Utley v. Board of Review

• Decision Date: 15 May 2008
• Docket Number: A-126 September Term 2006
• Citation: 194 N.J. 534,946 A.2d 1039
• Parties: John M. UTLEY, Claimant-Appellant, v. BOARD OF REVIEW, DEPARTMENT OF LABOR, Respondent-Respondent, and Myron Manufacturing Corporation, Respondent.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

946 A.2d 1039

194 N.J. 534

John M. UTLEY, Claimant-Appellant, v. BOARD OF REVIEW, DEPARTMENT OF LABOR, Respondent-Respondent, and Myron Manufacturing Corporation, Respondent.

A-126 September Term 2006

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Argued November 27, 2007.

Decided May 15, 2008.

Stanley G. Sheats, Paterson, argued the cause for appellant (Anna P. Navatta, Assistant Executive Director, Northeast New Jersey Legal Services, attorney).

Todd A. Wigder, Deputy Attorney General, argued the cause for respondent (Anne Milgram, Attorney General of New Jersey, attorney; Lewis A. Scheindlin, Assistant Attorney General, of counsel; Mr. Wigder and Andrea R. Grundfest, Deputy Attorney General, on the letter briefs).

Melville D. Miller, Jr., President, argued the cause for amicus curiae Legal Services of New Jersey (Mr. Miller, attorney; Mr. Miller, Lazlo J.G. Beh, Kristin A. Mateo and Keith G. Talbot, on the brief).

Justice ALBIN delivered the opinion of the Court.

For thirteen years, John Utley worked for the same company, relying on public transportation to get to work because he is visually impaired. After his shift hours were changed to a time when buses were not running, Utley carpooled with a coworker. However, the company mandated that Utley work overtime, which resulted in his schedule not coinciding with the coworker. When the coworker had to leave the country for two weeks, the company refused to allow Utley to take his vacation time during the same two-week period. Without transportation to get home from work and fearing that he would be fired, he instead resigned.

The Board of Review of the Division of Unemployment and Disability Insurance

(Board) denied Utley unemployment benefits on the basis that he quit his job "voluntarily without good cause attributable to [his] work." N.J.S.A. 43:21-5(a). The Appellate Division affirmed. We now reverse and hold that the undisputed facts support the conclusion that Utley resigned from the company for work-related rather than personal reasons, entitling him to his statutory unemployment benefits.

I.

A.

In 1992, John Utley began working as a material handler for Myron Manufacturing Corporation (Myron) in Maywood, New Jersey.¹ Utley was a model employee. For thirteen years, each work day, he took a bus from his home in Paterson, arriving at the Maywood site at 7:00 p.m., and, at the end of his shift at 5:30 a.m., returned home by bus. Utley relied on public transportation because his eyesight is so impaired that he is unable to drive a car.

In February 2005, Myron changed Utley's shift hours, requiring him to arrive at 3:30 p.m. and work until midnight, a time when there is no bus service from Paterson to Maywood. Utley — who at the time was earning approximately $12.00 an hour — brought his transportation problem to the attention of his supervisors. To adapt to the shift change, Utley at first carpooled home with a supervisor who lived in Hackensack. Before long, however, the supervisor decided that detouring to Paterson was too much of an imposition and stopped taking Utley home. Utley then found a coworker on his shift named Raquel to drive him home from work.

That arrangement proved satisfactory while Utley and Raquel worked the same hours, including the "mandatory overtime" required by Myron. But at some point Raquel was relieved of the mandatory overtime while Utley remained tethered to the longer hours demanded by the company. On some evenings, Raquel would wait the several hours until Utley's extended shift ended and then take him home. On other occasions, despite the mandatory overtime requirement, Utley would leave at midnight in order to catch his ride. The transportation problem brought about by the shift change persisted for nine months. Utley explained the situation to his supervisors, but they demanded that he work overtime despite the fact that he would be stranded at the end of his extended shift.

In November 2005, shortly before Thanksgiving, Raquel announced that she had to leave the country for two weeks to care for her ill father. Utley then attempted, without success, to find another coworker with whom to carpool during her absence. With no alternative means of getting home, Utley asked his supervisor if he could use his accrued vacation time until Raquel returned. The supervisor refused Utley's request, stating that it was the "busy season" and that he did not want to encourage other employees to request time off. At about this time, Utley's supervisors chastised him for the occasions he left at midnight instead of working the mandatory overtime.

