, (hereinafter called the "Bureau"), of appellant's unemployment compensation contribution rates for the years 1947 and 1948. The appeals were taken pursuant to the provisions of section 301 (h) of the Pennsylvania Unemployment Compensation Law (Act of December 5, 1936, P. L. (1937) 2897, as amended by the Act of June 10, 1947, P. L. 498). It was agreed that both appeals should be heard and disposed of at the same time.
We accept as our findings the facts set forth in the stipulation of counsel filed for each of the appeals in question. Those necessary to an understanding of this opinion are as follows:
The Boyertown Burial Casket Co. (hereinafter called the "Company"), is an employer subject to the provisions of the Pennsylvania Unemployment Compensation Law. Prior to the year 1947, the Company had been assigned the lowest possible rate of unemployment compensation contributions permitted under the experience rating provisions of the law.
On April 30, 1946, the Company had in its employ over three hundred employees in its Boyertown and East Greenville plants. On the date last mentioned the Upholsterers' International Union of America, a labor organization, called a strike at these two plants. Thereupon, the great majority of the Company's employees went out on a strike which lasted until October 28, 1946. A substantial number of the striking employees filed claims for unemployment compensation. These claims were allowed by the Bureau by its determination of June 26, 1946.
Benefit rights of the Company's striking employees were determined under the provisions of section 402 (d) of the Pennsylvania Unemployment Compensation Law as amended by section 9 of the Act of May 29, 1945, P. L. 1145, then in force, which section provided as follows: "Section 402. Ineligibility for Compensation. — An employee shall be ineligible for compensation for any week — . . . "(d) In which his unemployment is due to a voluntary suspension of work resulting from an industrial dispute, at the . . . premises at which he . . . was last employed: Provided, That this disqualification shall apply only to any week of unemployment which, in whole or in part, includes any part of the period beginning with the day on which such suspension occurs and ending with (i) the last day of the fourth calendar week immediately following the calendar week in which such suspension occurs, or (ii) the day on which such suspension was terminated, whichever is the earlier".
From this initial determination by the Bureau, the Company duly appealed to the Unemployment Compensation Board of Review. The referee to whom the appeal was referred on August 7, 1946, and thereafter the Board of Review on February 10, 1947, affirmed the determination of the Bureau. Thereunder 279 of the Company's striking employees received compensation for each of the twenty statutory weeks from June 2, 1946 to October 26, 1946.
The Company having exhausted its remedies before the Board on March 14, 1947 duly appealed to the Superior Court. In paragraph 11 of its petition to the Superior Court for writ of certiorari (Stipulation of Facts, Exhibit "B", p. 137a), the Company averred: "The effect of the decision and order of said Board of Review, dated February 10, 1947 is to authorize the payments to these 279 claimants of a series of weekly benefits from June 1, 1946 to October 27, 1946, all of which will be charged against the individual employment record of your Petitioner and will thus place in jeopardy during each calendar quarter of 1947 and three subsequent years the present contribution rate of one per cent (1%) per annum now paid by your Petitioner. The Department of Labor and Industry as of January 1, 1945, for the years 1945 and 1946, assigned to your Petitioner a contribution rate of one per cent (1%) by reason of its good individual employment record during preceding years, which rating may have to be rerated upward under the law, and rules and regulations thereunder, in the event that these striking employees are deemed legally entitled to benefit payments. An increase in the contribution rate from 1% to 2.7% of the annual payroll of your Petitioner would probably cost your Petitioner fifteen thousand dollars ($15,000) per year for three (3) years." Also in said petition, in the assignment of error and in the brief filed in the Superior Court the Company contended that, under the Act, no unemployment compensation payments could be made to those voluntarily not working by reason of a labor dispute and, further, that if the Act was so construed as to provide for such benefits, it was unconstitutional for the same reasons, inter alia, as averred in the instant appeals.
The Superior Court in Boyertown Burial Casket Company v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 162 Pa. Super. 98, affirmed the Bureau's original determination of benefit eligibility on the part of the Company's striking employees. The Company then filed its petition for an allocatur to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. This petition was denied by that tribunal on April 22, 1948.
