Smith v. Brown

• Decision Date: 24 March 1964
• Docket Number: No. 1099,1099
• Citation: Smith v. Brown, 162 So.2d 179 (La. App. 1964)
• Parties: Alton SMITH, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Richard E. BROWN, Jr., Administrator, etc., Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: Court of Appeal of Louisiana — District of US

Page 179

162 So.2d 179

Alton SMITH, Plaintiff-Appellant, v.Richard E. BROWN, Jr., Administrator, etc., Defendant-Appellee.

No. 1099.

Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Third Circuit.

March 24, 1964.

C. O. Brown, Alexandria, for plaintiff-appellant.

Melvin L. Bellar, Marion Weimer, James A. Piper, Baton Rouge, for defendant-appellee.

Before TATE, HOOD, and CULPEPPER, JJ.

TATE, Judge.

The claimant was denied unemployment compensation by the state agency administering the matter.The agency held that the claimant was not entitled to benefits because he had been discharged for 'misconduct connected with his employment', LSA-R.S. 23:1601(2), a statutory ground for benefit-disqualification.

The trial court dismissed the present suit brought by the plaintiff to obtain judicial review of this agency ruling.The claimant appeals.

The undisputed facts giving rise to the claimant's discharge are the following: He was arrested at work for an offense committed while off duty.Subsequently, he was sentenced and jailed for 21 days.Upon his release, he returned to his employer, but he had in the meantime been replaced by another employee.

As recently decided by our brothers of the Second Circuit under similar facts, the involuntary incarceration of an employee for an Off-duty offense does not constitute 'misconduct connected With employment' so as to be within the statutorily so limited reason for disqualification.Smith v. Brown, La.App. 2 Cir., 147 So.2d 452.

As there stated at 147 So.2d 453: 'To hold that plaintiff's involuntary incarceration constituted misconduct connected with his employment would do violence to the wording of the statute.We think it is only reasonable to conclude that the word 'connected', as used in the legislative act, was intended to make a distinction between misconduct with reference to an individual's private life and misconduct arising during and related to his employment.

'In the instant case there might have been any number of reasons, completely beyond the control of plaintiff, which prevented him from avoiding the penalty of incarceration for an act that did not have the slightest connection with his employment.Certainly, plaintiff did not voluntarily nor willfully absent himself from work for the period during which he was confined in jail.

'The nature of misconduct within the meaning of the statute has been adequately defined by our courts, in numerous instances, as primarily constituting an act evidencing a wanton or willful disregard of an employer's interests.* * * (Citations omitted.)In this case, there was no wanton nor willful act on the part of claimant.

'It is further pertinent to observe that the Employment Security Act of this State has been recognized by our courts as constituting a remedial nature of social and economic legislation which should be liberally interpreted and applied within the bounds of the appropriate legislative restrictions.* * * (Citations omitted.)'

Cf. also, Annotation, Conduct of activities of employees during off-duty hours as misconduct barring unemployment compensation benefits.89 A.L.R.2d 1089.

The trial court did not herein apply the ruling in the cited Smith case, feeling it to be in conflict with the decision of the present court in Gladson v. Brown, La.App. 3 Cir., 134 So.2d 660.

In Gladson, we held an employee disqualified from compensation benefits because he left suitable employment without good cause connected with his employment.The employee was jailed for non-support for a month after he had been hospitalized for over two months, neither of which absences...