Sheffield

This is an action for a refund of unemployment insurance taxes paid under protest by the plaintiff, a farming corporation. The trial court, sitting without a jury, considered the case to be one of first impression, found for the plaintiff, and in so doing held section 627, subdivision (b) of the Unemployment Insurance Code to be unconstitutional as applied to the facts in this case.

The Department of Human Resources Development appeals.

The respondent (plaintiff) is a farming organization, in no other business since 1956, its principal crops being potatoes, asparagus, tomatoes, onions and small grains, and its properties (some 7,000 acres) being in the San Joaquin Delta 15 to 25 miles west of the City of Stockton.

The corporation sells some of the potatoes and onions through a brokerage firm; asparagus and tomatoes are sold by the corporation itself. It packages or processes 100 percent of all products. The corporation maintains packing sheds of its own, on the ranch property itself and at the office of the corporation in Stockton. The office in Stockton is used mainly as a marshalling point for potatoes, seed potatoes, onions and asparagus. The packing operations are…