On or about April 1, 1947, the Bureau notified the Company that its contribution rate for the year 1947 would be 2.5%. On or about April 1, 1948, the Bureau notified the Company that its contribution rate for the year 1948 would be 2%. In thus computing the Company's contribution rate for each of the two years in question the Bureau charged against its experience the benefit payments made as aforesaid to its striking employees. If such charges had not been made by the Bureau the Company's contribution rate would have been 1% for the first quarter of 1947 and 0.5% for the last three quarters of said year and for the year 1948.
By virtue of the provisions of the Act of June 10, 1947, P. L. 498, and the Act of July 9, 1947, P. L. 1469, the Company's contribution rate, as determined by the Bureau, was reduced to 1.5% for the second, third and fourth quarters of 1947 and 1% for the year 1948.
Applications for review and redetermination of the aforesaid contribution rates were filed by the Company with the Bureau on April 24, 1947 and April 26, 1948, respectively. Notice of the Bureau's denial of the Company's several applications was given to it on July 12, 1948, from which denials the instant appeals were duly taken to this Court.
Does a valid payment of unemployment compensation benefits made pursuant to the provisions of section 402 (d) of the Pennsylvania Unemployment Compensation Law, as amended by section 9 of the Act of May 29, 1945, P. L. 1145, to employees whose unemployment was due to their voluntary suspension of work in 1946 resulting from an industrial dispute at the establishment at which they were last employed, create a valid charge against the account of the base year employer of such employees in the computation of the employer's contribution rates for the years 1947 and 1948?
The Company in the instant appeals takes no issue with the allowance of unemployment compensation benefits awarded and paid to its striking employees. The decision of the Superior Court in Boyertown Burial Casket Company v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 162 Pa. Super. 98, is conclusive of this question. See also section 509 of the Pennsylvania Unemployment Compensation Law as amended by section 5 of the Act of April 23, 1942 ( 43 P. S. § 829) and Commonwealth v. Lentz, 353 Pa. 98. The Company, however, in these appeals does except to the inclusion in the computation of its "employer's experience" of the charges resulting from the payment of unemployment benefits to its striking employees on the ground that the Act in question, as amended by section 5 of the Act of May 29, 1945, P. L. 1145 and in force in 1946, did not permit or require such benefit payments to affect an employer's rate of contribution and that to hold otherwise would render the Act unconstitutional and in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and section 9 of Article I, sections 3 and 7 of Article III, and section I of Article IX of the Constitution of Pennsylvania. The Bureau on the other hand contends that the validity of the payment of benefits having been determined under the benefit appeal provisions of the Unemployment Compensation Law then in force (Article V as amended by section 11 of the Act of 1945, P. L. 1145), the validity of the charges to the employer's account arising as the result thereof cannot be challenged in an appeal to this Court under section 301 of the law.
Neither the 1947 Amendment to section 402 (d) of the Act (P. L. 1186) whereunder payment of unemployment compensation in industrial dispute cases was abolished nor the 1949 Amendment to section 4 (y) thereof (P. L. 1854) excluding from the term "Wages of a Compensated Employe" unemployment benefits paid to strikers apply to the instant appeals.
Section 301 (k) of the Pennsylvania Unemployment Compensation Law, as amended by section 5 of the Act of May 29, 1945, P. L. 1145, provided: "Each employer shall be given notice of the filing of applications for benefits by his former employes as provided in section five hundred one. Notice having been properly given as provided in such section, no employer shall have standing, in any proceeding involving his rate of contribution, to contest the chargeability to his account of any wages of a compensated employe on the grounds that he was not given sufficient or adequate notice or opportunity to be heard." The position of the Company in effect is that, while in a proceeding under section 301 of the Pennsylvania Unemployment Compensation Law the substantive rights of its employees to unemployment benefits cannot be litigated, nevertheless, under section 301 (k) supra, the validity of the charges against it arising from such payments can be questioned. With this position we cannot agree and we can find nothing in the Act to support it.
Prior to the Act of May 26, 1943, P. L. 639, the Pennsylvania Unemployment Compensation Law imposed a fixed contribution of 2.7% upon all employers subject to the provisions of that law. The Act of 1943 introduced the so-called "experience rating" provisions into the law establishing a system whereby certain employers who qualified could have their annual contribution rate fixed at a lower percentage. However, this Act, as well as subsequent amendments, retained a basic rate of 2.7%. Nevertheless, the total amount of unemployment compensation contributions which an employer might be called upon to pay to any state is not measured exclusively by the provisions of the state law to which he may be subject. The Federal Unemployment Tax Act (26 U.S.C.A. 1600 et seq.) imposes a tax of 3% of payrolls upon all employers of eight or more subject to its provisions. Against the tax so imposed employers may take a credit up to 90% thereof of amounts paid by them into a state employment fund, provided the provisions of such state law meet the standards prescribed by the Federal Act. If the state law does not meet such standards, then the employer receives no credit for amounts paid into a state fund and is liable to the Federal Government for the full amount of tax imposed by the Federal Unemployment Tax Act. Included in the 90% credit is an additional credit hereinafter referred to.
