Section 29(1)(b)
MISCONDUCT, Seven day work week, Religious beliefs, Circuit court standard of review
CITE AS: Detroit Gravure v Emp. Sec. Comm., 366 Mich 530 (1966).
Appeal pending: No
Claimant: Leon C. Curry
Employer: Detroit Gravure Corp.
Docket No: B60 2055 24760
SUPREME COURT HOLDING: The claimant's discharge from employment because of his refusal to work on Sunday is not disqualifying.
FACTS: The claimant was hired in January of 1957 as the employer's pressroom porter. Claimant's duties required him to work 7 days a week. He was paid overtime for working Saturdays and Sundays. In early 1960 claimant informed his superintendent that he wanted some Sundays off to attend church. He was not given a definite answer. On February 6, 1960 claimant was instructed to be at work the following Sunday. Claimant refused and informed the superintendent that he would no longer work on Sundays. Claimant was discharged.
DECISION: Claimant is not disqualified.
RATIONALE: The Commission's finding that claimant's refusal to work on Sundays was not misconduct as defined by Cassar v Employment Security Commission, 343 Mich 380 is not contrary to the law.
"Some day, hopefully before we meet in the sweet bye and bye according to the old hymn, all lawyers and judges - and possibly all others who work themselves into a pluperfect tizzy every time this Court divides on the decisional rock of an umemployment 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. Which is to say again that our circuit judges should not, nor should we in turn, hear and decide unemployment benefit cases de novo."
12/91
NA