Quigley v. Unemployment Comp. Bd. of Review
| Decision Date | 28 January 2020 |
| Docket Number | No. 1449 C.D. 2017,1449 C.D. 2017 |
| Citation | 225 A.3d 914 |
| Parties | Caitlin QUIGLEY, Petitioner v. UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION BOARD OF REVIEW, Respondent |
| Court | Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court |
Julia Simon-Mishel, Philadelphia, for Petitioner.
Colleen T. Reilly, Assistant Counsel, Harrisburg, for Respondent.
BEFORE: HONORABLE MARY HANNAH LEAVITT, President Judge, HONORABLE RENÉE COHN JUBELIRER, Judge, HONORABLE PATRICIA A. McCULLOUGH, Judge, HONORABLE ANNE E. COVEY, Judge, HONORABLE MICHAEL H. WOJCIK, Judge, HONORABLE CHRISTINE FIZZANO CANNON, Judge, HONORABLE ELLEN CEISLER, Judge
OPINION BY PRESIDENT JUDGE LEAVITT1
Caitlin Quigley (Claimant) petitions this Court for review of an adjudication of the Unemployment Compensation Board of Review (Board) holding her ineligible for unemployment benefits under Section 402(h) of the Unemployment Compensation Law (Law).2 In doing so, the Board reversed the eligibility determination of the Unemployment Compensation (UC) Service Center and the Referee. They held that Claimant's sideline business activity did not render her ineligible for benefits but directed that the income from this activity be deducted from her unemployment benefits. Because she disagreed with the amount of the deduction from her benefits, Claimant appealed. The Referee reduced the deduction. The Board then reversed the Referee, holding that Claimant did not prove her self-employment was a sideline activity and, thus, she was ineligible for benefits in any amount.
The issue before this Court is whether in an administrative appeal under the Law, the Board or the Referee is authorized to revise, sua sponte , the scope of a claimant's appeal to address an issue not raised by the separating employer, the claimant or the Department of Labor and Industry (Department). After review, we vacate and remand.
Background
Claimant filed an application for unemployment compensation benefits, wherein she reported that she was laid off from her full-time employment with the Philadelphia Area Cooperative Alliance (Employer). As part of that application, Claimant reported income of $11,874 from her sideline business, which she supported with a copy of her prior year's federal income tax return. The UC Service Center determined that Claimant was eligible for benefits under Section 402(h) of the Law,3 which allows employees who have lost their full-time employment to collect unemployment benefits notwithstanding their income from sideline work. However, the income expected from the sideline business must be deducted from the employee's unemployment benefits. The UC Service Center deducted $237.00 per week from Claimant's benefits to account for her sideline activity.4
Claimant believed that the UC Service Center erred because it based the deduction on her previous calendar year earnings rather than her anticipated earnings in the current calendar year. On that basis, Claimant appealed, and the Referee scheduled a hearing for May 9, 2017. Claimant requested a continuance, but it was denied. The hearing, at which Claimant did not appear, proceeded as scheduled. The Referee specifically noted and placed into the record the above-referenced documents in the Department's file on Claimant's application. On May 11, 2017, the Referee affirmed the UC Service Center's determination but modified the deduction for her sideline business income from $237.00 to $228.34 per week. Claimant appealed to the Board, again challenging only the calculation of her sideline business income and the corresponding deduction from her weekly benefit payment.
On review, the Board, sua sponte , reversed the Referee. It held that Claimant was ineligible for benefits in any amount because she did not present evidence at the Referee hearing that she qualified for the sideline business exception in Section 402(h) of the Law. Claimant requested reconsideration of the Board's decision and a remand hearing to establish good cause for not attending the Referee hearing. On September 5, 2017, the Board denied Claimant's reconsideration request without explanation. Claimant petitioned for this Court's review.5
In her petition for review, Claimant stated, inter alia , as follows:
When I did not attend the hearing, the UC Board of Review determined that I was ineligible for benefits. I do not believe this to be a fair decision, as the hearing was not about eligibility but was about benefit amount .
