Meyer v. Skyline Mobile Homes

• Decision Date: 04 January 1979
• Docket Number: No. 12566,12566
• Citation: 589 P.2d 89,99 Idaho 754
• Parties: Robert L. MEYER, Claimant-Appellant, v. SKYLINE MOBILE HOMES, Employer, and Department of Employment, Defendants-Respondents.
• Court: Idaho Supreme Court

Page 89

589 P.2d 89

99 Idaho 754

Robert L. MEYER, Claimant-Appellant, v. SKYLINE MOBILE HOMES, Employer, and Department of Employment, Defendants-Respondents.

No. 12566.

Supreme Court of Idaho.

Jan. 4, 1979.

Dennis Gibala, Boise, for claimant-appellant.

Wayne L. Kidwell, Atty. Gen., R. LaVar Marsh, Deputy Atty. Gen., Donald L. Harris, Asst. Atty. Gen., Boise, for defendants-respondents.

BAKES, Justice.

This case presents questions arising under Idaho's Employment Security Law. I.C. §§ 72-1301 to -1380. Claimant appellant Robert L. Meyer challenges rulings of the Industrial Commission that he refused an offer of suitable work without good cause and that he willfully withheld a material fact (his refusal of the offer) in order to obtain unemployment insurance benefits. Meyer also disputes the commission's finding that he was employed full time as of September 1, 1976. Finally, Meyer requests attorney fees on appeal, pursuant to I.C. § 12-121. We affirm the commission's finding with respect to Meyer's commencement of full time work. However, we reverse the conclusions that the work which Meyer refused was suitable and that his failure to report the refusal was willful, and we remand the case to the Industrial Commission for reconsideration of these issues. The matter of attorney fees is deferred until the proceedings below are concluded.

I

Meyer worked for several years as a traveling mobile home serviceman for Skyline Mobile Homes (Skyline). The job required that he regularly be away from his wife and two young sons for a week at a time. According to Meyer his continual extended absences led to a divorce in June of 1974, with his former wife taking custody of the children.

In July of 1975 Meyer left his position with Skyline in favor of local employment that did not involve traveling. He changed jobs so that he could spend more time with his then fiancee and so that he could hopefully obtain custody of his sons. After he had worked at his new job for about a month, Meyer was laid off for no cause of his own. In August of 1975 Meyer filed for and began receiving unemployment benefits. During the next four or five months he worked part time doing local service jobs for Skyline and reported his earnings on the Department of Employment's (DOE) weekly certification forms. Meyer also obtained legal custody of his two sons and remarried during this period.

In January or February of 1976, Skyline offered Meyer full time employment as a local serviceman, and Meyer accepted. However, the following day Skyline told him that the job would require traveling, like the position he had previously held. Meyer declined Skyline's revised offer, fearing that extensive travel would again jeopardize his family life. In completing the DOE's weekly certification form for the week of Skyline's offer, Meyer answered "no" to the question, "Were you offered any work during the week (either for that week or any future date) which you refused?"

In August of 1976, a DOE claims examiner determined that Meyer had refused an offer of suitable work without good cause and had willfully failed to report a material fact in order to obtain benefits. I.C. § 72-1366(f). ¹ Meyer objected to the claims examiner's determinations, and a DOE appeals examiner held a hearing. Meyer testified that he considered Skyline's offer of traveling service work unsuitable because traveling had destroyed his first marriage and would certainly also disrupt his second marriage and prevent him from adequately caring for his children. He indicated that he had not reported his refusal of the Skyline offer in response to the question on the weekly certification form because he understood the question to ask only whether he had refused an offer of suitable work. The DOE appeals examiner affirmed the determinations of the claims examiner that Meyer had refused suitable work without good cause and had willfully withheld a material fact to obtain benefits.

Meyer appealed to the Industrial Commission from the decision of the DOE appeals examiner. The commission's referee, like the appeals examiner, concluded that Meyer had refused suitable work without good cause and had willfully withheld a material fact to obtain benefits. In the course of his decision, the referee found that on September 1, 1976, Meyer started working full time as a local salesman for Western States Mobile Homes. The Industrial Commission adopted the referee's opinion as its own.

