Calvert v. State , No. S–13721.

• Court: Supreme Court of Alaska (US)
• Writing for the Court: Before: CARPENETI, Chief Justice, FABE, WINFREE, CHRISTEN, and STOWERS, Justices.
• Citation: 251 P.3d 990
• Parties: Carol CALVERT, Appellant,v.STATE of Alaska, DEPARTMENT OF LABOR & WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT, EMPLOYMENT SECURITY DIVISION, Appellee.
• Docket Number: No. S–13721.
• Decision Date: 15 April 2011

251 P.3d 990

Carol CALVERT, Appellant,
v.
STATE of Alaska, DEPARTMENT OF LABOR & WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT, EMPLOYMENT SECURITY DIVISION, Appellee.

No. S–13721.

Supreme Court of Alaska.

April 15, 2011.

[251 P.3d 994]

Carol Calvert, pro se, Soldotna, Appellant.Erin Pohland, Assistant Attorney General, Anchorage, and Daniel S. Sullivan, Attorney General, Juneau, for Appellee.Before: CARPENETI, Chief Justice, FABE, WINFREE, CHRISTEN, and STOWERS, Justices.

OPINION CHRISTEN, Justice.I. INTRODUCTION

Carol Calvert quit her job at a seafood processing plant and filed for unemployment insurance benefits. Her reasons for quitting included difficulties with transportation to work and personality conflicts with coworkers. The Department of Labor's unemployment insurance claim center determined that Calvert voluntarily left work without good cause; as a result, she was statutorily ineligible for unemployment benefits for the first six weeks of her unemployment, and her maximum potential benefits were reduced by three times the weekly benefit amount.

Calvert appealed to the Department of Labor's Appeal Tribunal where the assigned Hearing Officer found that transportation problems were the “precipitating event” in Calvert's decision to quit. The Hearing Officer concluded that, although Calvert's transportation problems may have provided a compelling reason to quit, Calvert had not “exhaust[ed] all reasonable alternatives prior to quitting,” as is required in order to show good cause. The Hearing Officer affirmed the claim center's determination.

The Commissioner of the Department of Labor affirmed the Hearing Officer's decisions, as did the superior court. For the reasons explained below, we affirm.

II. FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS

Carol Calvert was a seasonal employee of Snug Harbor Seafoods in Kenai. She worked there for the first time during the summer of 2007. She was rehired on March 10, 2008, and quit on April 6, 2008. She filed for unemployment benefits on April 6.

The Department of Labor's (Department) unemployment insurance claim center sent Calvert a “Voluntary Leaving Statement” to complete and return in order to provide additional information about her separation from employment. Calvert returned the Voluntary Leaving Statement on May 9. In her explanation of why she quit, she cited conflicts that had begun during the 2007 season with a supervisor, Mike, and his girlfriend,

[251 P.3d 995]

Hope (also a Snug Harbor employee). Calvert alleged that the conflict began when the plant manager asked Calvert to run the “gear department” and planned to move Hope out of her position in that department. Calvert also described her disappointment at the March 2008 departure of Brandi O'Reagan, who was the plant manager during the 2007 season and who had encouraged Calvert to return for the 2008 season. Calvert reported that Mike cut her hours immediately after O'Reagan left, allegedly in retaliation for Calvert's conflicts with Hope. Calvert was also concerned that Richard King, the plant manager who replaced O'Reagan, was aligned with Mike and Hope, and shared their hostility toward her.

Calvert also described transportation difficulties. She biked ten miles each way to get to Snug Harbor, so she required ample notice of the start times for her shifts. Work shifts were announced via a “hotline.” In 2007, shifts were posted so there was typically a three-hour lead time. According to Calvert, in 2008 the hotline was updated less frequently, later in the day, and sometimes as little as half an hour in advance. Calvert argued, “[i]t became a cruel guessing game whether [she] should start for work on [her] bike.” She found the local public transit agency to be “relentlessly uncooperative” in arranging transportation, her bike broke, and she anticipated increased difficulties associated with springtime road construction on her route to work.

In addition, Calvert expressed concern on her Voluntary Leaving Statement about the new plant manager's attitude toward workplace safety. During the 2007 season, a co-worker standing next to Calvert was “badly shocked” after water hit an electric box. When Calvert was asked later that season to coil an extension cord lying in several inches of water, she expressed her safety concerns in King's presence. According to Calvert, King “looked at [her], turned his back on [her], and has not spoken to [her] since,” except when she approached him about her hours.

