ANDREWS v. CALIFORNIA EMPLOYMENT COMMISSION (1945)

This is an action involving contributions assessed under the Unemployment Insurance Act, Deering's Gen.Laws Supp.1939, Act 8780d.

The contributions were levied on account of services performed by certain employees of the Natomas Fruit Company during the years 1939 and 1940 in girdling, thinning, picking and hauling grapes to a packing house operated by Diamond K Vineyards, a corporation. The assessments were paid under protest and this action was brought to secure a refund thereof, pursuant to the provisions of section 45.10 of the Act. The court held that all these services were agricultural and exempt from such contributions under section 7(a) of the Act. Judgment was entered in favor of the plaintiffs, and the defendant has appealed.

At the hearing the appellant conceded, for the purposes of this case, that the services performed in hauling this fruit were of the same nature as those involved in girdling, thinning and picking the fruit, and should be considered agricultural or not in accordance with the decision with respect to those other services. The necessity for considering the question as to whether or not services in hauling fruit to a packing house constitutes agricultural labor, within the meaning of this Act, is thus eliminated from this appeal.

The only question here involved is whether services in girdling, thinning and picking this fruit, all of which services were performed on the respective farms on which the fruit was produced, constitute ‘agricultural labor’ within the meaning of this Act. In this regard the services involved and the surrounding circumstances are practically identical with, and the applicable principles of law are exactly identical with, those involved in the case of California Employment Commission v. Kovacevich, Cal.App., 157 P.2d 416, recently decided by this court. On the authority of that case, and for the reasons there stated, the judgment is affirmed.

BARNARD, Presiding Justice.

MARKS and GRIFFIN, JJ., concur.