Fellin v. Administrator, Unemployment Compensation Act

• Decision Date: 11 June 1985
• Citation: 196 Conn. 440,493 A.2d 174
• Parties: William FELLIN v. ADMINISTRATOR, UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION ACT, et al.
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court

Page 174

493 A.2d 174

196 Conn. 440

William FELLIN v. ADMINISTRATOR, UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION ACT, et al.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued April 9, 1985.

Decision Released June 11, 1985.

Edmund C. Tiryakian, Hartford, with whom, on brief, was Kirk D. Tavtigian, Jr., and Joel A. Boone, Hartford, for appellant (plaintiff).

Thadd A. Gnocchi, Asst. Atty. Gen., with whom, on brief, were Joseph I. Lieberman, Atty. Gen., and Robert E. Walsh, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee (named defendant).

Before PETERS, C.J., and HEALEY, SHEA, DANNEHY and SANTANIELLO, JJ.

PETERS, Chief Justice.

This case concerns the eligibility for unemployment compensation of a worker who, having been discharged from his primary employment, voluntarily leaves part-time secondary employment. The plaintiff employee, William Fellin, filed an administrative appeal in the Superior Court from the decision of the employment security board of appeals upholding the determination of the defendant administrator of the Unemployment Compensation Act that he was ineligible for benefits. The trial court dismissed the plaintiff's appeal. When the plaintiff then sought further review in the Appellate Court, this court transferred the case here pursuant to Practice Book § 3004A. ¹

The underlying facts are undisputed. The plaintiff was a full-time employee of General Motors, his primary employer, for almost nine years until April 8, 1982. During the last eight months of his primary employment, he also worked part-time for General Corporation of America, his secondary employer. Several days after he was laid off from his primary job he voluntarily left his secondary job "to avoid complications with [unemployment] benefit or [sub-benefit] programs and to allow [himself] more available hours for any other full-time employment." Although the plaintiff had previously been able to transfer his part-time work hours to accommodate his other commitments, he did not seek to change his part-time work schedule but instead terminated his secondary employment on April 11, 1982.

The plaintiff received unemployment benefits of $176 a week until the defendant administrator, after a hearing, determined that the plaintiff was not entitled to benefits from April 11, 1982, because "he voluntarily left suitable work without requisite cause." See General Statutes § 31-236(2)(A). ² As a result of this administrative determination, the plaintiff was declared to be ineligible for future benefits until he returned to work and earned ten times his benefit rate; see id.; ³ and, in addition, was notified to return $3344 representing weekly benefits mistakenly paid to him from April 11 to August 21, 1982. The administrative record indicates that the investigation into the plaintiff's eligibility was initiated by the claim of the plaintiff's secondary employer that the plaintiff "left our company of his own choosing." Throughout the administrative proceedings, the sole designated employer was the plaintiff's secondary employer, General Corporation of America.

The plaintiff's appeal to the employment security appeals division challenged the factual premises upon which the defendant had concluded that the plaintiff was ineligible for unemployment benefits. Before the appeals referee, he argued that he had left his secondary part-time employment for compelling personal cause because he needed time to apply for and to make himself available for full-time work. This claim was rejected and the plaintiff appealed to the board of review of the employment security appeals division, arguing that he had been unaware that he would have been able to continue working part-time without forfeiting partial unemployment benefits and protesting the unfairness of having to repay benefits previously received in good faith. These arguments were also rejected. Throughout his unsuccessful administrative appeals, the plaintiff acted on his own behalf without the assistance of counsel.

Having exhausted his ordinary administrative remedies, the plaintiff sought the advice of counsel, who filed a motion to reopen, addressed to the board of review, and an appeal addressed to the Superior Court. Notably, in both of these challenges, the plaintiff principally claimed error in the factual findings that underlay the determination of his ineligibility for unemployment benefits. The board of review denied his motion to reopen. ⁴ The trial court determined that "[t]he action of the administrator in denying the claim of the plaintiff for unemployment compensation was not unreasonable, arbitrary or illegal." The court then rejected the plaintiff's claim that his ineligibility for benefits violated either public policy or the plaintiff's constitutional rights to substantive due process or equal protection of the laws.