The Department's claim center contacted Calvert on May 13 to ask what “final incident” caused her to quit. Calvert reiterated the reasons cited in her Voluntary Leaving Statement:

There was really no final incident, just a compilation of everything that happened, the old branch manager quitting without telling me, and then problems with the new manager. I quit because my hours week [sic] being cut, and problems with co-workers, and transportation problems.... I talked to the owner my last day about them cutting my hours, and he didn't seem like he wanted to do anything about it.... I don't know if it was any one thing, just everything piled together.

On May 14, the claim center issued a notice of determination finding that Calvert “quit work at Snug Harbor Seafoods because [she was] unhappy with the new manager's supervisory style and apportionment of work.” The claim center reasoned that because Calvert had not provided information demonstrating that the manager's actions were “hostile or discriminatory,” she had not established “good cause for leaving.” As a result, Calvert was denied waiting-week credit for the first week of employment and benefits for the next five weeks,¹ and her maximum potential benefits were reduced by three times the weekly benefit amount.²

On June 16, Calvert filed a Notice of Unemployment Insurance Appeal with the Department of Labor's Anchorage Appeal Tribunal. In her appeal, she argued: (1) the claim center did not establish that the work she left was “sufficient and suitable,” and she was therefore not required to show good

[251 P.3d 996]

cause for leaving it; (2) “good cause” for leaving the job existed in any case based on Calvert's insufficient work hours, transportation issues, lack of notice by the employer regarding work hours, and the patterns of “[w]orkplace violence” she experienced; and (3) the Department of Labor has a duty to better inform employees on the rules and requirements for unemployment insurance benefits. In addition to her brief, Calvert submitted a request for subpoenas to the Appeal Tribunal.

Hearing Officer Kathy A. Thorstad conducted the Appeal Tribunal hearing telephonically on July 29, 2008. The Hearing Officer observed that, under AS 23.20.379, a person who quits a job without good cause is ineligible for full unemployment insurance benefits. She also explained that the burden of showing good cause is on the employee seeking benefits and that a worker has “good cause” when she has a compelling reason for leaving work and has exhausted all reasonable alternatives to quitting.

During the hearing, the Hearing Officer heard testimony from Calvert, Snug Harbor plant manager King, and the president of Snug Harbor, Paul Dale. Calvert testified that she quit her job on April 6 because she was “upset all day long” and made her decision “based on the amount of stress ... [and] based on the problems [she] was having with transportation.” In response to the Hearing Officer's questions about her transportation difficulties, Calvert stated that she had not realized that biking to work “would be much more difficult” during March than it had been when she worked at Snug Harbor the previous summer. She noted that her bike broke down and weather conditions were bad in March and April, forcing her to rely on the Central Area Rural Transit System (CARTS). CARTS requires its passengers to book trips hours in advance, which was difficult for Calvert given her unpredictable work schedule and King's habit of posting the hours for the following day after 6:00 p.m., when CARTS had stopped answering its phones for the evening. According to Calvert, her only other transportation option was to take a taxi, which she stated would not be cost-effective given the amount of money she was making at her job.

The Hearing Officer also questioned Calvert about her work-related stress. Calvert stated that Mike cut her hours after O'Reagan's departure and told her that the decision had been sanctioned by Dale. Calvert noted that she had not asked Mike why her hours were being cut but later asked King, the plant manager, who told her he would “see that the work got done.” She also recounted a subsequent conversation with Dale, who told her he had not authorized Mike to cut her hours. Calvert told the Hearing Officer that she did not directly ask Dale to address the situation with Mike, explaining that she “didn't feel that it was necessary” because she assumed someone in Dale's position would “look into it and ... find out exactly what happened.” Calvert also stated that she did not directly confront Mike after learning that Dale had not authorized the reduction in her hours.

When the Hearing Officer asked Calvert what efforts she made to keep her job, Calvert responded that she tried to get CARTS to provide her with transportation to work and that she asked King and Dale about the reduction to her hours, “and that's about it.” The Hearing Officer asked Calvert whether she explicitly informed King or Dale that Mike's “messing with [her] hours was creating enough of a hardship that [she] would not be able to continue to work if it wasn't corrected”; Calvert confirmed that she did not. The Hearing Officer then asked Calvert whether it was her transportation difficulties or her problems with Mike that caused her to quit. Calvert answered, “It's both of them.... I don't know if one ... had been taken away, if the other one could have been solved and vice versa.” The Hearing Officer rephrased her question and asked, “If CARTS had...