White v. Board of Review, Division of Employment Security, New Jersey Dept. of Labor and Industry

• Decision Date: 07 January 1977
• Parties: Sybil WHITE, Claimant-Appellant, v. BOARD OF REVIEW, DIVISION OF EMPLOYMENT SECURITY, NEW JERSEY DEPARTMENT OF LABOR & INDUSTRY, and Mobil Chemical Co., Respondents.
• Court: New Jersey Superior Court — Appellate Division

Page 268

146 N.J.Super. 268

369 A.2d 937

Sybil WHITE, Claimant-Appellant, v. BOARD OF REVIEW, DIVISION OF EMPLOYMENT SECURITY, NEW JERSEY

DEPARTMENT OF LABOR & INDUSTRY, and Mobil Chemical

Co., Respondents.

Superior Court of New Jersey,

Appellate Division.

Argued Nov. 8, 1976.

Decided Jan. 7, 1977.

Patricia F. Breuninger, of the Union County Legal Services, Plainfield, for claimant-appellant.

Jeffrey P. Blumstein, Deputy Atty. Gen., for respondent Bd. of Review (William F. Hyland, Atty. Gen., attorney; Michael S. Bokar, Deputy Atty. Gen., of counsel).

Before Judges FRITZ, CRAHAY and ARD.

PER CURIAM.

This is an appeal from an administrative determination by the Board of Review, Department of Labor and Industry, which affirmed the decision of the Appeal Tribunal holding the claimant (appellant here) disqualified for unemployment benefits. The facts are simple and essentially uncontested. They are also somewhat uncommon.

The employment which appellant left was that made available to her under the New Jersey work release program (N.J.S.A. 30:8--44 Et seq.) while she was serving a prison sentence at the Correctional Institution for Women at Clinton. This job was at Washington, New Jersey. She quit this employment when she was paroled. A condition of appellant's parole from Clinton was that she reside at her home in Plainfield, New Jersey, under the supervision of her mother. Judicial notice may be taken of the fact that Washington and Plainfield are about 38 miles apart, and although they are joined by major highways, appellant has no car. She assigned these transportation difficulties as her sole reason for leaving the job. She testified that to change her parole plan in order to 'find a place' nearer the job would have required a six-month continuation of her incarceration at Clinton.

Appellant contends that under these circumstances she should be regarded as having left her work involuntarily. This is the premise upon which she attacks the finding that she left work voluntarily without good cause attributable to the work. While superficially attractive, the argument fails in view of the legislative policy inherent in the statute.

Prior to a statutory amendment in 1961, a leaving for personal reasons did not necessarily result in a disqualification for unemployment benefits. Berry, Whitson & Berry v. Div., etc., Dept. of Labor and Ind., 21 N.J. 73, 120 A.2d 742 (1956). By L.1961, c. 43, § 3, the Legislature amended the existing legislation to require that a leaving 'voluntarily without good cause'--a phrase already in the statute--be 'attributable to such work' in order to avoid the statutory disqualification. Since that time we have consistently held that causes personal to the claimant and not attributable to the work come within the disqualification of the statute. Stauhs v. Board of Review, 93 N.J.Super. 451, 226 A.2d 182 (App.Div.1967); see Zielenski v. Board of Review, 85 N.J.Super. 46, 203 A.2d 635 (App.Div.1964). We find no reason to depart from this view of the statute because the claimant is on parole and subjected to conditions of that parole.

In Morgan v. Board of Review, 77 N.J.Super. 209, 214, 185 A.2d 870, 873 (App.Div.1962) we affirmed a holding of disqualification, observing that...