Charles v. Butler

771 S.E.2d 43, 331 Ga. App. 336, 2015 Ga. App. LEXIS 159
CourtCourt of Appeals of Georgia
DecidedMarch 19, 2015
DocketA14A2095
StatusPublished

This text of 771 S.E.2d 43 (Charles v. Butler) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Georgia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Charles v. Butler, 771 S.E.2d 43, 331 Ga. App. 336, 2015 Ga. App. LEXIS 159 (Ga. Ct. App. 2015).

Opinion

ANDREWS, Presiding Judge.

In this discretionary appeal, Carey R. Charles appeals from an order entered by the Superior Court of Fulton County affirming the final administrative decision of the Board of Review (“Board”) of the Department of Labor (“Department”). The Board affirmed an administrative hearing officer’s decision that, among other things, found that Charles had underreported his income from a part-time job in 2009 while receiving unemployment benefits and, except with respect to one week, allowed the Department to continue to invoke fraud penalties against Charles upon remand to the benefit control unit. Charles argues on appeal that the superior court erred in affirming the Board’s decision because the Department failed to prove fraud at the hearing before the hearing officer and the hearing officer relied on inadmissible hearsay. He further argues that the trial court erred in failing to strike the supplemental record filed by the Department. We agree that the Department failed to prove fraud within the meaning of OCGA § 34-8-255, and we therefore reverse and remand.

Judicial review of an administrative decision requires the court to determine that the findings of fact are supported by “any evidence” and to examine the soundness of the conclusions of law that are based upon the findings of fact. When this Court reviews a superior court’s order in an administrative proceeding, our duty is not to review whether the record supports the superior court’s decision but whether the record supports the final decision of the administrative agency.

(Citation and punctuation omitted.) Robinson v. Thurmond, 309 Ga. App. 883, 884 (711 SE2d 430) (2011).

[337]*337The record shows that Charles was receiving unemployment benefits when he started working part-time for the YMCA of Metropolitan Atlanta (“YMCA”) in May 2009. In or around October 2010, the Department initiated an audit of Charles’s 2009 earnings by sending the YMCA a form that it was to complete showing Charles’s weekly earnings from the week ending July 4,2009 through the week ending December 26, 2009. In April 2011, the Department sent Charles a request for information about his reported income for the time period in question, and Charles responded on April 7, 2011. On October 10, 2012, the Department sent Charles a notice stating that he had “knowingly and willfully failed to report and/or incorrectly reported [his] earnings” for 23 weeks from July through December 2009 and that the “total amount overpaid is $7,062.00.” The next day, the Department sent two additional notices to Charles stating that because of his “ineligibility” for unemployment benefits described in the October 10, 2012 notice, he also must repay the Federal Additional Compensation (“FAC”) he received for the relevant time period.

Charles appealed from the Department’s three notices, and following a hearing before an administrative hearing officer, the hearing officer issued a decision affirming the overpayment set forth in the October 10, 2012 notice. Charles then appealed the hearing officer’s decision to the Board. Finding merit in Charles’s arguments that his due process rights were not properly observed in the hearing and that the hearing officer erred in failing to address the October 11, 2012 notices and did not state whether the fraud penalties were properly applied, the Board remanded the case for a de novo hearing.

A de novo hearing took place before a new hearing officer on February 25, 2013. Although the YMCA received notice of the hearing, no representative from the YMCA attended the hearing. A number of documents were entered into evidence at the beginning of the hearing, including the wage audit completed by the YMCA, which was allowed into evidence over the hearsay objection of Charles’s counsel for the limited purpose of showing what the Department used to “build the overpayment.”

Jermine Woolery, Supervisor, Benefit Payment Control for the Department, testified that based on the audit completed by the YMCA, the Department determined that Charles underreported his earnings from July 4, 2009 through December 26, 2009. She stated that the underreporting also created an overpayment with respect to Charles’s FAC payments.1 The Department concluded that by under-reporting his earnings when he certified for benefits, Charles made [338]*338misrepresentations of fact to obtain higher benefit payments. Woolery testified that the handbook provided to applicants for unemployment benefits states that claimants must report gross earnings when they certify for benefits. She maintained that the handbook is given out to all applicants and that applicants are required to sign a form acknowledging receipt. Woolery admitted, however, that the Department did not have any proof that Charles received the handbook. She tried to locate Charles’s acknowledgment of receiving a handbook but was not able to do so. Woolery admitted that Charles’s online certifications for benefits, which were admitted into evidence, showed that he had reported some earnings for the weeks ending December 12, 19, and 26, 2009 but that the Department’s database used to calculate overpayments did not reflect those reported earnings. She further admitted that the Internet certifications showed that Charles overreported his earnings for the week ending December 19, 2009. Woolery testified that the Department makes a determination as to whether fraud is involved in underreporting based on “how many weeks went by and this person did not go in the office... to correct this situation.”

Charles testified that he applied for unemployment benefits online at one of the Department’s career centers. He could not recall what information he received or if he received a handbook. Charles testified that he certified for his benefits online and that the program did not state whether earnings should be reported as net or gross. He was simply required to enter a number in a box. Charles stated that he was paid every other week, and on the off weeks, he estimated his earnings based on hours worked. On the weeks he was paid, he used his paycheck to make the certification. Charles stated that he usually used the net amount for the certification because he would look at the amount he received in his bank account by direct deposit. Charles was aware that his employer reported income to the Department on a quarterly basis. He testified that he did not really pay attention to the deposits of benefits he received from the Department but usually just looked at his bank account to see if he had enough money to cover his bills.

Following the hearing, the hearing officer issued a somewhat confusing decision in which he found that an overpayment of benefits occurred but set aside and remanded the October 10,2012 notice to be corrected because of errors with respect to overpayments in the weeks ending December 12, 19, and 26, 2009. The hearing officer ordered that the overpayment for the week ending December 19, 2009 be developed as a nonfraudulent overpayment. He further ruled that “[t]he fraud provision [of the October 10, 2012 notice] shall be set aside. Benefit Payment Control may re-institute the Fraud provision [339]*339if appropriate ... once a correct overpayment of benefits is released.” The decision affirmed one of the October 11, 2012 notices (for $275) but remanded the other (for $357).

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Bluebook (online)
771 S.E.2d 43, 331 Ga. App. 336, 2015 Ga. App. LEXIS 159, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/charles-v-butler-gactapp-2015.