Denying unemployment insurance benefits based on a finding the individual left work without good cause

Denying unemployment insurance benefits based on a finding the individual left work without good cause
Williams v NYC General Services, App. Div., 256 AD2d 792
Rodriguez v Commissioner of Labor, App. Div., 256 AD2d 768

One basis for denying an individual unemployment insurance benefits is a finding that the applicant left his or her employment “without good cause.” The Williams and Rodriguez decisions involve determinations as to what constitutes leaving employment “without good cause.”

The Williams case

Carlton A. Williams, employed as a real property manager the New York City’s Office of General Services, decided to accept the city’s offer of an “early retirement package” instead of facing a scheduled disciplinary hearing for alleged misconduct.

Williams’ decision was based on a statement made by the “case conferencing judge at a prehearing conference” that if Williams decided to go forward with the hearing and the administrative law judge found him guilty, “he would discharged from his employment and would lose the employer’s contributions to his pension.” Williams elected to resign rather than risk dismissal. When the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board rejected his application for unemployment insurance benefits, Williams appealed. The Appellate Division sustained the board’s determination.

The court said that “neither resigning in anticipation of discharge nor voluntarily separating from one’s employment in order to accept an early retirement incentive package when continuing work is available have been held to constitute good cause for leaving employment.”

The Rodriguez case

Usually leaving employment to relocate to another state in order to remain with one’s family will not disqualify an individual for unemployment insurance benefits. In Rodriguez’s case, the Appellate Division found there were mitigating circumstances sufficient to justify reversing the Unemployment Insurance Board’s rejection of her application for benefits.

In November 1995 Evelyn R. Rodriguez, a state disability claims examiner, remained behind when her husband and two daughters moved to Florida on the advice of their pediatrician, because her children had severe and chronic asthma. Rodriguez stayed because her employment was the source of the family’s health insurance, the family’s house had to be sold, she needed to continue to earn income and she wanted additional membership credit in the retirement system.

In August 1996, Rodriguez resigned and joined her family in Florida. The board, in rejecting her claim for benefits, held that she had “decided to live apart from her family indefinitely, if not permanently.” This, said the board, meant that she was disqualified from receiving benefits because she voluntarily left her job without good cause.

In reversing, the Appellate Division ruled that “the instant case is not a situation where a spouse is trying to decide if she will quit her job and join her transferred spouse.” Instead, said the court, “two parents have endured real hardship for the well-being of their children.”

Both spouses, said the court, had good cause to relocate to Florida, which was as compelling in August 1996 when Rodriguez resigned as the previous October when her husband moved to Florida with their children.

Essentially the court held that Rodriguez “from the outset” intended to relocate to Florida and that her uncertainty as to when she would do so was justified.
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Barring an individual from a PERB proceeding

Barring an individual from a PERB proceeding
Advisory Opinion of Counsel, 32 PERB 5001*

PERB’s counsel was asked if PERB or its administrative law judges “have the power” to issue an order disqualifying an attorney from representing a party based on a “potential substantive violation of the Code of Professional Responsibility”.

After noting that the Appellate Division is vested with the authority to discipline attorneys for alleged misconduct, Counsel pointed out that under Section 205(5)(j) of the Civil Service Law, PERB is not restricted from taking action to “exclude, suspend, or disbar any representative for misconduct in accordance with the Board’s rules.”

Section 207.4(j) of PERB’s rules [4 NYCRR 204.7(j)] provides:

Misconduct at any hearing before an administrative law judge shall be grounds for summary exclusion from the hearing. Such misconduct, if of an aggravating character and engaged in by an attorney or other representative of a party, shall be grounds for suspension or disbarment from further practice before the board after due notice and hearing.

Counsel concluded that although a violation of the Code might also constitute misconduct in a PERB proceeding, “for PERB’s purposes, the critical issue regarding such conduct would not be whether it violated the Code of Professional Responsibility, but whether it was misconduct that threatened a party’s rights, the Taylor Law, or PERB’s administration of that law.”

