Hooton, Wold & Okrent, LLP v. Employment Department

391 P.3d 858, 283 Or. App. 776, 2017 Ore. App. LEXIS 251
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedFebruary 23, 2017
DocketA153773
StatusPublished

This text of 391 P.3d 858 (Hooton, Wold & Okrent, LLP v. Employment Department) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Oregon primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hooton, Wold & Okrent, LLP v. Employment Department, 391 P.3d 858, 283 Or. App. 776, 2017 Ore. App. LEXIS 251 (Or. Ct. App. 2017).

Opinion

ORTEGA, P. J.

Petitioner provided part-time employment to Hooten, a former employee of Kaiser Permanente who was receiving unemployment benefits. Petitioner requests judicial review of an order of an administrative law judge (ALJ) that affirmed the Oregon Employment Department’s denial of petitioner’s request for “relief of charges” to its unemployment insurance account under ORS 657.47K9).1 Petitioner argues on review that it should have been relieved of charges related to a second year of unemployment benefits paid to Hooten, because, in accordance with that statute, (1) Hooten lost full-time employment with Kaiser during the “base year”; (2) petitioner employed Hooten part-time during the “base year” and at the time of the assessment of charges; and (3) Hooten’s eligibility for benefits was factually related to her loss of employment with Kaiser. The ALJ concluded that petitioner was not entitled to relief of charges under ORS 657.471(9) because Hooten was not petitioner’s part-time employee at the time she lost her employment with Kaiser, and Hooten’s eligibility for a second year of unemployment benefits was not “because of [her] loss of employment” with Kaiser. On review, petitioner challenges the ALJ’s decision, arguing that the statute does not require “simultaneous” employment by two or more employers, and asserting that Hooten’s loss of employment with Kaiser was the reason [778]*778that she was eligible for a second year of unemployment benefits. We conclude that the ALJ erred in her application of ORS 657.471(9) and that petitioner had indeed satisfied the requirements of that statute. Accordingly, we reverse and remand.

The following facts are undisputed. Hooten filed a claim for unemployment benefits in October 2011 after Kaiser Permanente terminated her employment that same month. The department approved her claim and awarded benefits. Hooten began working part time for petitioner six months later in April 2012, and she continued to collect unemployment benefits. When her initial “benefit year”2 expired on October 20, 2012, the department denied her application for benefits for the week of October 21, 2012 through October 27, 2012. Accordingly, Hooten contacted the department and was told that she was eligible to file a new claim. She did so, and the department determined that she was eligible for unemployment benefits for a “second benefit year.” It further determined that, because petitioner had paid Hooten wages during the relevant “base year”3—July 1, 2011 to June 30, 2012—petitioner was a “base year employer” and, under ORS 657.471(1),4 was subject to potential “charges” to its account for benefits paid to Hooten. “Charges” are used in part to calculate an employer’s unemployment insurance rate. See ORS 657.462 (establishing a method for calculating the “benefit ratio” and assigning the unemployment tax rate using “charges” to the employer’s record). The department sent petitioner notice of the potential charges and petitioner requested relief from those charges under ORS 657.471. The [779]*779department denied relief, citing Hooten’s continued employment with petitioner. Petitioner’s appeal of that decision was referred to the Office of Administrative Hearings for a contested case hearing. At issue during the contested case hearing was the applicability of ORS 657.471(9). That statute provides:

“Benefits paid to an individual may not be charged to a base year employer if:
“(a) The employer furnished part-time work to the individual during the base year;
“(b) The individual has become eligible for benefits because of loss of employment with one or more other employers;
“(c) The employer has continued to furnish part-time work to the individual in substantially the same amount as during the individual’s base year; and
“(d) The employer requests relief of charges within 30 days of the date the notice provided for in ORS 657.266 is mailed or delivered to the employer.”

At the hearing, petitioner argued that it had satisfied all of the requirements of ORS 657.471(9). Petitioner asserted that, as to paragraph (a), it had furnished part-time work to Hooten during the base year. As to paragraph (b), petitioner claimed that Hooten had become eligible for benefits because she was terminated from employment during the relevant base year by Kaiser. As to paragraph (c), it was undisputed that petitioner continued to employ Hooten in a part-time capacity and, as to paragraph (d), it was similarly undisputed that petitioner had timely requested a relief of charges.

After the hearing, the ALJ issued a final order denying petitioner’s request for relief from the charges, concluding that petitioner had failed to satisfy ORS 657.471(9)(a) and (b). The ALJ had reasoned at the hearing that paragraph (a) is satisfied only when a claimant is working simultaneously for two employers during the base year and the claimant continues to work for one of the employers after the claimant’s employment with the other employer ends. That is, the ALJ concluded that the statute does not provide relief [780]*780from charges in a situation like the one presented here— where a claimant subsequently (not simultaneously) works part time in the base year for a second employer after losing other employment.

As for paragraph (b), the ALJ concluded that Hooten’s second unemployment claim—filed on October 21, 2012—was not filed due to a “loss of employment with one or more other employers.” The ALJ determined that ORS 657.471(9)(b)

“only applies when an individual regularly works part-time for a base year employer and files the new claim due to loss of the other employment. The employer was the claimant’s last employer at the time she filed the claim and she had not worked elsewhere for at least one year. The claimant did not file her claim on October 21, 2012, due to a loss of other employment at that time. The claimant filed her claim on October 21, 2012, because she was no longer eligible for Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) on her former claim.”

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Related

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379 P.3d 783 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2016)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
391 P.3d 858, 283 Or. App. 776, 2017 Ore. App. LEXIS 251, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hooton-wold-okrent-llp-v-employment-department-orctapp-2017.