Vandike v. Brown

• Decision Date: 09 April 1962
• Docket Number: No. 525,525
• Citation: Vandike v. Brown, 139 So.2d 803 (La. App. 1962)
• Parties: Alex VANDIKE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Richard E. BROWN, Jr., Administrator, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: Court of Appeal of Louisiana

Page 803

139 So.2d 803

Alex VANDIKE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v.Richard E. BROWN, Jr., Administrator, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 525.

Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Third Circuit.

April 9, 1962.

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

Marion Weimer, Baton Rouge, for defendant-appellee.

Before TATE, SAVOY, and CULPEPPER, JJ.

TATE, Judge.

A decision of the Board of Review of the Division of Employment Security held the plaintiff to be disqualified for unemployment compensation because he had been discharged for misconduct connected with his employment, LSA-R.S. 23:1601(2).Pursuant to his statutory right, LSA-R.S. 23:1634, the plaintiff filed suit in the district court of his domicile to obtain judicial review of this determination.The trial court upheld the administrative denial of benefits and dismissed the plaintiff's suit.He now appeals to this court.

Judicial review of the administrative agency's determinations has been limited by the legislature as follows, LSA-R.S. 23:1634:

'* * * In any proceeding under this Section the findings of the board of review as to the facts, if supported by sufficient evidence and in the absence of fraud, shall be conclusive, and the jurisdiction of the court shall be confined to questions of law. * * *'

The evidence taken at the agency hearing shows that the claimant was employed as a delivery man by the Couch Motor Lines, a public carrier.His duties included the collection of money for C.O.D. deliveries.He was discharged because he collected $238.66 on such a shipment and failed to turn in the money.The claimant denies that he stole the money and contends that it must have disappeared after he left it in a sealed envelope on the desk of his superior at the close of the day's work.

In the present proceedings, the opinion of the administrative agency correctly defined misconduct disqualifying an employee discharged because of it from unemployment benefits as limited to conduct evincing such wilful or wanton disregard of an employer's interests as is found in deliberate violations or disregard of standards of behavior which the employer has the right to expect of his employees, or in carelessness or negligence of such degree or recurrence as to manifest wrongful intent or evil design, or to show an intentional and substantial disregard of the employer's interests or of the employee's duties and obligations to his employer.SeeJohnson v. Brown, La.App. 3 Cir., 134 So.2d 388;Turner v. Brown, La.App. 3 Cir., 134 So.2d 384;Robinson v. Brown, La.App. 2 Cir., 129 So.2d 45;Jackson v. Administrator, La.App. 2 Cir., 128 So.2d 915, certiorari denied;In re United States Gypsum Company, La.App.Orl., 121 So.2d 362.

Based upon such standard, we think the administrative agency correctly determined that an employee's deliberate embezzlement of funds entrusted to his care in...