Alabama Department of Labor v. Davis

160 So. 3d 335, 2014 WL 3890738, 2014 Ala. Civ. App. LEXIS 134
CourtCourt of Civil Appeals of Alabama
DecidedAugust 8, 2014
Docket2130348
StatusPublished

This text of 160 So. 3d 335 (Alabama Department of Labor v. Davis) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Civil Appeals of Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Alabama Department of Labor v. Davis, 160 So. 3d 335, 2014 WL 3890738, 2014 Ala. Civ. App. LEXIS 134 (Ala. Ct. App. 2014).

Opinion

MOORE, Judge.

The Alabama Department of Labor (“the Department”) appeals from a judgment entered by the Montgomery Circuit Court (“the trial court”) awarding Latrese Davis $4,865. We reverse.

Davis filed a claim for, and received, unemployment-compensation benefits in 2006 and early 2007. The Department subsequently determined that Davis was ineligible for unemployment-compensation benefits beginning October 8, 2006, and that it had overpaid Davis unemployment-compensation benefits during her period of ineligibility. The Department informed Davis of its determinations by mailing several notices of determination to her last known address on April 30, 2007. Those notices informed Davis of the various dates and amounts of overpayments the Department claimed, totaling $5,060, and explained that Davis had until May 7, 2007, to appeal those determinations. Davis did not appeal those determinations.

Records from the Department indicate that Davis contacted the Department on April 7, 2008, to make arrangements to repay the $5,060; however, Davis never made any voluntary payments to the Department. In 2008 and 2010, the Department intercepted a total of $195 in state income-tax refunds and applied that amount toward the balance owed by Davis. On October 15, 2012, the Department informed Davis by letter that she still owed $4,865 and that, if Davis did not pay that debt, it would intercept part of her expected 2013 federal income-tax refund to satisfy the debt.

In early 2013, the Department intercepted $4,865 of Davis’s federal income-tax refund to cover the remaining balance of the overpayments. Davis contacted the Department and requested that it review her case. On February 13, 2013, the Department issued a “Determination on Request for Review of Overpayment” confirming that Davis still owed $4,865 and notifying Davis that it would retain that amount from her federal income-tax refund to settle the debt. Davis appealed the decision to intercept a portion of her federal income-tax refund to the Hearings and Appeals Division of the Department. After a telephonic hearing, an administrative hearing officer determined that the Department had acted within its authority in intercepting a portion of Davis’s federal income-tax refund. The Department mailed a copy of that decision to Davis on March 26, 2013. Davis mailed a letter indicating her disagreement with that decision to the State Board of Appeals for the Department, which treated the letter as an application for leave to appeal to that body and which denied that application on April 5, 2013.

On April 8, 2013, Davis filed a document in the trial court, contesting the right of the Department to intercept a portion of her federal income-tax refund. In that document, Davis asserted that she had not received the original notices of determination mailed on April 30, 2007, that she had not been in telephone contact with the Department after March 2007, and that she was unaware of any overpayment. Davis also contended, although somewhat vaguely, that she should never have been deemed ineligible for unemployment-compensation benefits. The Department filed an answer disputing all the allegations asserted by Davis. On May 24, 2013, the Department filed a motion for a summary judgment.

[338]*338The trial court scheduled a bench trial for September 5, 2013. On that date, Davis appeared pro se, and counsel and a representative from the Department appeared. The trial court informally questioned the parties about the case and urged the parties to work out a settlement, indicating that it seemed harsh that Davis had to repay the Department. The trial court adjourned the trial and, without having received any evidence, entered a judgment awarding Davis $4,865 later that day. The Department filed a postjudgment motion to alter, amend, or vacate the judgment on September 17, 2013. The trial court scheduled a hearing on the motion for October 8, 2013, but it did not rule on the motion, so it was denied by operation of law. See Rule 59.1, Ala. R. Civ. P. The Department timely appealed to this court.

On appeal, the Department argues that the trial court acted beyond its jurisdictional authority in awarding Davis $4,865 and that it erred in waiving the Department’s right to intercept part of Davis’s federal income-tax refund. We agree.

Section 25-4-78(2), Ala.Code 1975, a part of the Alabama Unemployment Compensation Act (“the Act”), § 25-4-1 et seq., Ala.Code 1975, provides that .an individual shall be disqualified from receiving unemployment-compensation benefits for a variety of reasons. Pursuant to § 25-4-91, Ala.Code 1975, the Department bears the responsibility for determining whether a claimant has become disqualified from receiving unemployment-compensation benefits. Once that determination is made, § 25-4-91(c)(l), Ala.Code 1975, provides that the Department' must promptly notify the claimant of its adverse determination “by delivery thereof or by mailing such notice[ ] to [the claimant’s] last known address[].” Under § 25-4-91(d)(l), Ala. Code 1975, the determination becomes final if the claimant does not appeal within 15 calendar days after the notice was mailed to his or her last known address.

In this case, on April 30, 2007, the Department determined that Davis had become disqualified to receive unemployment-compensation benefits. The Department decided that Davis should not have received unemployment-compensation benefits dating from October 8, 2006, forward. The Department mailed several notices of that determination to the last known address provided by Davis. Davis did not appeal within 15 days; thus, the Department’s determination as to Davis’s disqualification became final.

Under § 25-4-145(c)(l), Ala.Code 1975, any payment of unemployment-compensation benefits during a period of disqualification shall be subject to repayment. Based on that provision, the Department determined that Davis owed the Department $5,060 in overpaid unemployment-compensation benefits. The first sentence of § 25-4-145(c)(2), Ala.Code 1975, requires the Department to promptly give notice to the claimant of the determination of an overpayment and the reasons therefor. Although that sentence does not provide how the Department should serve notice, the second sentence of § 25-4-145(c)(2) provides that, “[u]nless such person, within 15 calendar days immediately following the date such notification was mailed to his or her last known address, files an appeal from such determination, such determination shall be final.” (Emphasis added.) Thus, the Department fulfills the notice requirement by mailing the determination of an overpayment to the last known address of the claimant. On April 30, 2007, the Department mailed several notices of determination as to over-payments to Davis at her last known address. Davis did not appeal from those [339]*339determinations within 15 calendar days; thus, those determinations became final.

In the trial court, Davis essentially contended that she did not receive the notices of determination as to her disqualification or as to the assessment of overpayments, implying that she no longer resided at the address to which the Department had mailed the notices. However, Davis did not dispute that the Department had mailed the notices to the last address she had provided to the Department as of April 30, 2007. Hence, that address constituted her, “last known address” for the purposes of any service by the Department.

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Bluebook (online)
160 So. 3d 335, 2014 WL 3890738, 2014 Ala. Civ. App. LEXIS 134, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/alabama-department-of-labor-v-davis-alacivapp-2014.