Act of May 26, 1943, P. L. 639, sec. 301(a)(4); Act of May 29, 1945, P. L. 1145, sec. 301(a)(3); sec. 301(b); Act of June 10, 1947, P. L. 498, sec. 301(A)(B).
The Pennsylvania Unemployment Compensation Law meets the standards prescribed by the Federal Act. It creates what is known as a "pooled fund" system: Sturdevant Unemployment Compensation Case, 158 Pa. Super. 548, 564. With respect to allowable credits for sums paid by an employer under such system, section 1602 (a) of the Internal Revenue Code (26 U.S.C.A. 1602 (a)) provides: "(a) State standards. A taxpayer shall be allowed an additional credit under section 1601 (b) with respect to any reduced rate of contributions permitted by a State law, only if the Federal Security Administrator finds that under such law — "(1) No reduced rate of contributions to a pooled fund . . ., is permitted to a person (or group of persons) having individuals in his (or their) employ except on the basis of his (or their) experience with respect to unemployment or other factors bearing a direct relation to unemployment risk during not less than the three consecutive years immediately preceding the computation date;"
For the purpose of measuring an employer's "experience with respect to unemployment or other factors bearing a direct relationship to unemployment risk", the Pennsylvania Legislature adopted what is known as the "benefit wage ratio" system. The operation of such a system is briefly described in 55 Yale Law Journal 230, as follows: "When a worker is paid unemployment benefits each of his former employers is charged with the amount of wages he paid the worker during the worker's base period. The wages so charged are known as 'benefit wages' or 'beneficiary wages.' A ratio between all such wages charged against an employer during a three-year period and his total payroll during the same years is established which is known as the 'employer's experience factor'. Rates are not assigned directly in accordance with this index. Each employer's experience factor is first correlated with a state experience factor representing a ratio of all benefits paid in the state during the same three-year period to the benefit wages charged to all employers during that period. Under a schedule of rates which is provided, each employer's rate approximates the product of his experience factor multiplied by the state experience factor." These ratios, with respect to the Pennsylvania Unemployment Compensation Law, may be represented by the following formula:
Wages of a Compensated Employee —
Defined by section 4 (y), as amended by Act of May 29, 1945, P. L. 1145.
Re-employment Credit — -------------------------------------------=Employer's Total Wages Experience
Defined by section 4 (k), as amended by Act of May 29, 1945, P. L. 1145 and Act of June 10, 1947, P. L. 498.
Total Net Compensation Paid =State Experience — ---------------------------- Total Wages of All Compensated Employeesfn5
Defined by section 4 (s), as amended by Act of May 29, 1945, P. L. 1145 and Act of June 10, 1947, P. L. 498.
A "Compensated Employe" is one to whom unemployment compensation benefits have been paid in an amount equal to three times his weekly benefit rate in any one benefit year. Benefits which an employee has received and to which he was found not to be entitled, are not included in the computation of such amount.
Section 4 (e), as amended by Act of May 29, 1945, P. L. 1145.
It thus appears that the "Wages of a Compensated Employe" are an indispensable part of the formula provided in the Unemployment Compensation Law for the computation of the "Employer's Experience Factor" and the "State Experience Factor". Manifestly, unless a valid payment of benefits to an employe results in a valid charge to the employer's account, the formula will cease to be a measurement of the employer's "experience with respect to unemployment or other factors bearing a direct relation to unemployment risk". It necessarily follows, therefore, that a payment of benefits to the Company's striking employees have been determined to be valid under the provisions of Article V of the Pennsylvania Unemployment Compensation Law, as amended, the Law requires that a corresponding charge against the employer's account must also be made. In fact, as appears from the stipulation of counsel, the Company so construed the Law in its appeal and argument before the Superior Court from the allowance of unemployment benefits to its striking employees. Further, the action of the Legislature in 1947 in abolishing payment of unemployment benefits in industrial disputes and its action in 1949 in excluding from the term "Wages of a Compensated Employe" unemployment benefits paid to strikers would indicate that the Legislature so interpreted the law: See Statutory Construction Act of 1937, P. L. 1019, section 51 (46 PS 551.)
