Sawyer v. Dep't of Workforce Servs.

• Decision Date: 06 February 2015
• Docket Number: No. 20120850.,20120850.
• Citation: 345 P.3d 1253,2015 UT 33
• Parties: Amy SAWYER, Petitioner, v. DEPARTMENT OF WORKFORCE SERVICES and Jordan School District, Respondents.
• Court: Utah Supreme Court

345 P.3d 1253

2015 UT 33

Amy SAWYER, Petitioner

v.DEPARTMENT OF WORKFORCE SERVICES and Jordan School District, Respondents.

No. 20120850.

Supreme Court of Utah.

Feb. 6, 2015.

Troy L. Booher, Julie J. Nelson, Tracey M. Watson, Salt Lake City, for petitioner.

Amanda B. McPeck, Salt Lake City, for respondent.

Justice DURHAM authored the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice DURRANT, Associate Chief Justice NEHRING, Justice PARRISH, and Justice LEE joined.

Justice DURHAM, opinion of the Court:

INTRODUCTION

¶ 1 The Department of Workforce Services (DWS) denied Amy Sawyer's application for unemployment benefits based upon its finding that she quit her job without good cause. Ms. Sawyer appeals from the denial, arguing that (1) we should review DWS's good cause determination de novo and (2) DWS's good cause determination was in error. We conclude that good cause to quit is a fact-like mixed question of law and fact that we review deferentially. We also conclude, however, that the administrative law judge and appeals board applied an incorrect legal standard to this mixed question, and we therefore reverse and remand for further proceedings.

BACKGROUND

¶ 2 Ms. Sawyer was a special education teacher for the Jordan School District. The principal of the school where Ms. Sawyer worked became concerned with her teaching skills and informed Ms. Sawyer that she would be formally evaluated under the Jordan Performance Appraisal System (JPAS), which consisted of classroom observation by the principal and an interview. Ms. Sawyer received an overall score of “ineffective” during her first JPAS evaluation. After the failed evaluation, the principal provided suggestions for improvement and administered another JPAS evaluation the following month. Ms. Sawyer also received a failing score for her second JPAS evaluation.

¶ 3 Following the second evaluation, the principal met with Ms. Sawyer and informed her that she would be required to complete a third JPAS evaluation. If Ms. Sawyer passed the third evaluation she would keep her job; but if she failed again, school policy dictated that she be terminated. The principal also told Ms. Sawyer that she could resign in order to avoid the third evaluation.

¶ 4 Because she had some special-needs students with behavioral challenges in her class, Ms. Sawyer had little confidence that she could perform at a level that would allow her to pass a third evaluation. Ms. Sawyer was also concerned that if she were terminated that she would not find future employment as a teacher because schools typically ask whether an applicant has ever been fired from a teaching position. Therefore, Ms. Sawyer elected to resign rather than submit to a third JPAS evaluation.

¶ 5 Ms. Sawyer began searching for new employment and applied for unemployment benefits. DWS denied unemployment benefits because it found that Ms. Sawyer quit her job without good cause. An administrative law judge upheld the department's decision, reasoning that if Ms. Sawyer had chosen to submit to the third JPAS evaluation, “[s]he may not have lost her job.” The Workforce Appeals Board affirmed the denial of benefits. The appeals board concluded that “[q]uitting in order to avoid a discharge ... does not establish good cause.” Ms. Sawyer appealed, and the court of appeals certified the case to this court.

ANALYSIS

¶ 6 An individual is ineligible for unemployment benefits if he or she quits “without good cause.” Utah Code § 35A–4–405(1)(a). We have adopted a reasonable person standard for determining whether good cause to quit exists: “Good cause is established where the unemployment is caused by pressures so compelling that a reasonably prudent person would be justified in quitting under similar circumstances.” Hurst v. Indus. Comm'n, 723 P.2d 416, 419 (Utah 1986) ; accord Smith v. Indus. Comm'n, 714 P.2d 1154, 1155 (Utah 1986). DWS has adopted rules in accord with the reasonable person standard, explaining that in order for an individual to qualify for benefits, “[t]he separation must have been motivated by circumstances that made the continuance of the employment a hardship or matter of concern, sufficiently adverse to a reasonable person so as to outweigh the benefits of remaining employed.” Utah Admin. Code R994–405–102(1)(a).

¶ 7 In reviewing DWS's determination that Ms. Sawyer quit without good cause, we first establish the appropriate standard of review for this mixed question of law and fact.¹ See Smith, 714 P.2d at 1155 (good-cause determination is a mixed question). We then determine whether DWS erred when it denied benefits.

