Bryant v. Labor & Industrial Relations Commission

608 S.W.2d 524, 1980 Mo. App. LEXIS 2722
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedNovember 3, 1980
DocketNo. WD 31156
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 608 S.W.2d 524 (Bryant v. Labor & Industrial Relations Commission) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bryant v. Labor & Industrial Relations Commission, 608 S.W.2d 524, 1980 Mo. App. LEXIS 2722 (Mo. Ct. App. 1980).

Opinion

HOUSER, Senior Judge.

C. Herschel Bryant, a lawyer, filed a claim for benefits under the Employment Security Law, Chapter 288, RSMo, 1969. A deputy of the division determined that he was (1) disqualified and (2) ineligible for benefits. An appeals referee conducted a hearing and affirmed the determinations of the deputy. On appeal from the Appeals Tribunal, the Labor and Industrial Commission denied Bryant’s application for review of the Appeals Tribunal. Bryant filed a petition for judicial review in the Circuit Court of Clay County, which resulted in an affirmance of the decision of the Commission. From the order of the Circuit Court Bryant has appealed to this Court.

The findings of fact by the Commission are conclusive if supported by competent and substantial evidence. Section [526]*526288.210.1 The Court may not substitute its judgment for that of the Commission, Union-May-Stern Company v. Industrial Commission, 273 S.W.2d 766, (Mo.App.1954) and may set aside a decision of the Commission only if the decision is contrary to the overwhelming weight of the evidence. Meyer v. Industrial Commission, 223 S.W.2d 835 (Mo.App.1949); LaPlante v. Industrial Commission, 367 S.W.2d 24 (Mo.App.1963). In determining its sufficiency the evidence must be considered in the light most favorable to the finding, together with all reasonable inferences which may be drawn therefrom in support of the finding. La-Plante v. Industrial Commission, supra. The Commission did not make new and separate findings of fact. It denied the application for review. As a result, the decision of the Appeals Tribunal is deemed to be the decision of the Commission. Sections 288.200 and 288.210.

There are two issues before the Court on this appeal: (1) whether claimant voluntarily left his employment without good cause attributable to his work or to his employer, in which event he would be disqualified from the benefits of the act, or whether he was terminated, discharged and fired from his position with his employer, in which case he would be entitled to unemployment benefits; (2) whether after separation from his employment claimant’s activity in opening a full-time law office rendered him ineligible for those benefits.

On the Issue of Disqualification

The Appeals Tribunal (and thereafter the Commission) found these to be the facts:

Claimant worked as managing attorney of the Platte County office of Legal Aid of Western Missouri. In April 1977 the director of the organization notified claimant by letter that it had been decided to close the Platte County office for lack of cases in that office. Claimant was offered a position as staff attorney at employer’s Buchanan County office and a position as staff attorney in employer’s Jackson County office. Both positions carried the same salary, $15,154 per year, the same hours of work.

The job offer in Buchanan County was not suitable work because that employment would have required claimant to drive 104 miles round trip daily. The job at the Jackson County office would have required driving 14 miles roundtrip daily.

The job description of the position of staff attorney at employer’s Jackson County office was that of an additional attorney “under Charlie Wilson. Our backlog is great and we hope by expanding the staff to meet the need for assistance in that regard in the Kansas City office.”

Claimant declined this position, on the following grounds: the case load was too heavy; the type of cases handled by this unit (dissolution of marriage and other domestic relations cases) was unpleasant, and transfer to this job constituted a demotion and an insult. Claimant further testified that he did not get along with employer’s director, whom he said “won’t even speak to me if he can possibly avoid it,” and with whom he had a personality conflict. Claimant testified his superior had harassed him since the fall of 1973 and that if he had taken the job offered there would have been harassment. (He did not explain in what way he had been harassed). He contended that because of his age, 56 years, “[tjhat type of case load eventually gets to you;” that the change would be a definite demotion in terms of subject matter and in terms of “heirarchy within the Legal Aid organization;” that no attorney had kept the job for a substantial period of time and the job was considered “rock bottom;” that he did not resign, but declined the position because he was hoping for a better offer, and that Legal Aid had better positions to offer him. (The latter was denied by his superiors).

Claimant’s witnesses characterized dissolution cases as the most unpleasant work a lawyer has to do in the organization. They testified it is a demotion to be transferred from managing attorney to staff attorney, [527]*527the type of demotion which would inspire one to leave the organization as quickly as possible; that specializing in domestic relations law creates to some extent a stigma or bad reputation for an attorney; that you are dealing with people’s emotions and breakups of families, hysterical and neurotic housewives and battered and bruised children. One lawyer who had worked in that unit testified he would rather represent child molesters. Another branded domestic relations cases as “horrendous” and said he requested transfer from that unit because he felt he would “go nuts” if he “stayed around doing divorces.”

Employer’s deputy director disagreed with claimant’s assessment of the proposed job in the domestic relations unit. He said claimant would have been working with two other attorneys in the unit and would not have been required to work any additional hours; that the pay was the same and the work and the responsibility were substantially the same as the work and responsibilities claimant had been experiencing at the Platte County office; that transfer to that job was not a demotion from the type of work he normally performed, since claimant had been working in a one-man office, supervising only a part-time secretary.

Claimant left his employment because the employer was closing down the Platte County office, and because he felt the two jobs offered him prior to his separation from work were not suitable. The Tribunal and Commission found that claimant did not meet the burden of showing that the job was so unpleasant as to be unsuitable, “especially in light of the fact that much of the work which claimant did in the employer’s Platte County office involved Domestic Relations work. The jobs offered to the claimant involved the same hours of work and the same amount of pay and cannot reasonably be construed to be a danger to the claimant’s health. Leaving work is for good cause attributable to the work or to the employer when, and only when, it is a result of circumstances of such a compelling nature as would cause a reasonably prudent person under the same circumstances to quit his job and become totally unemployed. It is found that under these circumstances it would have been more reasonable for the claimant to have accepted the job at the employer’s Jackson County office rather than choose to become totally unemployed.”

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
608 S.W.2d 524, 1980 Mo. App. LEXIS 2722, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bryant-v-labor-industrial-relations-commission-moctapp-1980.