Woods Irrigation Co. v. Department of Employment

I dissent, for the reasons stated by Mr. Presiding Justice Van Dyke in the opinion prepared by him for the District Court of Appeal in Woods Irr. Co. v. Department of Employment, (Cal.App.) 316 P.2d 1003 .

Gibson, C. J., and Traynor, J., concurred.

Plaintiff sought to recover certain unemployment insurance contributions assessed and paid under protest pursuant to the Unemployment Insurance Act. (Stats. 1935, ch. 352, p. 1226, as amended; Deering’s Gen. Laws, 1937, Act 8780d.) The assessments covered the period from January 1, 1946, through June 30, 1951. Plaintiff pursued all prescribed administrative remedies before bringing this action. Its claim of refund is based upon the ground that the irrigating and drainage services performed by its employees constitute “agricultural labor” and so are exempt from the coverage of the act. The court signed findings of fact and conclusions of law sustaining plaintiff’s claims; and defendants appeal from the ensuing judgment entered in plaintiff’s favor.

Plaintiff is a nonprofit California corporation, engaged in furnishing irrigating and drainage services to land owned by its farmer shareholders. It owns no land or water rights of its own but instead maintains its pumping stations, canals and coordinating irrigating and drainage facilities on the property of its shareholders, from whom it has received grants of easements in perpetuity. Although plaintiff’s articles of incorporation…