White v. Employment Appeal Bd.
| Decision Date | 22 July 1992 |
| Docket Number | No. 91-1404,91-1404 |
| Citation | 487 N.W.2d 342 |
| Parties | John WHITE, Appellee, v. EMPLOYMENT APPEAL BOARD and Jensen Transport, Inc., Appellants. |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
James F. Kalkhoff of Mosier, Thomas, Beatty, Dutton, Braun & Staack, Waterloo, for appellant Jensen Transport.
William C. Whitten, for appellant Employment Appeal Bd.
Linnea M. Nelson of Legal Services Corp. of Iowa, Waterloo, for appellee.
Considered by McGIVERIN, C.J., and CARTER, LAVORATO, NEUMAN, and SNELL, JJ.
The appellant, Jensen Transport, Inc., challenges the district court's reversal of an employment appeal board decision that denied John White, the appellee, unemployment compensation benefits. Jensen Transport contends that the district court erroneously concluded that White left his employment with Jensen Transport "involuntarily and for good cause attributable to [Jensen]." Stated differently, Jensen maintains that because White voluntarily quit his job with Jensen without good cause attributable to them, White is disqualified from receiving unemployment benefits pursuant to Iowa Code section 96.5(1) (1991). We reverse and remand for further proceedings by the employment appeal board.
White began his employment as an over-the-road truck driver for Jensen Transport on May 8, 1980. In October 1989, White suffered a heart attack while out of town on a work assignment and was unable to return to work until January 2, 1990. On February 1, 1990, White suffered a second heart attack, and, pursuant to his doctor's orders, did not return to work until August 1990. In August, White returned to Jensen Transport, but consistent with his cardiologist's instructions, he indicated that he would be unable to do any driving.
White's cardiologist, Dr. A. Ersin Atay, indicated in a letter that White had received an automatic cardioverter defibrillator and that driving would be contraindicated. Atay's recommendation apparently arises from the potential for a brief period of unconsciousness prior to the defibrillator's delivery of a reviving current to White's heart should it ever stop beating.
As a consequence of White's inability to operate a truck, a representative of Jensen Transport told White that there was no available work for him with the company. Thereafter, on September 7, 1990, White filed a claim for unemployment benefits with the division of job service. After a fact-finding interview on September 21, 1990, White's request for benefits was denied by a job service representative. White appealed the job service representative's decision by requesting an in-person hearing, which was held on November 28, 1990. After receiving testimony from White and Jensen Transport's president, Jerry Jensen, the presiding administrative law judge reversed the job service representative's decision, thus allowing White to receive unemployment benefits.
On December 19, 1990, Jensen Transport appealed the administrative law judge's decision to the employment appeal board. The employment appeal board concluded that because White's separation from employment was a "voluntary quit" that was "without good cause attributable to [White's] employer," he was disqualified from receiving unemployment benefits pursuant to Iowa Code section 96.5(1). Iowa Code section 96.5(1) (1991) provides in pertinent part as follows:
96.5 Causes for disqualification.
An individual shall be disqualified for benefits:
1. Voluntary quitting. If the individual has left work voluntarily without good cause attributable to the individual's employer, if so found by the division of job service. But the individual shall not be disqualified if the division finds that:
....
d. The individual left employment because of illness, injury or pregnancy upon the advice of a licensed and practicing physician, and upon knowledge of the necessity for absence immediately notified the employer, or the employer consented to the absence, and after recovering from the illness, injury or pregnancy, when recovery was certified by a licensed and practicing physician, the individual returned to the employer and offered to perform services and the individual's regular work or comparable suitable work was not available, if so found by the division, provided the individual is otherwise eligible.
The employment appeal board further concluded that White could not avail himself of the subparagraph (d) exception to the voluntary quit disqualification since subparagraph (d) requires that the employee be capable of performing "the individual's regular work," which the board found White was unable to do.
White then sought judicial review of this final agency determination in the district court. The court determined that the decision of the employment appeal board was "in violation of an agency rule and was an error of law" insofar as the board determined that White left his position with Jensen Transport "voluntarily without good cause attributable to [Jensen]." Accordingly, the decision of the employment appeal board was reversed.
The issue presently before us is thus whether White's cardiac-arrest induced departure from Jensen Transport is to be deemed a "voluntary quit" that was "without good cause attributable to [Jensen Transport]" and, if so, whether the subparagraph (d) exception to the subsection one disqualification provision is applicable.
When reviewing a district court decision regarding the validity of agency action,
we apply the standards of Iowa Code section 17A.19(8) to the agency action to determine whether our conclusions are the same as those of the district court. If our conclusions are the same, we must affirm; if not, we reverse.
Rooney v. Employment Appeal Bd., 448 N.W.2d 313, 315 (Iowa 1989). We give weight to an agency's construction of the statutes that it administers, but, nevertheless, we must make an independent determination of their meaning. Id. at 315. We review the agency action to determine if there is substantial evidence in the record made before the agency to support its decision. Iowa Code § 17A.19(8)(f).
Section 96.5(1) disqualifies an unemployed individual from receiving benefits under chapter 96 to the extent that the individual quits "voluntarily without good cause attributable to the individual's employer." We have said that to the extent an employee is absent involuntarily from work, "the words 'attributable to the employer' simply have no application." Ames v. Employment Appeal Bd., 439 N.W.2d 669, 674 (Iowa 1989). Thus, for an individual to be disqualified from unemployment benefits under section 96.5(1), it must be demonstrated that the individual left work voluntarily and without good cause attributable to the individual's employer. The district court relied on this conclusion from Ames in reversing the agency's denial of benefits. Because it believed that White left his employment because of physical disability, the court concluded that this leaving was not voluntary. Although we find considerable logic in the district court's extension of the Ames decision, we conclude that unemployment due to illness raises policy considerations which call for a continuation of the rules laid down in our cases on illness terminations antedating Ames and Rooney, decided the same year. Under these rules, if White's disability was not work related, the agency properly imposed a disqualification. If, however, the cause of White's disability was work related, the disqualification was improper.
We have held that an illness-induced quit is attributable to one's employer only under two circumstances. First, when the illness is either "caused or aggravated by circumstances associated with the employment," regardless of the employee's predisposition to succumb to the illness, the separation will be deemed to be with "good cause attributable to the individual's employer." Shontz v. Iowa Employment Sec. Comm'n, 248 N.W.2d 88, 91 (Iowa 1976); Rooney, 448 N.W.2d at 315-16 (...
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