Chandler v. Department of Employment Sec.

• Decision Date: 17 February 1984
• Docket Number: 18721,Nos. 18597,18608,18478,18758 and 19207,s. 18597
• Citation: 678 P.2d 315
• Parties: Bennie G. CHANDLER, Plaintiff, v. DEPARTMENT OF EMPLOYMENT SECURITY and First Security Bank, Defendants. Mary A. MITCHELL, Plaintiff, v. DEPARTMENT OF EMPLOYMENT SECURITY, Defendant. Rita M. NAGLE, Plaintiff, v. DEPARTMENT OF EMPLOYMENT SECURITY, Defendant. Cynthia S. SANDERSON, Plaintiff, v. DEPARTMENT OF EMPLOYMENT SECURITY, Defendant. Patricia N. YORK, Plaintiff, v. DEPARTMENT OF EMPLOYMENT SECURITY, Defendant. Patricia P. KALLER, Plaintiff, v. DEPARTMENT OF EMPLOYMENT SECURITY, Defendant.
• Court: Utah Supreme Court

Page 315

678 P.2d 315

Bennie G. CHANDLER, Plaintiff, v. DEPARTMENT OF EMPLOYMENT SECURITY and First Security Bank,

Defendants.

Mary A. MITCHELL, Plaintiff, v. DEPARTMENT OF EMPLOYMENT SECURITY, Defendant.

Rita M. NAGLE, Plaintiff, v. DEPARTMENT OF EMPLOYMENT SECURITY, Defendant.

Cynthia S. SANDERSON, Plaintiff, v. DEPARTMENT OF EMPLOYMENT SECURITY, Defendant.

Patricia N. YORK, Plaintiff, v. DEPARTMENT OF EMPLOYMENT SECURITY, Defendant.

Patricia P. KALLER, Plaintiff, v. DEPARTMENT OF EMPLOYMENT SECURITY, Defendant.

Nos. 18597, 18721, 18478, 18608, 18758 and 19207.

Supreme Court of Utah.

Feb. 17, 1984.

David L. Wilkinson, Atty. Gen., Floyd G. Austin, K. Allan Zabel, Sp. Asst. Attys. Gen., Salt Lake City, for defendants.

Bennie G. Chandler, pro se.

Mary A. Mitchell, pro se.

Rita M. Nagle, pro se.

Cynthia S. Sanderson, pro se.

Elliott Levine, Salt Lake City, for Patricia N. York.

Louisa L. Baker, Utah Legal Service, Salt Lake City, for Patricia P. Kaller.

DURHAM, Justice:

I

We consider here the appeals of six claimants for unemployment compensation who were denied benefits by the Industrial Commission. All six claimants are women who were found to have left their jobs in order to follow their spouses to a new location. Section 35-4-5(a) of the Utah Code Annotated (1983 Pocket Supp.) states in part:

An individual is ineligible for benefits ... (a) For the week in which the claimant left work voluntarily without good cause provided, that no claimant shall be ineligible for benefits if the claimant leaves work under circumstances of such a nature that it would be contrary to equity and good conscience to impose a disqualification....

Notwithstanding any other provision of this section, a claimant who has left work voluntarily to accompany, follow or join his or her spouse to or in a new locality does so without good cause for purposes of this subsection.

Amended 1983 (1st S.S.) Utah Laws ch. 20, § 3. The claimants raise questions regarding the constitutionality of the second paragraph quoted above, which became effective February 7, 1982. The claimants allege violations of due process and equal protection. The entire Court rejects those arguments and holds that the statute is constitutional, as set forth in Part II of this opinion. Justice Oaks writes separately for the majority of the Court in affirming the application of the statute to all six of these claimants by the Industrial Commission. I dissent from that holding as regards four of these claimants and explain my dissent in Part III below.

II

The Legislature has set the standard of review for unemployment compensation cases. The scope of this Court's jurisdiction when reviewing such cases is found in U.C.A., 1953, § 35-4-10(i) (1983 Pocket Supp.), which provides that "[i]n any judicial proceeding under this section, the findings of the commission and the board of review as to the facts if supported by evidence, shall be conclusive and the jurisdiction of the court shall be confined to questions of law." (Emphasis added.)

The claimants first raise questions of constitutional law. There is a strong presumption in favor of the constitutionality of legislative enactments. In Baker v. Matheson, Utah, 607 P.2d 233 (1979), this Court stated:

In determining the constitutionality of an enactment that is primarily economic in nature, a presumption of constitutionality is extended to that enactment; and we will not strike it down unless the party attacking it clearly establishes that a constitutional provision has been violated.

