Gregory v. Bernardi

• Decision Date: 29 June 1984
• Docket Number: No. 2-83-0591,2-83-0591
• Citation: 125 Ill.App.3d 376,80 Ill.Dec. 706,465 N.E.2d 1052
• Parties: , 80 Ill.Dec. 706 Corbit Wayne GREGORY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. E. Allen BERNARDI, Acting Director, Department of Labor; Board of Review and its Members Individually, Bruce W. Barnes, Eugene Christy, Davide Tomei: Campbell Cab, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

Page 1052

465 N.E.2d 1052

125 Ill.App.3d 376, 80 Ill.Dec. 706

Corbit Wayne GREGORY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. E. Allen BERNARDI, Acting Director, Department of Labor Board of Review and its Members Individually Bruce W. Barnes, Eugene Christy, Davide Tomei: Campbell Cab Defendants-Appellees.

No. 2-83-0591.

Appellate Court of Illinois Second District.

June 29, 1984.

Kevin M. Kane, Barry A. Schultz, Waukegan, Bernard H. Shapiro, Rockford, Prairie State Legal Serv., Inc., for plaintiff-appellant.

Neil F. Hartigan, Atty. Gen., Kathleen M. Lien, Asst. Atty. Gen., Patricia Rosen, Chief, Civil Appeals, Asst. Atty. Gen., Chicago, for defendants-appellees.

LINDBERG, Justice:

A claimant for unemployment compensation benefits brought this action for judicial review of a determination of the Board of Review of the Department of Labor which denied his claim. The circuit court of Lake County affirmed the decision of the Board of Review. Because the Board of Review employed the proper standard for determining the case and because the Board's findings are supported by the evidence, we affirm the circuit court's order.

In January 1982, plaintiff, Corbit Wayne Gregory, was employed by Campbell Cab in its final assembly department. After missing several days of work during that month, he was fired. His claim for unemployment compensation benefits was denied by a claims adjudicator of the Department of Labor, who determined that Gregory was ineligible for benefits because he was discharged for misconduct. See Ill.Rev.Stat.1981, ch. 48, par. 432.

Gregory then appealed to a referee of the Department of Labor, Division of Unemployment Compensation. The referee conducted a hearing at which three persons testified: Gregory; Mrs. James Campbell, the vice-president of Campbell Cab; and a party referred to in the record as "Ms. Gsemuf," but whom Gregory's brief represents to be Gail Grenus. The referee found that Gregory was discharged on January 15, 1982, after missing two days of work due to transportation problems. The referee concluded that no misconduct had occurred and that Gregory was eligible for benefits.

Campbell Cab then appealed the referee's decision to the Board of Review of the Department of Labor (Board). The Board made findings supportive of the employer, concluded that Gregory had been discharged for misconduct, and reversed the decision of the referee. On October 4, 1982, Gregory filed this action pursuant to the Administrative Review Law (Ill.Rev.Stat.1981, ch. 110, pars. 3-101 through 3-112) for judicial review of the Board's decision.

Gregory first contends that the Board erred in relying upon evidence outside the record, thereby denying him his due process rights of notice, cross-examination and opportunity to rebut regarding the additional evidence. The additional evidence to which Gregory refers is a "summary of events" contained in Campbell Cab's letter of June 15, 1982, to the Board requesting appeal of the referee's decision.

Gregory relies upon the rule that an administrative agency cannot base its decision upon facts, data, or testimony which does not appear in the record; findings must be based on evidence introduced in the case, and nothing can be treated as evidence which is not introduced as such. (Cook County Federal Savings and Loan Association v. Griffin (1979), 73 Ill.App.3d 210, 29 Ill.Dec. 210, 391 N.E.2d 473; Hazelton v. Zoning Board of Appeals of City of Hickory Hills (1977), 48 Ill.App.3d 348, 6 Ill.Dec. 515, 363 N.E.2d 44.) Defendants do not dispute this rule, but rather point out that the Board's decision explicitly asserted that it did "not deem it necessary to take additional evidence."

Despite this assertion of the Board, two of its findings of fact have no basis in the record of the proceedings before the referee: (1) that Gregory was late to work on January 11, 1982, and (2) that Gregory did not call in to report his absence on January 12, 1982. Because both of these facts are asserted in the June 15 letter, it is apparent that the Board did consider evidentiary material not properly part of the record. Defendants do not attempt to justify the use of factual material from the letter requesting appeal as the Board's "tak[ing of] additional evidence in hearing such appeals" as provided for by statute. (See Ill.Rev.Stat.1981, ch. 48, par. 473.) By its improper consideration of the June 15 letter as evidence, the Board deprived Gregory of his due process rights with regard to the evidentiary material in the June 15 letter. See Cook County Federal Savings and Loan Association v. Griffin (1979), 73 Ill.App.3d 210, 29 Ill.Dec. 210, 391 N.E.2d 473; Hazelton v. Zoning Board of Appeals of City of Hickory Hills (1977), 48 Ill.App.3d 348, 6 Ill.Dec. 515, 363 N.E.2d 44.