The stress from the constant friction with his supervisors became so overwhelming for Utley that it threatened his "mental and physical well being." Without available public transportation, Utley feared that he would be let go because he could not work to the end of his shift during the two weeks of Raquel's absence. Rather than be fired, he decided to leave the company.

The Division of Unemployment and Disability Insurance denied Utley's initial claim for unemployment benefits.² Utley then filed a request for review of the denial with the Division's Appeal Tribunal. In a letter to the Tribunal, Utley explained that "[i]f [his] supervisors would have just let [him] leave with [his] only ride home [he] would still be working" at Myron. He claimed that he "was forced by [his] supervisors and the shift hour changes to leave [his] job." A hearing was conducted before an appeals examiner, who took testimony from Utley. Myron did not participate in the hearing or provide testimony disputing Utley's account.

Thereafter, relying on N.J.S.A. 43:21-5(a), the appeals examiner rendered a decision — with virtually no factual analysis — holding that Utley's "leaving work due to lack of transportation" was "not connected to the work itself." The appeals examiner, it seems, believed that an employee who voluntarily quits his job because of lack of transportation is per se barred from receiving benefits. For that reason, the examiner concluded that Utley "left work voluntarily without good cause attributable to the work and [was] therefore disqualified for benefits." The Division's Board of Review summarily upheld the decision of the appeals examiner.

B.

In an unpublished, per curiam decision, the Appellate Division affirmed the Board of Review's denial of unemployment benefits to Utley. Relying on Self v. Board of Review, 91 N.J. 453, 453 A.2d 170 (1982), the panel noted that "[o]rdinarily, when transportation between work and home becomes unavailable resulting in loss of employment, the employee is disqualified for benefits." The panel compared Utley's case to those of employees who quit their jobs because of plant relocations that lengthen commuting time, as in Morgan v. Board of Review, 77 N.J.Super. 209, 185 A.2d 870 (App.Div.1962), and Rolka v. Board of Review, 332 N.J.Super. 1, 752 A.2d 790 (App.Div.2000). In Morgan, supra, before the relocation, the employee walked to work in twenty minutes; afterwards she commuted in excess of one hour, a commute that she accepted for three years and eight months before resigning. 77 N.J.Super. at 210-12, 185 A.2d 870. In denying unemployment benefits, the Morgan panel emphasized that the employee accepted the longer commute as one of the conditions of her employment by "continuing in the company's employ after the plant was moved." Id. at 214, 185 A.2d 870.

In Rolka, supra, the employee quit because the relocation of a business extended her commute from fifteen to twenty minutes to as long as two hours. 332 N.J.Super. at 3-4, 752 A.2d 790. The Rolka panel reversed the denial of unemployment benefits and remanded to the Board of Review, directing it to decide whether the reasons the employee left her job were attributable to her employer's relocation or to stresses in her personal life arising from the need to obtain child care for her newborn baby.³ Id. at 4-6, 752 A.2d 790.

The panel in this case found that because Utley "succeeded in commuting to work for" nine months after his shift change, his circumstances were comparable to those of the employee in Morgan, who continued commuting for years after the plant relocation. Based on that analysis, the panel concluded that "[t]he loss of transportation home from work for a two-week period was not attributable to [Utley's] work but was entirely personal to him."

We granted Utley's petition for certification. 191 N.J. 315, 923 A.2d 230 (2007).⁴ We also granted Legal Services of New Jersey's motion to participate as amicus curiae.

II.

Utley contends that because he left his position for "good cause attributable to [his] work" and not for personal reasons, he is entitled to unemployment benefits. He points out that for thirteen years he took public transportation to and from work due to his impaired vision and that only after both a unilateral shift change, which left him stranded with no available means of getting home, and his employer's refusal to offer any reasonable accommodation did he feel compelled to leave his job. Because he had taken every reasonable step to remain employed, Utley asserts that his attempts to continue working for nine months after the shift change, even when his employer impeded his efforts, should not be counted against him.

Amicus Legal Services of New Jersey maintains that Myron set in motion the chain of events that led to Utley's separation from employment. According to amicus, the shift change imposed on Utley should be considered a "discharge and an offer of `new work.'" Viewed in that light, it submits that Utley had a right to reject the new employment arrangement as "unsuitable," for purposes of the unemployment compensation law, and should not be penalized for having made a good faith, though unsuccessful, effort to adapt to the new work schedule. Amicus contends that an employee should not be deprived of unemployment benefits when his employer refuses to make "temporary...