* Advisory Opinions of Counsel are not binding on PERB
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Circuit Court of Appeals rules that hearsay testimony is admissible to support the issuance of a preliminary injunction

Circuit Court of Appeals rules that hearsay testimony is admissible to support the issuance of a preliminary injunctionMullins v. City of New York, USCA, 2nd Circuit, 08-1839-cv, Decided November 11, 2010

The Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a District Court ruling enjoining the City of New York and the New York City Police Department from investigating and disciplining a New York City police officer based upon testimony or participation in a pending lawsuit, concluding that hearsay testimony is admissible to support the issuance of a preliminary injunction, and the district court did not abuse its discretion in granting preliminary injunctive relief based in part on such evidence.

About 4300 current and former New York City police sergeants sued the City, claiming “systematic violations of their overtime rights under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (“FLSA”).*
One plaintiff, Sergeant Paul Capotosto, Citywide Secretary of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, testified at the preliminary injunction hearing, reciting at least a dozen phone calls he received from worried plaintiffs in the lawsuit, who expressed concern to him that the NYPD was retaliating against them for their participation in the lawsuit.

Another plaintiff, Sergeant Edward Scott, alleged that his retirement was “administratively deferred” pending resolution of an unspecified “disciplinary matter” some months later. It subsequently “came to light that [Scott] was under investigation for testimony he had given during his deposition.” Sergeant Scott stated that, at the time, “I believed that if I withdrew from this FLSA lawsuit, the City would close its investigation into my deposition testimony.”

The Circuit court ruled that the district court did not abuse its discretion in finding either that Mullins, the named plaintiff in the action, is likely to succeed on the merits of their FLSA retaliation claim, or that Mullins established that irreparable harm is likely to flow from the putative FLSA violation absent injunctive relief and dismissed the Department’s arguments, concluding “that they are without merit.”

* N.B. This case may renew the question “Do federal courts have jurisdiction to consider alleged violations of the FLSA in actions brought against state and local governments?”

A decision by the U.S. Supreme Court holds that the federal courts have no authority to enforce the FLSA on non-federal governments under the 11th Amendment, which limits federal judicial power ["the judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State”].

The development of the jurisdiction of federal courts to consider alleged violations of the FLSA involving State and local governments is somewhat convoluted.

In 1996 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Congress cannot expand the authority of the judiciary beyond the constraints of the Eleventh Amendment by adopting laws pursuant to the Indian Commerce Clause. [Seminole Tribe v Florida, 116 S. Ct. 1114].

This decision profoundly affected FLSA issues because the Fair Labor Standards Act was enacted by Congress pursuant the Interstate Commerce Clause, which the Supreme Court said was indistinguishable from the Indian Commerce Clause.

The Supreme Court next indicated it was overruling its decision in Pennsylvania v Union Gas, 491 US 1, an "Interstate Commerce Clause case," on the grounds that it had been "wrongly decided."

Following the Seminole ruling, a number of federal courts decided that federal courts lack power to enforce the provisions of the FLSA in a law suit against a State or a political subdivision of that State. Distinguishing between the State as the employer and political subdivisions of the State as the employer, however, the Supreme Court may have signaled a retreat from this expansive view.

In a footnote in Auer v Robbins, 519 U.S. 452, the Supreme Court commented that insofar as the Eleventh Amendment is implicated, a board of municipal police commissioners "does not share the immunity of the State of Missouri".

The Mullins decision is posted on the Internet at:

http://www.ca2.uscourts.gov/decisions/isysquery/a875d9d0-1216-45a4-b3f8-c8858fc68469/1/doc/08-1839-cv_opn.pdf#xml=http://www.ca2.uscourts.gov/decisions/isysquery/a875d9d0-1216-45a4-b3f8-c8858fc68469/1/hilite/
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