However, we do not believe that the two findings improperly gleaned from the contents of the June 15 letter were enough, by themselves, to affect the decision reached by the Board. The Board recited, in support of its decision, several other instances of Gregory's failing to be at work and failing to call in and notify his employer that he would be absent. The concept of harmless error is applicable to judicial review of unemployment compensation administrative proceedings. (See Nendza v. Board of Review of Department of Labor (1982), 105 Ill.App.3d 437, 444, 61 Ill.Dec. 317, 322, 434 N.E.2d 470, 475; Nestle Co., Inc. v. Johnson (1979), 68 Ill.App.3d 17, 20, 24 Ill.Dec. 652, 655, 385 N.E.2d 793, 796.) We hold that this error, considered alone, caused Gregory no prejudice and does not warrant reversal.

Gregory's second contention is that the trial court and the Board erred in failing to give substantial weight to the referee's findings of fact. The Board, in rendering its decision, made an independent assessment of the evidence in the record, rather than merely determining the supportability of the referee's findings. We must determine what deference the Board and, in turn, the courts owed to the referee's findings of fact. Neither the statute nor the cases answer this question directly. However, both of these sources, as we shall demonstrate, indicate inferentially that the Board, as final trier of fact, need only consider the findings of the referee, but without giving them the sort of weight a reviewing court must give a trier of fact.

Pursuant to statute, no decision of a referee in an unemployment compensation case is subject to direct judicial review. (Ill.Rev.Stat.1981, ch. 48, par. 471, and ch. 110, par. 265; see People ex rel. Olin Corp. v. Department of Labor (1981), 95 Ill.App.3d 1108, 51 Ill.Dec. 485, 420 N.E.2d 1043.) To be challenged, the decision of a referee must be appealed to the Board within 30 days. (Ill.Rev.Stat.1981, ch. 48, par. 471.) The Board may then "affirm, modify, or set aside any decision of a Referee [and] may take additional evidence in hearing such appeals" (Ill.Rev.Stat.1981, ch. 48, par. 473). The Board is charged with rendering "findings" as well as a "decision." (Ill.Rev.Stat.1981, ch. 48, par. 473.) Decisions of the Board are then subject to judicial review in accordance with the provisions of the Administrative Review Law (formerly the Administrative Review Act). Ill.Rev.Stat., 1982 Supp., ch. 48, par. 520.

Thus, the referee is not the finder of fact, but merely one such finder, along with the claims adjudicator (see Ill.Rev.Stat.1981, ch. 48, par. 451) and the Board, within the Department of Labor's procedure for determining the validity of unemployment compensation claims. The Board, as the ultimate finder of fact, is not bound by the referee's decision and may actually expand the record prepared by the referee. It is the decision of the Board, not the referee, which is reviewed by the courts. From this statutory framework, we infer that the Board is to make its own independent assessment of the evidence on record and need not defer to the findings of the referee the way the courts must defer to the findings of the Board.

Consistently with this statutory framework, it has been held that the function of the Board is to determine the facts from all the evidence and circumstances (see Brown v. Board of Review, Department of Labor (1972), 8 Ill.App.3d 19, 23, 289 N.E.2d 40, 43) and that the function of the court is to ascertain whether the Board's findings, as part of the final administrative decision, are supported by the manifest weight of the evidence (see Brown; Yadro v. Bowling (1980), 91 Ill.App.3d 889, 47 Ill.Dec. 128, 414 N.E.2d 1244; Skirin v. Bowling (1980), 86 Ill.App.3d 954, 41 Ill.Dec. 933, 408 N.E.2d 355). While in these cases the Board's findings did not differ from the referee, two earlier supreme court opinions held that the court's role was to determine whether the findings of fact as resolved by the Director of Labor were supported by the manifest weight of the evidence, despite the fact that in each case the Director had reversed his deputy's initial determination. Shell Oil Co. v. Cummins (1955), 7 Ill.2d 329, 131 N.E.2d 64; Robert S. Abbott Publishing Co. v. Annunzio (1953), 414 Ill. 559, 112 N.E.2d 101.

Gregory cites numerous cases for the propositions that the trier of fact alone should judge the credibility of witnesses and reconcile conflicting evidence and that a reviewing body should not disturb the trier's findings unless they are against the manifest weight of the evidence. (Stillwell v. Continental Illinois National Bank and Trust Co. of Chicago (1964), 31 Ill.2d 546, 202 N.E.2d 477; Badger Building Corp. v. Gregoric (1981), 102 Ill.App.3d 594, 58 Ill.Dec. 529, 430 N.E.2d 561; Dutton v. Roo-Mac, Inc. (1981), 100 Ill.App.3d 116, 55 Ill.Dec. 458, 426 N.E.2d 604; Marth v. Illinois Weather-Seal, Inc. (1977), 50 Ill.App.3d 577, 8 Ill.Dec. 350, 365 N.E.2d 588; Ciolek v. Jaskiewicz (1976), 38 Ill.App.3d 822, 349 N.E.2d 914; Pittman v. Lageschulte (1963), 45 Ill.App.2d 207, 195 N.E.2d 394; Daley v. Jack's Tivoli Liquor Lounge, Inc. (1969), 118...