The plaintiff's appeal to this court puts the plaintiff's alleged eligibility for unemployment benefits into a new context. Although in one of his claims of error the plaintiff continues to maintain that the administrative decision was unreasonable, arbitrary and an abuse of discretion, the plaintiff's principal contention now is that the eligibility statute, properly construed, permits a distinction between eligibility for benefits arising out of part-time secondary employment and eligibility for benefits arising out of full-time primary employment. Should this court be disinclined to find such a distinction in the language of § 31-236(2)(A), the plaintiff urges us to hold the statute to be so irrational as to violate the equal protection clauses of the United States and the Connecticut constitutions. ⁵

We need not linger at length over the plaintiff's claim that the referee and the board of review erred in coming to the factual determination that he had left suitable work voluntarily and without sufficient cause connected with his work. As the trial court correctly noted, administrative appeals brought under General Statutes § 31-249b, insofar as they relate to factual findings, are limited to a review of the record certified and filed by the board of review. The scope of such judicial review is in turn limited to the question whether the administrative action was unreasonable, arbitrary, illegal or an abuse of discretion. Burnham v. Administrator, 184 Conn. 317, 321-22, 439 A.2d 1008 (1981); Robinson v. Unemployment Security Board of Review, 181 Conn. 1, 5, 434 A.2d 293 (1980). The trial court's memorandum of decision persuasively demonstrates that the plaintiff cannot successfully challenge the factual premises of the administrator's action. In apparent recognition of the futility of further pursuit of this claim of error, the plaintiff's counsel at oral argument in this court expressly disclaimed any further disagreement with the factual findings underlying the plaintiff's declared ineligibility for unemployment benefits. ⁶

The plaintiff's principal claim on this appeal is that the administrative proceedings were flawed not by factual error but by misconstruction of the applicable statute. Due respect for the remedial purposes of the Unemployment Compensation Act requires, he maintains, a construction of General Statutes § 31-236(2)(A) that limits ineligibility for benefits to the particular work that the employee "left ... voluntarily and without sufficient cause connected with his work." This argument has two subparts, only the first of which was presented in the proceedings below. First, the plaintiff contends that, since he was not claiming benefits with regard to his part-time, secondary employment, he should be deemed fully eligible for unemployment benefits arising out of the involuntary termination of his full-time, primary employment. In the alternative, the plaintiff contends that he is at least entitled to retain those partial unemployment benefits, arising out of his discharge from his primary full-time work, which he could have collected had he retained his secondary, part-time job. Under either theory, he argues, the statute must be interpreted so that eligibility for unemployment benefits distinguishes between the work that was left without cause and the work from which the employee was discharged without fault.

This claim of statutory construction, although not fully articulated below, is properly here. Judicial review of administrative proceedings allows for "judicial scrutiny of claims such as constitutional error; see Connecticut Light & Power Co. v. Norwalk, 179 Conn. 111, 117, 425 A.2d 576 (1979); jurisdictional error; Slagle v. Zoning Board of Appeals, 144 Conn. 690, 693, 137 A.2d 542 (1957); or error in the construction of the administrative agency's authorizing statute. See Cooper, 2 State Administrative Law, 595-602 (1965). In addition, the leniency traditionally afforded to inexperienced pro se parties may justify belated consideration of claims not fully explored in earlier proceedings." Burnham v. Administrator, supra, 184 Conn. 322-23, 439 A.2d 1008.

This court has had little opportunity to examine the implications of part-time employment for eligibility for unemployment compensation. The case most closely relevant is Consiglio v. Administrator, 137 Conn. 693, 81 A.2d 351 (1951). There a worker voluntarily left part-time work, at a time when she was receiving partial unemployment benefits, in order to obtain a better full-time job with another employer. After two weeks on her new job, she was laid off for lack of work. The administrator found that the worker had left her part-time employment without sufficient cause and concluded that she was totally disqualified for benefits for the statutory disqualification period. Although we emphathized with the worker's legitimate desire to obtain a better job, we nevertheless held that "[t]he statute compels disqualification in every case in which an employee has left his work, with the one exception where there is sufficient cause connected with the employment which he leaves, in the opinion of the...