This Spring has brought a couple of interesting unemployment compensation decisions. In the first, the claimant was denied compensation when he resigned because of fear of contracting COVID. In the second, the claim was denied because the employee resigned his job without discussing his concerns with an offered promotion before turning it down.
Last month, the Franklin County Court of Appeals affirmed
the denial of Pandemic Unemployment Assistance benefits, which had been previously
approved, based on a warehouse worker’s fear of contracting COVID. King
v. Dir., Ohio Dept. of Job & Family Servs., 2023-Ohio-1724. The claimant had resigned his position in
May 2020 out of fear of contracting COVID.
He was initially awarded and collected approximately $10k in pandemic
unemployment benefits over the next year.
However, his benefits were later disallowed and he was ordered to repay
the benefits. His appeal was denied, but
the Commission granted his request to waive the overpayment collection. He still appealed his denial of PUA to the common
pleas court, but never filed a brief.
Unsurprisingly, the trial court denied his appeal because it is required
to affirm the Commission if there is any competent and credible evidence in the
record supporting its decision. “Here,
the evidence before the commission demonstrated, after the COVID-19 public
health emergency began, [the claimant] left his employment as an Amazon
warehouse worker due to his fear of contracting this disease. But an
individual’s general fear of exposure to COVID-19 at the workplace is not one
of the listed qualifying conditions set forth in 15 U.S.C. 9021(a)(3)(A)(aa)
through (kk).”
In April, the Lucas County Court of Appeals also affirmed
the denial of unemployment insurance to a claimant who lost both his full-time
job and part-time job during the pandemic, after he turned down or resigned
from a new full-time job offered by his previous part-time employer without
adequately discussing his objections to the job offer. Mason
v. Emerald Environmental Servs., Inc., 2023-Ohio-1418. While the hearing officer referenced both
issues, she only cited to the statutory section about resigning a job without
just cause.
After the claimant had been laid off from his full-time
university job, his part-time employer explained that it was restructuring his
part-time position offered him a full-time job with benefits, but paying
slightly less per hour than his previous part-time job being managed out of a
different location. Feeling that it
would involve too much travel away from his sick girlfriend and his five children,
he claimed that he turned it down without discussing his specific concerns with
the employer. The employer explained
that he had initially accepted the job, but then changed his mind because of
his sick girlfriend. The employer explained
that it would not have involved significant travel and would have relayed that
information to him if he had previously articulated that concern. There was also testimony that the employer
would have continued to employ him part-time if he had expressed interest.
Typically, an employee has the right to resign if the
employer materially changes their job, but they first need to discuss it with
the employer to give the employer the opportunity to correct the
situation. In this case, the Commission
determined that the employee quit without just cause because he was offered a
full-time job (after losing his full-time university job) when it was explained
that his part-time job was being restructured and he declined the full-time job
without explanation. The employee never
established that he had been laid off or when he was fired from his part-time
job. Rather, he said that there had just
been a series of discussions. Therefore,
there was sufficient evidence in the record to support the Commission’s
conclusion that he had resigned and not been fired.
The Commission determined that he lacked just cause to resign
his employment when he was offered a position paying $920/week (more than his
$250/week part-time wages) and he failed to have any meaningful discussion
about the working conditions before turning it down. Had he discussed his concerns with his
employer, he would have learned that his was being paid more (because of the health insurance and retirement
benefits) and would be travelling approximately the same amount or less as he
had been. Finally, he would have been able to remain working part-time if that
appealed to him more. Because he was not
involuntarily unemployed through no fault or agreement of his own, he was not
entitled to unemployment compensation.
NOTICE: This summary is designed merely to inform and alert
you of recent legal developments. It does not constitute legal advice and does
not apply to any particular situation because different facts could lead to
different results. Information here can change or be amended without notice.
Readers should not act upon this information without legal advice. If you have
any questions about anything you have read, you should consult with or retain
an employment attorney.