Meyer has appealed to this Court from the decision of the Industrial Commission. He contends that the commission erred in concluding that he refused suitable work without good cause and that he willfully withheld a material fact to obtain unemployment benefits. He also challenges the finding that his full time work at Western States Mobile Homes began on September 1, 1976. Finally, Meyer requests attorney fees on appeal, pursuant to I.C. § 12-121.

II

Meyer attacks the commission's determination that he refused an offer of suitable work without good cause. He argues that there was no bona fide offer; that if there was an offer, the work was unsuitable; and that if suitable work was offered, he had good cause to refuse it. We address these contentions in turn.

The commission found that Skyline initially offered Meyer a full time job doing local service work and that Meyer accepted the offer. The commission further found that on the following day Skyline informed Meyer that the job would involve extensive travel and that Meyer then declined the work offered. The commission's finding that Skyline offered work to Meyer is supported by substantial unequivocal evidence and will not be disturbed on appeal. Booth v. City of Burley, 99 Idaho 229, 580 P.2d 75 (1978); Hutchinson v. J. R. Simplot Co., 98 Idaho 346, 563 P.2d 404 (1977).

Meyer contends that the work Skyline offered was unsuitable. He bases this contention upon two distinct provisions of I.C. § 72-1366(g). ² Meyer first asserts that Skyline's offer was unsuitable under I.C. § 72-1366(g)(2). This statutory basis for establishing the unsuitability of an offer of work requires a comparison between the terms of the work offered and the terms prevailing for similar work in the area in which work is offered. We think that travel is an essential aspect of the work which was offered in the instant case, not a mere condition of the employment. Accordingly, the comparison made must be between the terms of the traveling service position with Skyline and the terms prevailing for other traveling service positions in the locality. The record is devoid of evidence necessary to make such a comparison. Inasmuch as the burden lay upon Meyer to prove his eligibility for benefits, this argument must fail. See Pyeatt v. Idaho State Univ., 98 Idaho 424, 565 P.2d 1381 (1977).

Meyer asserts, however, that the conditions of the traveling service offer were substantially less favorable than those prevailing for similar work by virtue of the fact that Skyline had previously offered Meyer a local service job. In support of this proposition, he cites Clay v. Crooks Industries, 96 Idaho 378, 529 P.2d 774 (1974). The claimant there had accepted a position beneath his qualifications, assertedly upon an agreement with the employer that the claimant would later be permitted to engage in activities appropriate to his talents. When the job did not evolve as the claimant anticipated that it would, he quit. We held that if the alleged agreement were established, the claimant would not be disqualified for having left work voluntarily without good cause because the conditions of the job he quit would have been unsuitable in comparison with the original offer. The claimant in Clay accepted a job beneath his abilities solely because he thought that the initially unsuitable work would later become suitable. We held that if his expectation of improvement was justified, he should not be punished for undertaking unsuitable work for a time. Meyer's situation is not analogous and his reliance upon Clay is misplaced.

We turn to Meyer's second argument under I.C. § 72-1366(g). Meyer maintains that the commission failed to give adequate consideration to the distance from his residence of the work that Skyline offered and the risk that the extended periods on the road required of him by the job would precipitate the disintegration of his second marriage and hamper his ability to care for his sons from his prior marriage. We agree.

The commission's findings indicate that, as a result of extensive travel in his first job with Skyline, Meyer and his first wife were divorced in 1974. In December, 1975, Meyer married his second wife. In February of 1976, Meyer declined Skyline's offer of full time traveling service work because he believed his second wife would leave him if he traveled extensively. He also feared that he might lose custody of his two boys from the prior marriage. The commission concluded that the work offered was suitable, "(c)onsidering the factors outlined in Idaho Code § 72-1366(g)." However, absent from the commission's suitability analysis is consideration of the distance between Meyer's residence and the work Skyline offered. Although the role of distance ordinarily becomes an issue where employees commute on their own time and at their own expense between their homes and fixed work places, nothing in I.C. § 72-1366(g) confines consideration of the distance factor to the commuter context. See, e. g., Johnson v. Employment Security Agency, 81 Idaho 560, 347 P.2d 764 (1959). We hold that distance must be considered in assessing the suitability of jobs which, by their nature, require traveling. If a reasonable person in Meyer's position who truly desired to work would have considered the Skyline offer unacceptable, the Skyline offer would not have been an offer of suitable employment. It will be necessary for the commission to reconsider the suitability issue in this light.

The significance...