Clarke v. North Detroit General Hosp.

• Decision Date: 28 May 1991
• Docket Number: No. 11,Docket Nos. 86437,86438,11
• Citation: 470 N.W.2d 393,437 Mich. 280
• Parties: , 15 A.L.R.5th 1083 Edna T. CLARKE, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. NORTH DETROIT GENERAL HOSPITAL, Defendant-Appellant, and Michigan Employment Security Commission, Defendant-Appellant. Toni R. DAWSON, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. DETROIT RECEIVING HOSPITAL, Defendant-Appellee, and Michigan Employment Security Commission, Defendant-Appellant. Calendar
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

Page 393

470 N.W.2d 393

437 Mich. 280, 15 A.L.R.5th 1083

Edna T. CLARKE, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. NORTH DETROIT GENERAL HOSPITAL, Defendant-Appellant, and Michigan Employment Security Commission, Defendant-Appellant.

Toni R. DAWSON, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. DETROIT RECEIVING HOSPITAL, Defendant-Appellee, and Michigan Employment Security Commission, Defendant-Appellant.

Docket Nos. 86437, 86438.

Calendar No. 11.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

Argued Oct. 3, 1990.

Decided May 28, 1991.

Jordan Rossen, Gen. Counsel, Richard W. McHugh, Associate Gen. Counsel, Intern. Union, UAW, Linda D. Bernard, Executive Director, Wayne County Neighborhood Legal Services, Detroit, for plaintiffs-appellees.

Frank J. Kelley, Atty. Gen., Gay Secor Hardy, Sol. Gen., Lansing by Donna K. Welch, Asst. Atty. Gen., Detroit, for defendant-appellant Michigan Employment Sec. Com'n.

Health Care Legal Group, P.C. by Clark R. Ballard, Lansing, for North Detroit General Hosp. and Detroit Receiving Hosp.

Sachs, Nunn, Kates, Kadushin, O'Hare, Helveston & Waldman, P.C. by Theodore Sachs, Eileen Nowikowski, Detroit, for amicus curiae, Michigan State AFL-CIO.

Daniel Bambery, Legal Aid of Cent. Michigan, Lansing, amicus curiae, in support of appellees.

LEVIN, Justice.

The question presented is whether Edna T. Clarke and Toni R. Dawson, nurses employed by the defendant hospitals, who were discharged after they failed nursing board licensing examinations, are entitled to unemployment compensation benefits. We hold that they did not leave work "voluntarily" when they were discharged after they failed the examinations and are entitled to benefits. Because they did not leave work voluntarily, no issue is presented whether they left work "voluntarily without good cause attributable to the employer." M.C.L. Sec. 421.29(1)(a); M.S.A. Sec. 17.531(1)(a). (Emphasis added.)

The Public Health Code provides that hospitals may employ only nurses licensed by the state ¹ and permits graduate nurses to work under temporary licenses. ² When Clarke and Dawson failed the licensing examination, the hospitals declined to employ them in an unlicensed capacity and terminated their employment. ³

Clarke and Dawson filed for unemployment compensation benefits. The hospitals do not assert that Clarke and Dawson deliberately or negligently failed the examination, or that either quit or willingly resigned, or otherwise were guilty of misconduct.

The Employment Security Commission ruled that Clarke and Dawson were disqualified from receiving benefits because they had "left work voluntarily without good cause attributable to the employer" within the meaning of the act. The circuit court, in Clarke, affirming the MESC, held that Clarke was not entitled to benefits. The circuit court in Dawson, reversing the MESC, held that Dawson was entitled to benefits.

The Court of Appeals consolidated the two cases and ruled that Clarke and Dawson were entitled to benefits. 179 Mich.App. 511, 446 N.W.2d 493 (1989). The Court noted that its decision conflicted with a decision of another panel, Employment Security Comm. v. Children's Hosp. of Michigan, 139 Mich.App. 525, 362 N.W.2d 819 (1984). ⁴

This Court granted leave to appeal limited to the question whether Clarke and Dawson were disqualified from receiving unemployment compensation benefits. 434 Mich. 900 (1990).

I

The Employment Security Act provides:

"An individual shall be disqualified for benefits in the following cases in which the individual:

"(a) Left work voluntarily without good cause attributable to the employer or employing unit." M.C.L. Sec. 421.29(1)(a); M.S.A. Sec. 17.531(1)(a).

Clarke and Dawson contend that they did not "voluntarily" leave their jobs. We agree.

When the Employment Security Act was enacted in 1936, a worker was disqualified "[f]or the week in which he has left work voluntarily without good cause or in which he has been discharged for misconduct connected with his work...." ⁵ (Emphasis added.) Literally read, a claimant might be eligible for benefits, even though he had quit, if he could show good cause, personal or work-connected.

