Toothaker v. Maine Employment Sec. Commission

• Citation: 217 A.2d 203
• Parties: Sarah W. TOOTHAKER v. MAINE EMPLOYMENT SECURITY COMMISSION and Fairchild Semiconductor Division.
• Decision Date: 15 February 1966
• Court: Supreme Judicial Court of Maine (US)

Page 203

217 A.2d 203

Sarah W. TOOTHAKER v. MAINE EMPLOYMENT SECURITY COMMISSION and Fairchild

Semiconductor Division.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Feb. 15, 1966.

G. Curtis Webber, Auburn, for plaintiff.

Milton L. Bradford, Asst. Atty. Gen., Augusta, for defendants.

Before WILLIAMSON, C. J., and TAPLEY, MARDEN, RUDMAN, and DUFRESNE, JJ.

WILLIAMSON, Chief Justice.

This appeal from a decree of the Superior Court sustaining the decision of the Maine Employment Security Commission disqualifying the appellant claimant from benefits under the Employment Security Law is denied. R.S.1954, c. 29 (now 26 M.R.S.A. § 1041 et seq.)

The case requires: (1) the interpretation of the disqualification for benefits provision for leaving work 'voluntarily without good cause attributable to such employment' under R.S.1954, c. 29, § 15, subd. I, ¹ and (2) the application of the statute to the fact that disability induced by travel caused the claimant to leave her regular employment.

In his decree the presiding Justice said:

'That the findings of fact of the Appeal Tribunal, adopted by the majority of the Commission are supported by the evidence.

'That the decision of the majority of the commission that the Claimant left her regular employment voluntarily without good cause attributable to such employment within the meaning of Section 15-I of the Employment Security Law and that her separation was voluntary without good cause attributable to the employer, within the meaning of Section 17-III of the Law, are supported by the evidence and are correct interpretations and applications of the law.'

The decision of the Appeal Tribunal reads in part:

'The claimant, a married woman 31 years old, was last employed as a cookie packer. She worked for this employer about one week, and was obliged to leave this work because the constant standing was too much for her. She previously worked in an electronics plant for about six weeks until May 10, 1963, when she separated.

'Occupationally classified as an assembler (electronics), the claimant filed an initial claim for benefits effective May 19, 1963, her weekly benefit amount $31.00.

'The claimant stated that her primary reason for leaving the electronics plant was the travel involved. She used her own car one week, and then travelled with a friend the following week. It involved travel of from 80 to 90 miles a day, and it became too much for her physically. She has a weak back as the result of a fall some time ago. The claimant was receiving $1.30 an hour, and she felt that the travel involved and the pay received were not worthwhile.'

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'Most of the claimant's past experience has been in an electronics factory, which was her regular employment. The work as a cookie packer she had never done before.'

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'The claimant accepted the work in the electronics plant, being fully aware of all the conditions of employment. The reason for separation was primarily due to travel and was not attributable to the work. While the claimant may have had good personal cause, the law is specific in that the direct cause of the claimant's leaving must be shown to be attributable to the employment in order that the disqualification not be assessed.'

Nothing hinges in the case upon the week's employment as a cookie packer.

The Commission's findings of fact are supported by credible evidence and hence are conclusive. R.S. c. 26, § 16-IX (now 26 M.R.S.A. § 1194, subd. 9). Lowell v. Maine Employment Security Comm. et al., 159 Me. 177, 190 A.2d 271; Du Bois et al. v. Maine Employment Security Comm., 150 Me. 494, 114 A.2d 359.

The purpose of the Employment Security Law is to provide insurance against unemployment. The plan is not designed to provide health or accident insurance. The claimant for benefits must be both eligible and qualified.

Eligibility rests in part on attachment to the labor market evidenced by wages earned in a base period and by ability to and availability for work. Disqualifications for benefits under Section 15, in addition to voluntarily leaving work, briefly stated, include discharge for misconduct, refusal to accept suitable work, stoppage of work arising under certain conditions because of a labor dispute, receipt of certain types of remuneration, fraud in application for and acceptance of benefits, and discharge for conviction of crime. See Krauss v. A. & M. Karagheusian, Inc., 13 N.J. 447, 100 A.2d 277, 281.

The claimant urges in substance that disqualification under Section 15, subd. I was error on two grounds: first, that the separation was involuntary and hence not covered by the statute, and second, that if the separation was voluntary, it was with good cause attributable to the employment. The argument runs that on an involuntary termination, the 'good cause' provision is inapplicable and the inquiry need go no further.