I. STANDARD OF REVIEW

A. Mixed Questions of Law and Fact

¶ 8 Prior to the formation of the court of appeals, this court did not consistently articulate the precise standard of review it applied to the cases before it. State v. Thurman, 846 P.2d 1256, 1268, 1270 n. 11 (Utah 1993). The addition of an intermediate court of appeals, however, created a greater incentive to establish standards of review that could be uniformly applied by both appellate courts. Id. Moreover, established standards of review allow attorneys to better advise clients on appellate matters and facilitate an appellant's ability to select and properly frame arguments.

¶ 9 In line with our efforts to better define the standard of review applied by appellate courts, we created an analytical framework for choosing the standard of review for mixed questions of law and fact in State v. Pena, 869 P.2d 932 (Utah 1994). In Pena, we held that the amount of discretion afforded in an appeal from a district court's application of a rule of law to a given set of facts is an institutional policy determination made by the appellate court.² Id. at 938–39. Depending on the nature of the legal question at issue, we determined that varying levels of deference should be afforded to a district court's resolution of mixed questions. Id. at 937–38. We envisioned multiple standards of review for various types of mixed questions, occupying a spectrum of deference falling between the nondeferential de novo standard of review and the highly deferential clearly erroneous standard of review:

[The amount of deference] permitted a trial judge will vary depending on the legal issue, although the terminology we use to describe the operative standard of review does not begin to reflect the many shades of this variance. The best we can do is to recognize that such a spectrum of discretion exists and that the closeness of appellate review of the application of law to fact actually runs the entire length of this spectrum.

Id. at 938.

¶ 10 Although a broad spectrum of standards of review affords appellate courts a great amount of flexibility, the principal drawback of this approach is that it leads to indefinite standards that are difficult to describe and even more difficult for litigants or appellate courts to predict and apply. In Pena, for example, we held that the mixed question at issue in that case “conveys a measure of discretion to the trial judge,” but “[p]recisely how much discretion we cannot say.” Id. at 939. The Pena court went on to describe this standard of review as “something less than de novo” and acknowledged that “this ‘some discretion’ standard is less than precise.” Id. at 940 & n. 6. Applying the principles announced in Pena, we have arrived at similarly indefinite standards of review, such as “some scrutiny,” “limited deference,” and “conditionally deferential.” Drake v. Indus. Comm'n, 939 P.2d 177, 182 (Utah 1997) ; State v. Virgin, 2006 UT 29, ¶ 34, 137 P.3d 787 ; Salt Lake City Corp. v. Labor Comm'n,

2007 UT 4, ¶ 15, 153 P.3d 179.

¶ 11 While we have not rejected the broad spectrum approach espoused in Pena or the various standards of review adopted in subsequent cases, in our more recent cases we have applied a binary method for determining the appropriate standard of review for mixed questions. In Manzanares v. Byington (In re Adoption of Baby B. ), 2012 UT 35, ¶¶ 42, 44, 308 P.3d 382, we stated that mixed questions can either be law-like or fact-like. See also Jex v. Utah Labor Comm'n, 2013 UT 40, ¶ 15, 306 P.3d 799 ; Union Pac. R.R. v. Utah Dep't of Transp., 2013 UT 39, ¶ 15, 310 P.3d 1204 ; Murray v. Utah Labor Comm'n, 2013 UT 38, ¶ 37, 308 P.3d 461 ; Swallow v. Jessop (In re United Effort Plan Trust ), 2013 UT 5, ¶ 19, 296 P.3d 742. Law-like mixed questions are reviewed de novo, while fact-like mixed questions are reviewed deferentially. Baby B., 2012 UT 35, ¶ 42, 308 P.3d 382. We took this approach in another case involving unemployment benefits, Carbon County v. Workforce Appeals Board, 2013 UT 41, ¶ 7, 308 P.3d 477, and similarly conclude that the standard of review for the mixed question at issue here turns on whether it is properly characterized as either law-like or fact-like.

¶ 12 In determining whether a mixed question should be deemed law-like or fact-like, we evaluate the “marginal costs and benefits” of conducting either a searching de novo review or a deferential review of a lower tribunal's resolution of the mixed question. Baby B., 2012 UT 35, ¶ 42, 308 P.3d 382. This cost-benefit analysis is conducted through the three-factor Levin evaluation, in which we consider

(1) the degree of variety and complexity in the facts to which the legal rule is to be applied; (2) the degree to which a trial court's application of the legal rule relies on facts observed by the trial judge, such as a witness's appearance and demeanor, relevant to the application of the law that cannot be adequately reflected in the record available to appellate courts; and (3) other policy reasons that weigh for or against granting discretion to trial courts.

State v. Levin, 2006 UT 50, ¶ 25, 144 P.3d 1096 (internal quotation marks omitted).

¶ 13 The first and second Levin factors assess whether a particular mixed question is best resolved by either a fact-finding tribunal or an appellate court based on the relative competencies of these two types of courts. District courts and...