DeLorenzo v. Board of Review, Division of Employment Sec., Dept. of Labor and Industry

• Decision Date: 01 July 1969
• Parties: Virginia DeLORENZO, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. BOARD OF REVIEW, DIVISION OF EMPLOYMENT SECURITY, DEPARTMENT OF LABOR AND INDUSTRY, State of New Jersey, and M & S Knitwear, Defendants-Respondents.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

Page 361

54 N.J. 361

255 A.2d 248

Virginia DeLORENZO, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. BOARD OF REVIEW, DIVISION OF EMPLOYMENT SECURITY, DEPARTMENT

OF LABOR AND INDUSTRY, State of New Jersey, and M

& S Knitwear, Defendants-Respondents.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Argued Jan. 6, 1969.

Remanded Jan. 20, 1969.

Decided after Remand July 1, 1969.

Sidney Reitman, Newark, for appellant (Irving Leuchter, Newark, of counsel, Kapelsohn, Lerner, Leuchter & Reitman, Newark, attorneys).

Edward A. Kaplan, Jersey City, for respondent Board of Review.

PER CURIAM.

Claimant became ill from causes unrelated to her employment. She claimed and received unemployment compensation for a period after the termination of her illness. The Division of Unemployment Benefits thereafter determined she had been disqualified from receiving those benefits and had to refund them. The Appellate Division affirmed, 100 N.J.Super. 473, 242 A.2d 640 (1968), and we granted certification, 52 N.J. 165, 244 A.2d 297 (1968). After argument, we remanded the matter to the Board of Review, 53 N.J. 143, 249 A.2d 68 (1969), and now have before us the agency's new findings of fact and opinion.

N.J.S.A. 43:21--5(a) provides:

'An individual shall be disqualified for benefits:

(a) For the week in which he has left work voluntarily without good cause Attributable to such work, and for each week thereafter until he has earned in employment * * * at least 4 times his weekly benefit rate, * * *.'

The italicized words were added by amendment in 1961.

Claimant contends there is no disqualification unless the quit was (1) voluntary And (2) 'without good cause attributable to such work.' Hence, claimant argues, if an employee's quit was Involuntary in fact, there is no disqualification whether or not the cause for the quit was related to the work. So, if claimant quit her job because of an illness which precluded resumption of that job, the quit was compelled and therefore involuntary, and hence the first essential element of disqualification, I.e., a Voluntary quit, did not exist even though the cause for that quit was not 'attributable to such work.' The Appellate Division disagreed, and following Stauhs v. Bd. of Review, 93 N.J.Super. 451, 226 A.2d 182 (App.Div.1967), held that a quit for a cause not 'attributable to such work' was Voluntary within the sense of the disqualifying clause as amended in 1961. We agree. The sense of the statute is to differentiate between (1) a voluntary quit with good cause attributable to the work and (2) a voluntary quit without good cause attributable to the work.

But the statute disqualifies an employee who has quit, I.e., who 'has left work,' and we could not tell whether the finding of disqualification turned upon the proposition that a workman who becomes ill and unable to report to work thereby 'has left work' even though the employee intends to resume the job upon his recovery. Hence we remanded the matter in these terms, 53 N.J. at 146, 249 A.2d at 69.

'* * * We therefore remand the matter to the Board of Review (1) for explicit findings with respect to...