In administrative appeals from four decisions issued by the Unemployment Insurance Appeal Board the Claimants were found ineligible to receive unemployment insurance benefits because they were not totally unemployed during the period claimed.
Claimants were civil service employees working full-time at facilities operated by the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision [DOCCS]. performing services as either educational supervisors or instructors or teachers for incarcerated individuals. Claimants were paid an annual salary for their teaching or supervisory duties during the academic year, which typically ran from September 1 through the June 30, next following.*
Prior to 2020, all Claimants also elected performed services for DOCCS during the summer months and were paid additional compensation at an hourly rate. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, however, Claimants were not offered, and did not perform, additional duties over the summer months in 2020.
Claimants, however, applied for and received various unemployment insurance benefits for 2020 summer months. Ultimately the Department of Labor [Department] determined that because Claimants were employed and paid on an annual basis with respect to their regular professional obligations, they were [1] not totally unemployed on the dates for which they sought unemployment benefits beginning in June 2020, [2] were deemed ineligible to receive state or federal benefits for this period and [3] were charged with recoverable over-payments for such period.
The Claimants appealed the Department's determination. An Administrative Law Judge [ALJ] concluded that Claimants were not entitled to regular unemployment insurance benefits, nor Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation [FPUC], Pandemic Unemployment Assistance [PUA] or Lost Wages Assistance [LWA] benefits because they were not fully unemployed during the period for which they sought any such benefits and held any such payments were recoverable.
Claimants' filed an administrative appeal challenging the ALJ's ruling. The Unemployment Insurance Appeal Board, however, issued the said four decisions affirming the ALJ's findings and conclusions. Claimants then filed a CPLR Article 78 petition appealing the Appeal Board's decisions.
The Appellate Division, referencing Matter of Almindo (New York State Dept. of Corr. & Community Supervision-Commissioner of Labor) [___ AD3d ___, 2023 NY Slip Op 0642], noted that not unlike the Claimants in the instant matter, the Almindo claimants were full-time instructors, teachers or educational supervisors employed by DOCCS at various correctional facilities. Similarly, Almindo claimants were paid an annual salary during the course of the academic year and had the option of receiving such salaries over the course of a 10- or 12-month period.
As was the situation here, the claimants in Almindo were not offered additional work during the summer of 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, applied for and received various state and federal unemployment benefits and subsequently were found to be ineligible to receive such benefits because "they were not totally unemployed during the relevant periods".
Noting the Almindo court had opined "The fact that optional, additional work was not available over the summer ..., as it had been in prior years, does not change the analysis or conclusion that [Almindo] claimants remained employed over the summer recess, i.e., they were not totally unemployed ... and, thus, were ineligible to receive regular unemployment benefits for that period", the Appellate Division, in the instant matter, held the Almindo "analysis and holding applies with equal force" to Claimants here and affirmed the Appeals Board's determinations, without costs.
* The Claimants had the option of receiving their annual salary over the course of either the 10-month academic year or the 12-month calendar year. Three Claimants elected to be paid over a 12-month period, and one claimant opted to be paid over a 10-month period.
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