In Dawkins Unemployment Compensation Case, 358 Pa. 224, the late Chief Justice MAXEY speaking for the Supreme Court after setting forth the intendments of the Unemployment Compensation Act and holding that the Commonwealth is justified in the exercise of its police power in requiring certain employers to put aside unemployment reserves to be used for the benefit of persons unemployed through no fault of their own said, page 234: "These intendments make it clear that those within the protection of the Act are 'unemployed workers'. . . ."
Section 4 (u) of the 1945 amendment to the Act in force in 1946 provided that "an individual shall be deemed unemployed with respect to any week during which he performs no services and with respect to which no remuneration is paid or payable to him, . . . ." And since the Superior Court has heretofore found that the Company's striking employees were "unemployed workers" within the special provisions of Section 4.2 (d) of the 1945 amendment, we find that thereunder unemployment reserves are required to be set aside by the Company to reflect the payment made to such "unemployed workers".
If there is any conflict between the special provisions of section 402 (d) of the Act in force in 1946 allowing benefits to strikers after a penalty period and the general provisions of section 3, ( 43 PS 752), the title to which is "Declaration of public policy", stating that "involuntary unemployment" is the evil which the law is designed to remedy and that the general welfare and the public good require provision for the payment of benefits to persons "unemployed through no fault of their own", the special provisions of section 402 (d) take precedence over the general provisions of section 3. See Statutory Construction Act of 1937, P. L. 1019, Sections 63 and 64 (46 PS 563, 564). To the same effect see Bonomo Unemployment Compensation Case, 161 Pa. Super. 622.
In view of the foregoing, as we construe the law in force in 1946, unemployment compensation benefits legally paid to employees engaged in an industrial dispute were required to be included by the Bureau in the determination of the employer's contribution rate. To hold otherwise would, in our opinion, defeat the entire intent and purpose of the "experience rating" provisions of the law as it then existed. We, further, find that the action of the Bureau in fixing the Company's contribution rates for the years 1947 and 1948, here appealed from, did not involve an erroneous construction of the statute as contended by the appellant.
Does the construction we have put upon the Pennsylvania Unemployment Compensation Law violate the Federal or State Constitutions? We think not. In the Company's appeal to the Superior Court from the aforesaid determination of the Unemployment Compensation Board of Review allowing unemployment benefits to its striking employees, the Company raised, inter alia, and argued the same constitutional questions as are raised in the instant appeals. See Stipulation of Facts, Exhibit "C", Assignments of Error Nos. 9, 10, 13, 14, 15, 21, 22, and Exhibit "D" attached thereto. It is true that the precise question before the Superior Court was as to the validity of the allowance of such benefit payments and not the question as to whether these benefit payments could be charged against the Company in the determination of its contribution rates for the years 1947 and 1948. However, the Company in support of its position before the Superior Court contended that, if the benefit payments in question were legal, its taxes or contributions to the fund under "experience rating" would necessarily be increased, thereby rendering the Act, or the decision of the Board, unconstitutional for the reasons as in the instant appeal set forth. Judge ARNOLD, speaking for the Superior Court, overruled all of these contentions upon the authority of a long line of cases cited in his opinion. Further, after stating that "experience rating" under the amendment of 1943 P. L. 639, "was a reward and not a penalty" and that the policy of paying compensation when there was a voluntary suspension of work due to a labor dispute had been in effect for six years prior to said amendment, Judge ARNOLD said ( 162 Pa. Super. 98, 104): "Since we hold that it was constitutional prior to 1943, before 'experience rating' and when the tax was 2.7%, to provide unemployment compensation in the industrial dispute cases, — it remained equally constitutional after the statute was amended to provide for the reward or adjustment of the employer's contribution under the formula of 'experience rating'. The adoption of the plan of 'experience rating' does not amend, modify or limit the benefit sections of the statute: Sturdevant Unemployment Compensation Case, 158 Pa. Super. 548, 549, 45 A.2d 898. Therefore, if it be unconstitutional to have 'experience rating' affected by the payment of compensation in the industrial dispute cases, the 'experience rating' provisions must fall, and in this event, by the Act of 1943, supra, and all subsequent amendments, the intervenor's taxes were and are fixed at 2.7%. . . ."
