Thomas v. Rutledge, 14961
| Decision Date | 13 July 1981 |
| Docket Number | No. 14961,14961 |
| Court | West Virginia Supreme Court |
| Parties | Kunjamma THOMAS v. Phyllis J. RUTLEDGE, Clerk of the Circuit Court of Kanawha County, and the Board of Review, West Virginia Department of Employment Security. |
Syllabus by the Court
W.Va. Code § 21A-6-3(6) (1980 Cum.Supp.), which disqualifies those individuals who voluntarily leave their employment to perform a marital or domestic duty from receiving unemployment compensation benefits until such a time as they have returned to covered employment for a period of thirty working days, creates a rebuttable presumption that such persons are unavailable for work. Upon a showing by claimants falling within the statutory disqualification that they are in fact available for full-time work and meet all the other eligibility requirements, "marital quit" claimants shall be entitled to the same benefits afforded other voluntary quit claimants.
Kathleen G. Dolan, Princeton, for petitioner.
Odell Huffman, Princeton, for respondent Princeton Community Hospital.
This is an appeal from a final order of the Circuit Court of Kanawha County which affirmed the decision of the Board of Review of the West Virginia Department of Employment Security denying the appellant, Kunjamma Thomas, unemployment compensation benefits. The appellant contends that W.Va. Code § 21A-6-3(6) (1980 Cum.Supp.), which indefinitely disqualifies those individuals who voluntarily quit work to perform a marital duty, from receiving benefits, is unconstitutional in that it violates the state and federal constitutional guarantees of due process and equal protection of the laws. We find merit in the appellant's contention and we reverse the judgment of the circuit court.
The facts of the case are not in dispute. The appellant was employed as a graduate nurse at Princeton Community Hospital from May 19, 1974 until July 31, 1978, at which time she quit her job in order to accompany her husband and two children to Greensburg, Pennsylvania. Mr. Thomas had been unable to find work in the Princeton area and had decided to move to a more populous area where both he and his wife could find jobs. Upon moving to Pennsylvania, however, the appellant discovered that she could not obtain employment as a registered nurse without first acquiring a nursing license in that state. On October 3, 1978, the appellant filed an interstate claim for unemployment compensation benefits with the West Virginia Department of Employment Security. The Deputy of the Interstate Unit at Charleston rendered a decision on October 30, 1978, finding that the appellant was available for full-time work and, thus, eligible to receive benefits as of October 1, 1978, but denying benefits on the ground that the appellant had voluntarily quit work to perform a marital duty and was therefore disqualified under W.Va. Code § 21A-6-3(6) until she had returned to covered employment and had been employed for at least thirty working days.
The appellant appealed the Deputy's decision and an evidentiary hearing was held at Greensburg, Pennsylvania on December 8, 1978. A cassette tape recording of the hearing, accompanied by a letter dated December 11, 1978, was sent to the Board of Review of the West Virginia Department of Employment Security, but by order dated December 18, 1978, the appeal was rejected as not having been filed within the statutory time period. The appellant protested this ruling, explaining that she had not received a copy of the Deputy's decision, possibly because it had been mailed to the wrong address, and therefore had not been informed of her appeal rights. It also appeared that there was some delay by the Pennsylvania Bureau of Employment Security in informing the appellant of the Deputy's decision on her claim because of the appellant's difficulty in speaking the English language. On January 15, 1979, the Board of Review rescinded the appeal rejection order and reopened the appellant's case.
By letter dated March 19, 1979, counsel for the appellant was notified that the tape recording of the appellant's testimony at the hearing held on December 8, 1978, was unclear and could not be transcribed, and that the Board of Review had requested the State of Pennsylvania to reschedule a hearing for the appellant. Hearings were held for the employer at Bluefield on April 9, 1979, and for the appellant at Greensburg, Pennsylvania on April 16, 1979. The appellant testified that she was attempting to qualify for her Pennsylvania nursing license, that she had unsuccessfully applied for various jobs at hospitals, nursing homes, and other patient care facilities at a rate of approximately five per week since she had moved to Greensburg and that since October 1, 1978, she had reported every week to the local unemployment office. She stated that she quit her job in West Virginia to accompany her husband to Pennsylvania because she and her husband were not financially able to support two separate households. The employer's testimony consisted only of a statement that the appellant had been employed at the Princeton Community Hospital from May 19, 1974 to June 31, 1978, and a reading of the appellant's letter of resignation indicating that she was leaving work to relocate with her husband.