Id. at 236 (citations omitted). The claimants argue that the newly enacted portion of the statute creates an irrebuttable presumption prohibited by the due process and equal protection clauses of the United States Constitution. The claimants refer to Vlandis v. Kline, 412 U.S. 441, 93 S.Ct. 2230, 37 L.Ed.2d 63 (1973), for the proposition that irrebuttable presumptions are particularly offensive to the due process clause when the "presumption is not necessarily or universally true in fact." Id. at 452, 93 S.Ct. at 2236. The "irrebuttable presumption" analysis, however, has been rejected by the Supreme Court as an acceptable approach in scrutinizing legislative classification in matters of social welfare. After analyzing the Vlandis line of cases, in Weinberger v. Salfi, 422 U.S. 749, 95 S.Ct. 2457, 45 L.Ed.2d 522 (1975), a case dealing with a social security classification, the Supreme Court concluded:

We hold that these cases are not controlling on the issue before us now.... [A] noncontractual claim to receive funds from the public treasury enjoys no constitutionally protected status, Dandridge v. Williams [397 U.S. 471, 90 S.Ct. 1153, 25 L.Ed.2d 491 (1970) ], though of course Congress may not invidiously discriminate among such claimants on the basis of a "bare congressional desire to harm a politically unpopular group," or on the basis of criteria which bear no rational relation to a legitimate legislative goal.

Id. at 771-72, 95 S.Ct. at 2469-70 (citations omitted). In Baker v. Matheson, supra, this Court noted that "Utah law in essential respects is in accord with federal law." 607 P.2d at 244.

For the Legislature to devise effective means for dealing with social and economic problems which affect people and groups differently, it must frequently be able to rely on approximations in deciding which groups fall within and which are without the scope of legislation....

....

... The standard which governs whether the classifications are rational, is whether facts can reasonably be conceived which would justify the distinctions or differences in state policy as between different persons, Lindsley v. National Carbonic Gas Co., 220 U.S. 61, 31 S.Ct. 337, 55 L.Ed. 369 (1911)....

Id. The purpose of unemployment compensation is "to ameliorate the hardship of those who, through no fault of their own, find themselves unemployed." Daniel v. Industrial Commission of Utah, Utah, 617 P.2d 381, 387 (1980). In amending § 35-4-5 to exclude from unemployment benefits those who voluntarily leave work to follow or join a spouse, the Legislature has attempted to delineate a group of person who do not fit within the category of those who find themselves unemployed through no fault of their own. We must examine this classification to see "whether facts can reasonably be conceived which would justify the distinctions or differences in state policy as between" those who voluntarily leave work to follow a spouse and those who voluntarily leave work for other reasons. 607 P.2d at 244. In Child v. Board of Review of Industrial Commission, Utah, 657 P.2d 1375 (1983), this Court reviewed such a set of facts. In that case the Court affirmed the denial of benefits when the claimant quit her job in Utah in order to join her husband who was attending law school in California.

We reject claimant's premise that in order to preserve her marriage she had no choice except to accompany her husband. Quitting work so that a spouse may attend school involves a personal lifestyle consideration rather than an external pressure.

Id. at 1377. It is reasonable for the Legislature to determine, as a matter of policy, that the state need not underwrite the financial risks attendant on such a personal and voluntary choice as the decision to attend school in another state. Therefore we hold that this classification, established to deny benefits to those who voluntarily leave work to follow or join a spouse, bears a rational relationship to the legitimate legislative goal of limiting unemployment compensation to those who become unemployed through no fault of their own. Thus, in spite of its unfortunate effects on many families, ¹ the classification offends neither the state nor the federal constitution. The holding of the Court is that U.C.A., 1953, § 35-4-5(a) is constitutional.

III

I dissent from the majority holding set forth by Justice Oaks, as to four of the claimants herein. By its plain language, the statute before us requires that (a) the claimant must voluntarily leave work and that (b) the reason for the claimant's leaving work be "to follow or join a spouse in a new locality." These requirements have been misconstrued in these cases. Without exception, the initial eligibility form and/or the findings of the appeals referee for each claimant state that because the claimant left work to follow her spouse, the claimant left work "voluntarily without good cause." In other words, the statute has been interpreted as if it said "a claimant who has left work to accompany, follow or join his or her spouse ... does so voluntarily without good cause." To the contrary, the word "voluntarily" modifies the word "left" in the statute. Thus, the statute itself requires evidence that the claimant (a) voluntarily left work (b) in order to follow or join a spouse in a new locality, before benefits may be denied under the amended portion of § 35-4-5(a).

Other states have enacted statutes that specifically disqualify from benefits those claimants who leave work in order to follow a spouse to a new locality. The statutes vary widely in detail and application but, with a single exception, have been upheld as valid by the state courts. See 21 A.L.R. 4th 317 (1983). New York is a state that, like Utah, has a statute which provides for disqualification from benefits when a claimant leaves work voluntarily to follow a spouse. The New York Unemployment Insurance Appeal Board makes a factual determination of whether the claimant's job separation was voluntary or whether there was a "compelling necessity for the claimant's physical presence in another locality," such as a physical disability in either the claimant or the claimant's spouse. Ost v. Catherwood, 26 A.D.2d 979, 274 N.Y.S.2d 691, 692 (1966). In Richards v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 491 Pa. 162, 420 A.2d 391 (1980), the Pennsylvania Supreme Court considered whether a claimant had left work to...