Lawrence Baking Co. v. Michigan Unemployment Compensation Commission, (Mich.) 13 N.W.2d 260; Tennessee Enamel Mfg. Co. v. Hake, Commissioner, (Tenn.) 194 S.W.2d 468; W. H. H. Chamberlin, Inc. v. Andrews, Industrial Commissioner, et al., (N.Y.) 2 N.E.2d 22; Fidelity-Philadelphia Trust Company et al. v. Hines, 337 Pa. 48, 10 A.2d 553; Commonwealth v. Perkins, 342 Pa. 529, 21 A.2d 45, affirmed by the United States Supreme Court, 314 U.S. 586; Department of Labor and Industry v. New Enterprise Rural Electric Cooperative, Inc., 352 Pa. 413, 43 A.2d 90; Carmichael v. Southern Coal Coke Company, 301 U.S. 494; Charles C. Steward Machine Company v. Davis, 301 U.S. 548. See also annotations in 109 A.L.R. 1346, and 118 A.L.R. 1220.
In our opinion the above quoted conclusion reached by Judge ARNOLD, even if it could be held to be dicta insofar as the instant appeals are concerned, as contended by the Company, is fully justified by the overwhelming weight of the authorities cited by the Court and is here controlling. Again as stated in 48 Am. Jur., Social Security, Unemployment Compensation, etc., Section 4, pp. 516-7: "The state acts (providing for unemployment benefits) have been held to be a valid exercise of the taxing power of the states. It is immaterial that the state statute refers to payments under the act as 'contributions'; it will be held to be an exertion of the taxing power of the state when its constitutionality is in question and when it appears that the payment is required as a contribution to the public benefit. On the other hand, the taxing features of the acts have been held to be merely incidental to the paramount object of the acts to relieve against the distress of unemployment, and the legislation has been upheld as a valid exercise of the police power. The state is vested with power to impose taxes in general upon employers to alleviate unemployment, and the authority of the state is in no wise impaired by reason of blending the imposition of a tax with the relief of unemployment. . . .
"The taxing provisions of the Federal Act do not deprive either employers or employees of their property without due process of law under the Fifth Amendment, nor do similar provisions in the state statutes deprive either of due process or of the equal protection of the law under the Fourteenth Amendment. Neither do they classify unfairly, although they do not apply to employers of fewer than a specified number of employees, and require employers with no unemployment to contribute to an unemployment fund, and exempt certain classes of employers and employees from their benefits and burdens. . . ."
And in section 5 thereof, pp. 517-8: "Nor is an act, by reason of provisions for payment of benefits to . . . those out on strike, . . ., so arbitrary or unreasonable as to deprive employers of their property without due process of law, or of the equal protection of the law. It is likewise held that expenditures for the payment of unemployment benefits are for a valid public purpose although they are to be made only after a specified 'waiting period', and for not more than a certain amount, and for a limited period. . . ."
Further, as apposite to the questions now under consideration, it was said in Lawrence Baking Co. v. Michigan Unemployment Compensation Commission, (Mich.) 13 N.W.2d 260, 265: "Plaintiff's argument is based upon the premise that the payment of compensation to employees on strike is a penalty upon the employer, because its rate of contribution to the unemployment fund will thereby be increased. The public purpose of the unemployment compensation law is to alleviate the distress of unemployment, and the payment of benefits is not conditioned upon the merits of the labor dispute causing unemployment. Likewise, the required contribution of the employer to the unemployment compensation fund is not determined upon the basis of the merits of the dispute. The increase in the amount of the employer's contribution to the fund because of its experience record of payments to employees is not in any sense a penalty. By the unemployment compensation act, the legislature provided a method of determining the employer's contribution to the compensation fund, and it did not see fit to base the amount of such contribution upon the merits of a labor dispute or upon the right or wrongdoing of the employer in connection with such dispute. Such legislative enactment is presumed to be constitutional unless the contrary clearly appears. . . ."