The act was amended in 1941 to disqualify a claimant who "left his most recent work voluntarily and without good cause attributable to the employer...." ⁶ (Emphasis added.) Following this amendment, a claimant who voluntarily left his employment would be ineligible for benefits unless the claimant could establish that the asserted good cause for leaving was attributable to the employer. The threshold question, whether the claimant voluntarily quit the job, or was discharged, remained the same. There has been no substantive change in the language since 1941.

A

This Court has rejected attempts to disqualify claimants who have been discharged on the basis that they left voluntarily. The words "left their work voluntarily without good cause attributable to the employer" were construed for the first time in Copper Range Co. v. Unemployment Compensation Comm., 320 Mich. 460, 468, 31 N.W.2d 692 (1948). The unemployed workers had voted to reject a proposed wage cut, after being told by their employer that, because of financial difficulties, the mine would be closed if they rejected the proposal. Less than a month later the mine was closed and the workers were discharged. This Court rejected the argument that the discharged workers had in fact "voluntarily quit," and quoted with approval a Pennsylvania court's ⁷ definition of "voluntary" as " '[w]hen we say, "he left work voluntarily," we commonly mean, "he left of his own motion; he was not discharged." ' " Id. at 469, 31 N.W.2d 692.

In Thomas v. Employment Security Comm., 356 Mich. 665, 669, 97 N.W.2d 784 (1959), and in Sullivan v. Employment Security Comm., 358 Mich. 338, 341, 100 N.W.2d 713 (1960), this Court held that employees who were fired for being absent from work because they were in jail--Thomas for driving without a license, Sullivan for driving drunk--had not left work voluntarily and were entitled to benefits. The Court rejected the argument that the words "left work voluntarily" should be construed to preclude the payment of benefits to claimants who were absent from work because they had been convicted of an offense and were in jail. The Court, in both Thomas and Sullivan, said:

"[T]he legislature did not make provision for disqualification under the facts in this case. It is not the proper function of the Court to amend the statute to broaden or extend the disqualifications fixed by plain language by the legislature." Sullivan at 341, 100 N.W.2d 713. See Thomas 356 Mich. at 669, 97 N.W.2d 784.

Thereafter, in 1967 P.A. 254, the Legislature amended the disqualification provision of the act, not by broadening "voluntarily quit" to include a worker discharged because he was in jail, but rather by adding a subsection (1)(f) which disqualifies a person who has lost his job for being absent from work as a result of a violation of law of which he was convicted and sentenced to jail or prison. M.C.L. Sec. 421.29(1)(f); M.S.A. Sec. 17.531(1)(f).

In Wickey v. Employment Security Comm., 369 Mich. 487, 120 N.W.2d 181 (1963), this Court held that a seaman who missed the ship's sailing because he was watching a movie and was subsequently discharged had not voluntarily quit.

In Parks v. Employment Security Comm., 427 Mich. 224, 398 N.W.2d 275 (1986), this Court held that a worker, forced to retire under the terms of a collective bargaining agreement, had not "left work voluntarily" and was entitled to unemployment compensation benefits. ⁸

B

In Lyons v. Employment Security Comm., 363 Mich. 201, 108 N.W.2d 849 (1961), this Court held that a claimant did not have good cause attributable to the employer and was not eligible for benefits when he quit after two weeks a job with a three hundred-mile commutation in each direction. The Court said that while the claimant had good cause to voluntarily quit, that cause was not attributable to the employer. ⁹

Clarke and Dawson did not voluntarily leave employment. All agree that they were discharged when they failed the licensing examination.

II

The hospitals and the commission argue that a claimant should be disqualified if he has failed "to maintain prerequisites of hire and continued employment" and where the employer would have been in violation of state law had it allowed the employee to continue working in the position absent the necessary license. The "prerequisites of hire" formulation is derived from Echols v. Employment Security Comm., 380 Mich. 87, 155 N.W.2d 824 (1968). ¹⁰

In Echols, a taxi cab driver was temporarily unemployed because his license had been suspended for ninety days when he accumulated too many points for traffic violations. He was not discharged by his employer, and for that reason the misconduct discharge disqualification was not applicable. This Court affirmed a denial of benefits on the basis that the worker had voluntarily left. ¹¹ The Court said:

" 'The appeal board has ruled on several occasions that the loss of a claimant's prerequisites for continued employment, especially through his own negligence, is a voluntary leaving without good cause attributable to the employer.... In the instant matter, the claimant lost his operator's license through no fault of the employer and it is our opinion that his leaving was not constructive but purely a voluntary leaving and he should be disqualified.' " 380 Mich. at 92-93, 155 N.W.2d 824 (emphasis added).

The dissenting justice argued that while an employee's voluntary surrender of a prerequisite to employment, for example, a driver's license, might justify a finding that the employee voluntarily left his work, such a finding must be supported by evidence in the record. The justice observed that "prerequisite of employment" was essentially an application of the " 'constructive voluntary leaving' " doctrine, a doctrine rejected by this Court. Id. at 91, 92, 155 N.W.2d 824. ¹²

In Echols, the...