Petition for Review at 3 (emphasis added). Likewise, in her brief to this Court, Claimant argued: "The purpose of the hearing was to determine benefit amount, not to determine benefit eligibility or sideline business exception eligibility, therefore the UC Board of Review erred in reversing eligibility for benefits by stating that the burden of proof for the sideline business exception had not been met." Claimant Brief at 13-14. The Board responded in its brief that Board Brief at 7 (citations omitted).
Recognizing that Claimant had raised an issue of the Board's authority to change the scope of her appeal,6 this Court entered an order on August 20, 2018, directing the parties to file supplemental briefs to address the following issue:
In an administrative appeal under the [Law], is the Referee or the Unemployment Compensation Board of Review authorized to change, sua sponte , the scope of a claimant's appeal to address an issue not raised by the separating employer or the claimant?
The matter was listed for oral argument, which was heard on March 13, 2019. The matter is now ready for disposition.7
Appeal
Claimant acknowledges that the regulations of the Department grant the Board de novo review of a Referee's decision. She argues, however, that the Board lacks the authority to change the nature of a claimant's appeal when it has not given the parties notice and an opportunity to be heard on the revised appeal issue. Here, the Board did not notify Claimant that eligibility was an issue, which violated her fundamental right to due process. At each stage of her appeal, Claimant questioned only the calculation of the deduction for her sideline business income, not the UC Service Center's determination that she was eligible for benefits under Section 402(h). She was not informed that an appeal of her benefit calculation would place her eligibility for benefits at risk.
The Board rejoins that the Department's regulations require it to consider all issues ruled upon by the UC Service Center and the Referee. Every claimant is imputed with knowledge of those regulations because they were promulgated in accordance with the law. As such, a party to an unemployment proceeding cannot claim to be surprised when the Board decides to address an issue not raised by the claimant, the employer or the Department, so long as it is an issue subsumed in the UC Service Center's determination.
Analysis
We begin with a review of the applicable law. It is the General Assembly's stated intention that the Law will provide workers unemployed through no fault of their own with some measure of economic security. Section 3 of the Law states as follows:
Economic insecurity due to unemployment is a serious menace to the health, morals, and welfare of the people of the Commonwealth. Involuntary unemployment and its resulting burden of indigency falls with crushing force upon the unemployed worker, and ultimately upon the Commonwealth and its political subdivisions in the form of poor relief assistance. Security against unemployment and the spread of indigency can best be provided by the systematic setting aside of financial reserves to be used as compensation for loss of wages by employes during periods when they become unemployed through no fault of their own. The principle of the accumulation of financial reserves, the sharing of risks, and the payment of compensation with respect to unemployment meets the need of protection against the hazards of unemployment and indigency. The Legislature, therefore, declares that in its considered judgment the public good and the general welfare of the citizens of this Commonwealth require the exercise of the police powers of the Commonwealth in the enactment of [the Law] for the compulsory setting aside of unemployment reserves to be used for the benefit of persons unemployed through no fault of their own.
43 P.S. § 752. Our Supreme Court has specifically identified the Law as a "remedial" statute that warrants a liberal construction, as do the procedural rules that govern unemployment compensation proceedings. See Miller v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review , 505 Pa. 8, 476 A.2d 364, 366 (1984) ().
The Department has adopted procedural rules to govern unemployment compensation appeals. One regulation states, in relevant part, as follows:
When an appeal is taken from a decision of the Department, the Department shall be deemed to have ruled upon all matters and questions pertaining to the claim. In hearing the appeal the tribunal shall consider the issues expressly ruled upon in the decision from which the appeal was filed . However, any issue in the case may, with the approval of the parties, be heard, if the speedy administration of justice, without prejudice to any party, will be substantially served thereby.
34 Pa. Code § 101.87 (emphasis added). A different regulation covers the appeal of the decision of the "tribunal," or referee, and states:
To continue reading
Request your trial