It thus appears from the foregoing that the payment of the tax by the employers is required as a contribution to the public benefit to relieve against the distress of unemployment and as such is a valid exercise of the police power and not a taking of private property for private purposes; that the payment of unemployment benefits to those out on strike does not deprive the employers of their property without due process of law or of the equal protection of the law; that the Pennsylvania Unemployment Compensation Law is not a special or local Act "regulating labor, trade, mining and manufacturing"; and that the classifications made by Act are valid and proper. Therefore, we find that the said Act as we have heretofore construed it does not violate either the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States or section 9 of Article I, section 7 of Article III, or section 1 of Article IX of the Pennsylvania Constitution.
No extended discussion is required in considering the Company's remaining constitutional objection that the statute as here construed violates section 3 of Article III of the Pennsylvania Constitution providing that "no bill, except general appropriation bills, shall be passed containing more than one subject, which shall be clearly expressed in its title".
The Company's sole contention on this phase of the case is that the above constitutional provision is violated because "no one from reading the title of the Act would be on notice that the legislature intended to compel an employer to make payments through the unemployment compensation fund to such of his employees as voluntarily refrained from working under the circumstances of this case". With this contention we cannot agree.
It is well settled by a multitude of cases that the title need not be an index nor a synopsis of the contents of the Act. On the contrary, all that is required is that the title shall contain words sufficient to cause one having a reasonably inquiring state of mind to examine the Act in order to determine whether or not he may be affected by it and that, unless a substantive matter entirely disconnected with the named legislation is included therein, the Act does not fall within the constitutional inhibition.
Commonwealth ex rel. Schnader v. Liveright, 308 Pa. 35; Retirement Board of Allegheny County v. McGovern, 316 Pa. 161; Turco Paint Varnish Company v. Kalodner, 320 Pa. 421; Commonwealth v. Stofchek, 322 Pa. 513; Kelley v. Earle, 325 Pa. 337; Poor District Case (No. 1), 329 Pa. 390; Annenberg v. Roberts, 333 Pa. 203; Hadley's Case, 336 Pa. 100; Equitable Loan Society, Inc. v. Bell, 339 Pa. 449; Bethlehem School District Appeal, 351 Pa. 433; Commonwealth v. American Gas Company, 352 Pa. 113. See also Stephano Brothers v. Secretary of Revenue, 54 Dauphin County Reports 157, 160-3.
As said by the Supreme Court in Commonwealth v. American Gas Company, 352 Pa. 113, 118-9. "In Commonwealth v. Stofchek, 322 Pa. 513, 185 A. 840, Kelley v. Earle, 325 Pa. 3377 190 A. 140, and Gumpert's Estate, 343 Pa. 405, 23 A.2d 479, we had occasion to review this constitutional provision and to assert the principles governing its application. As stated in Gumpert's Estate, at page 407, by Mr. Justice HORACE STERN: 'It is unnecessary to elaborate upon the oft-repeated principle that all the Constitution requires is that the title should put persons of a reasonably inquiring state of mind on notice of the general subject matter of the act. The incidental provisions of the statute need not be enumerated or indexed in the title if they are germane to the legislation as a whole. "Unless a substantive matter, entirely disconnected with the named legislation, is included within the folds of the bill, the act should not be declared as a violation of the Constitution by reason of its title offending Section 3 of Article III." ' ".
The title of the Act insofar as here material, provides: "An Act establishing a system of unemployment compensation . . .; requiring employers to keep records and make reports, and certain employers to pay contributions based on payrolls to provide moneys for the payment of compensation to certain unemployed persons; providing procedure and administrative details for the determination, payment and collection of such contributions and the payment of such compensation; . . . ."
In our opinion, this title clearly contained words sufficient to cause every employer to examine the Act to determine whether or not he was affected by it. Thereunder, every employer was put on notice that certain of them "were required to pay contributions based on payrolls to provide moneys for the payment of compensation to certain unemployed persons." And since we have heretofore held that the Company's striking employees were "unemployed persons" within the provisions of the Act in force in 1946, under the authorities hereinbefore cited, nothing more was required to be set forth in the title.
We, therefore, find that there is no merit in any of the Company's contentions. Both appeals must be dismissed.
Employer appealed.
Henry S. Drinker, with him Henry W. Sawyer, 3rd, Eliot B. Thomas, Lewis H. Van Dusen, Jr., and Drinker, Biddle Reath for appellant.
Morley W. Baker, Special Deputy Attorney General, with him Charles J. Margiotti, Attorney General, for appellee.
The respective orders appealed from are affirmed on the opinion of Judge SMITH for the court below.
Orders affirmed.