Krupp v. Administrator, Unemployment Compensation Act

397 A.2d 1360, 175 Conn. 269, 1978 Conn. LEXIS 904
CourtSupreme Court of Connecticut
DecidedJune 13, 1978
StatusPublished

This text of 397 A.2d 1360 (Krupp v. Administrator, Unemployment Compensation Act) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Connecticut primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Krupp v. Administrator, Unemployment Compensation Act, 397 A.2d 1360, 175 Conn. 269, 1978 Conn. LEXIS 904 (Colo. 1978).

Opinion

Longo, J.

The plaintiff, G-ail Krupp, has appealed to this court from the judgment of the Superior Court dismissing her appeal from the decision of the unemployment compensation commissioner for the first district. The following facts are disclosed by the record: The plaintiff worked for the University of Connecticut as an instructor in English during the contract year of September, 1970, to September, 1971. Her contract was not renewed for the 1971-1972 school year. She filed an initiating claim for unemployment compensation benefits for the period of September 5, 1971, to October 2, 1971. [271]*271On October 8, 1971, a claims examiner supervised by the defendant administrator disapproved her claim indefinitely, apparently on the ground that the nature of her prior employment with the University of Connecticut made her ineligible by reason of some provision in General Statutes §31-222 (a) (5). The plaintiff promptly appealed to the commissioner on October 13,1971, but was not granted a hearing until March 14, 1973. On June 25,1974, more than two and one-half years after the plaintiff filed her appeal, the commissioner rendered a decision wherein he reversed the administrator and found the plaintiff eligible for benefits, but only for the one-month period covered by her initiating claim, September 5 to October 2, 1971.

The plaintiff appealed to the Superior Court and also moved the commissioner to correct his finding and award in several respects, among them the addition of findings to the effect that she remained eligible for benefits from October, 1971, to September, 1972, at which time, as a result of her efforts to find work, she was hired as an instructor in English by Tunxis Community College for the 1972-1973 school year. Despite an order of the trial court the plaintiff’s motion to correct the finding and award was not acted upon until February 28, 1977, when the chief appeals referee1 granted the plaintiff’s motion in full. Subsequently, on March 9, 1977, the referee reversed his prior decision in part and denied so much of the plaintiff’s motion [272]*272as declared her eligible for benefits from October, 1971, to September, 1972. The plaintiff’s appeal to the Superior Court was dismissed on the ground that although the unemployment compensation procedures were “woefully dilatory and inadequate,” the plaintiff had failed to prove her eligibility for benefits beyond October 2, 1971.

The plaintiff principally complains that the long and unexplained delay of approximately 1000 days from the taking of her appeal to the commissioner’s decision on June 25, 1974, denied her right to payment of benefits “when due” as required by the federal Social Security Act, and that the delay violated her due process rights under the fourteenth amendment to the United States constitution. In Connecticut, unemployment compensation benefits are paid out of a trust fund maintained by the contributions of employers in the state. General Statutes §§ 31-261-31-271. Pursuant to § 302 of the federal Social Security Act; 42 U.S.C. § 502; the costs of administering the fund are paid by the federal government so long as the state program meets federal statutory requirements. Section 303 (a) (1) of the Social Security Act; 42 U.S.C. § 503 (a) (1); provides that the methods of administration must be “reasonably calculated to insure full payment of unemployment compensation when due.” It is the plaintiff’s contention that a delay of approximately 1000 days in providing a hearing and a decision on the question of her initial eligibility violated her right to payment “when due.”

This claim requires us to examine closely the precedents established by a series of United States Supreme Court decisions: California Department of Human Resources Development v. Java, 402 [273]*273U.S. 121, 91 S. Ct. 1347, 28 L. Ed. 2d 666 (1971); Torres v. New York State Department of Labor, 405 U.S. 949, 92 S. Ct. 1185, 31 L. Ed. 2d 228 (1972), rehearing denied, 410 U.S. 971, 93 S. Ct. 1446, 35 L. Ed. 2d 707; and Fusari v. Steinberg, 419 U.S. 379, 95 S. Ct. 533, 42 L. Ed. 2d 521 (1975). In Java, the court reviewed the legislative history of the Social Security Act and concluded (p. 131) that “ ‘when due’ was intended to mean at the earliest stage of unemployment that such payments were administratively feasible after giving both the worker and the employer an opportunity to be heard.” Accordingly, the court held that the federal requirement of payment “when due” was violated by the California practice of automatic suspension of benefits for a median period of seven weeks pending resolution of an employer’s appeal, after an initial determination of eligibility had been made.

The case of Torres v. New York State Department of Labor, supra, had a complex history, reviewed in the opinion of the United States District Court in Steinberg v. Fusari, 364 F. Sup. 922, 930-31 (D. Conn.). For our purposes it suffices to say that on remand from the Supreme Court for reconsideration in the light of Java, the District Court reconsidering Torres adhered to its original decision that the payment “when due” requirement was not violated by the New York practice of suspending unemployment benefits without a prior hearing on the basis of an administrative determination made at an interview with the claimant. The District Court reasoned that benefits could not be said to be due when an administrative official had determined that they were not due, and distinguished Java on the ground that the California practice of automatic suspension of benefits did not allow for a prior [274]*274administrative determination. Torres v. New York State Department of Labor, 333 F. Sup. 341, 344 (S.D. N.Y.). This decision was summarily affirmed by the Supreme Court. Torres v. New York State Department of Labor, 405 U.S. 949, 92 S. Ct. 1185, 31 L. Ed. 2d 228.

Fusari v. Steinberg, supra, was a class action challenging the legality of Connecticut’s procedures for determining continuing eligibility for benefits. In that case, the plaintiffs contended that both due process and the “when due” requirement of 42 U.S.C. § 503 (a) (1) were violated by lengthy delays in deciding appeals to compensation commissioners from examiners’ decisions to terminate benefits, especially in view of the substantial reversal rate on appeal. Among the District Court’s findings were that the reversal rate ranged from 19.4 percent to 26.1 percent during the periods surveyed, and that 89.8 percent of the appeals filed in a representative month required more than 100 days to decide. Steinberg v. Fusari, 364 F. Sup. 922, 934, 937 (D. Conn.).

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Related

Fusari v. Steinberg
419 U.S. 379 (Supreme Court, 1975)
Torres v. New York State Department of Labor
405 U.S. 949 (Supreme Court, 1972)
Fusari v. Steinberg
415 U.S. 912 (Supreme Court, 1974)

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Bluebook (online)
397 A.2d 1360, 175 Conn. 269, 1978 Conn. LEXIS 904, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/krupp-v-administrator-unemployment-compensation-act-conn-1978.