In our opinion the involuntary character of the separation must be found within 'good cause.' In short, a separation by act of the employer, for example, by discharge or layoff is involuntary, and by will of the employee is voluntary. The voluntary quit compelled by good cause as defined in the Act is, however, not a cause for disqualification.

The New Jersey Court in Krauss v. A. & M. Karagheusian, Inc., supra, a retirement case, in an opinion drawn by Justice Brennan, now a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, persuasively stated the proper test at p. 286:

'What is 'good cause' must reflect the underlying purpose of the act to relieve against the distress of involuntary unemployment. The seeming paradox of allowing benefits to an individual whose unemployment is of his own volition disappears when the context of the words is viewed in that light. The Legislature contemplated that when an individual voluntarily leaves a job under the pressure of circumstances which may reasonably be viewed as having compelled him to do so, the termination of his employment is involuntary for the purposes of the act. In statutory contemplation he cannot then reasonably be judged as free to stay at the job. Unlike the statutes of some states, the New Jersey act does not require that 'good cause' be 'connected with the work' or 'attributable to the work.' Therefore, 'good cause' may also lie in extraneous factors exerting compulsive pressure upon the claimant and causing him to quit. The test is well stated in Bliley Elec. Co. v. Unemployment Comp. Bd. of Review, (45 A.2d 898, 903 . . .)'

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"When therefore the pressure of real not imaginary, substantial not trifling, reasonable not whimsical, circumstances compel the decision to leave employment, the decision is voluntary in the sense that the worker has willed it, but involuntary because outward pressures have compelled it. Or to state it differently, if a worker leaves his employment when he is compelled to do so by necessitous circumstances or because of legal or family obligations, his leaving is voluntary with good cause, and under the act he is entitled to benefits. The pressure of necessity, of legal duty, or family obligations, or other overpowering circumstances and his capitulation to them transform what is ostensibly voluntary unemployment into involuntary unemployment."

In Berry, Whitson & Berry v. Division of Employ. Sec., etc., 21 N.J. 73, 120 A.2d 742, the New Jersey Court, in applying the Krauss test, held a wife who quit her job and went to her parents' home in Maine on transfer of her husband from a New Jersey naval air station to Kansas, left her work 'voluntarily but with good cause' and hence was not disqualified. See also Department of Labor, etc. v. Unemployment C. Bd. of R., 133 Pa.Super. 518, 3 A.2d 211, 214; Moulton v. Iowa Employment Security Commission, 239 Iowa 1161, 34 N.W.2d 211; Wolf's v. Iowa Employment Security Commission, 244 Iowa 999, 59 N.W.2d 216.

The contrary view was expressed by three Justices in Lyons v. Appeal Board of Michigan Employ. Sec. Com'n, 363 Mich. 201, 108 N.W.2d 849. An employee laid off in Detroit travelled 273 miles from home to take a job which he shortly left. Three justices held the quit was involuntary, without consideration of 'voluntarily without good cause attributable to his employer.' Three justices were of the view the quit was voluntary, applying the 'good cause' provision, and the seventh held the question of fact had been decided adversely to the employee by the Commission. See contra, Kilgore v. Industrial Commission, 337 S.W.2d 91, 90 A.L.R.2d 825 (Mo.Ct.App.).

In Fannon v. Federal Cartridge Corporation, 219 Minn. 306, 18 N.W.2d 249, 158 A.L.R. 389 (1945), an employee whose health was seriously endangered by her work with gun powder in an ordnance plant left her job. The Court held under a 'voluntarily and with good cause attributable to the employer' statute that the termination of employment was both involuntary and 'for good cause attributable to the employer.' In 18 N.W.2d at p. 252, 158 A.L.R. at p. 394 the Court said:

'We cannot escape the conclusion that where, as here, an employee is impelled because of sickness and disease to terminate employment because continuance thereof would endanger his health and personal welfare, such termination is an involuntary rather than a voluntary act on the part of the employe within the meaning of § 4337-27(A).'

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'Rather, we feel the legislature intended that, where factors or circumstances directly connected with employment result in illness or disease to an employe and make it impossible for him to continue therein because of serious danger to his health, termination of employment for this reason may correctly be said to be involuntary and for 'good cause attributable to the employer,' even though the employer be free from all negligence or wrongdoing in connection therewith.'

We are aware of differing interpretations in the administration of our Act. From the original Act of 1936 to 1955 the disqualification provision read ...