After considering the testimony of the appellant and of the employer, the West Virginia hearing examiner found that the appellant had voluntarily quit work to perform a marital duty and affirmed the decision of the Deputy by order dated April 25, 1979. The Board of Review adopted the findings of the hearing examiner and affirmed the denial of benefits in a written order dated August 30, 1979. The appellant appealed to the Circuit Court of Kanawha County, alleging among other things that the statutory disqualification provision was unconstitutional. By order entered May 22, 1980, the circuit court adopted the Board's conclusion that
(t)he claimant is held to be eligible as of October 1, 1978 as claimant is available for full-time work but disqualified from July 30, 1978 to indefinite as claimant quit employment to perform a marital duty and, further, the claimant is disqualified until she has been employed in covered employment at least thirty working days.
The lower court affirmed the decision of the Board of Review and ordered the petition for review dismissed with prejudice. The appellant then filed this appeal.
It is undisputed that the only ground for the denial of the appellant's claim for unemployment compensation benefits was that the appellant voluntarily quit her job to perform a marital duty. The only issue before us is whether the statute upon which the Deputy, the hearing examiner, the Board of Review and the circuit court relied in denying the appellant's claim, W.Va. Code § 21A-6-3(6), is unconstitutional. The appellant asserts that because the statutory disqualification indefinitely denies benefits to individuals who voluntarily leave their jobs to perform a marital duty until such time as they have actually returned to covered employment for a period of thirty days, but permits individuals who voluntarily quit work for other reasons or for no reason at all to receive benefits after a waiting period of only seven weeks, it violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and the guarantee of equal protection of the laws embodied in article III, § 10 of our state constitution. The appellant also maintains that the blanket denial of benefits for an indefinite period of time constitutes arbitrary and irrational legislative action in violation of the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States and of article III, § 10 of the West Virginia Constitution.
Under the unemployment compensation statute in effect at the time the appellant became unemployed, an individual became eligible for benefits if the commissioner found that:
(1) He has registered for work at and thereafter and continues to report at an employment office in accordance with the regulations of the commissioner.
(2) He has made a claim for benefits in accordance with the provisions of article seven ( § 21A-7-1 et seq.) of this chapter.
(3) He is able to work and is available for full-time work for which he is fitted by prior training or experience.
(4) He has been totally unemployed during his benefit year for a waiting period of one week prior to the week for which he claims benefits for total unemployment.
(5) He has within his base period earned wages for employment equal to not less than seven hundred dollars.
W.Va. Code § 21A-6-1 (1963). 1
Otherwise eligible claimants may be denied benefits, however, if the commissioner found that they fell within any of the statutory disqualifications enumerated in W.Va. Code § 21A-6-3 (1978). Two of those disqualification provisions are germane to the issue before us. Subsection (1) of the statute disqualifies an individual from receiving benefits
(f)or the week in which he left his most recent work voluntarily without good cause involving fault on the part of the employer and the six weeks immediately following such week. Such disqualification shall carry a reduction in the maximum benefit amount equal to six times the individual's weekly benefit rate. However, if the claimant returns to work in covered employment during his benefit year, the maximum benefit amount shall be increased by the amount of decrease imposed under the disqualification.
W.Va. Code § 21A-6-3(1) (1978).
The disqualification provision on which the Deputy based his decision to deny benefits to the appellant provides for disqualification
(f)or the week in which an individual has voluntarily quit employment to marry or to perform any marital, parental or family duty, or to attend to his or her personal business or affairs and until the...
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