California Employment Stabilization Commission v. Lewis

ADAMS, P. J. This action, was brought to recover contributions claimed to be due from defendant as an employer, under the provisions of the California Unemployment Insurance Act. (Stats. 1935, ch. 352, as amended; 3 Deering’s Gen. Laws, Act 8780d.) The facts are not in dispute, the parties having stipulated that on July 22, 1940, defendant entered into a contract in writing to purchase Cralle’s barber shop in Eureka; that on said date notice of intended sale was recorded in accordance with section 3440 of the Civil Code; that dedendant took possession of the shop as owner, on August 1, 1940, and was thereafter, during the period covered in the complaint, the actual operating owner thereof; that from August 1, 1940, to June 30, 1941, the period for which contributions were claimed, defendant employed four employees for a period of six weeks, one of them being a janitor who worked one day a week and was paid $1.25 per week; that actual wages paid by defendant from August 1,1940, to June 30, 1941, amounted to $119; that prior to defendant’s purchase of the property his predecessor had employed four or more employees on twenty days or longer, each day being in a different calendar week.

Plaintiff contended that defendant was an employer within the provisions of sections 9(a) and 9(b) of the act, and was liable for contributions under 9(b), though he did not himself employ enough men for a sufficient period to bring himself within the definition of an employer under section 9(a) of the act. Those sections provide:

“§ 9. ... ‘Employer’ means:

“ (a) Any employing unit, which for some portion of a day, but not necessarily simultaneously, in each of twenty different weeks, whether or not such weeks are or were consecutive, has within the current calendar year or had within the preceding calendar year in employment four or more individuals, irrespective of whether the same individuals are or were employed in each such day; . . .

“(b) Any individual or employing unit which acquired the organization, trade or business, or substantially all the assets thereof, of another which at the time of such acquisition was an employer subject to this act.”

Section 9.5 of said act provides:

“Any employing unit which is or becomes an employer subject to this act within any calendar year shall be subject to this act during the whole of such calendar year.”

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