MacDonald v. Commonwealth

333 A.2d 199, 17 Pa. Commw. 494, 1975 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 823
CourtCommonwealth Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedMarch 4, 1975
DocketAppeal, No. 298 C.D. 1974
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 333 A.2d 199 (MacDonald v. Commonwealth) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
MacDonald v. Commonwealth, 333 A.2d 199, 17 Pa. Commw. 494, 1975 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 823 (Pa. Ct. App. 1975).

Opinion

Opinion by

Judge Mencer,

Mary I. MacDonald (appellant) was employed as a temporary secretary by Manpower, an employment agency, from sometime in 1969 until September 1973. During this period appellant, at Manpower’s direction, worked at temporary assignments with Westinghouse Electric Corporation (Westinghouse). She became unemployed because the position she was holding was filled by a Westinghouse employee.

On November 2, 1973, appellant received in the mail a note from Manpower, dated October 31, 1973, requesting her to perform services at Westinghouse for a four-week period commencing November 5, 1973. On the same day she received an additional note, also dated October 31, 1973, from a Mr. Scorgie, a Westinghouse official, expressing the gratitude of himself and his fellow workers for appellant’s former services. The note also expressed surprise at the fact that appellant had not received further assignments at Westinghouse since her release. After reading both letters, appellant mistakenly accepted Mr. Scorgie’s letter as an authoritative rejection of the Manpower assignment, and she therefore failed to appear on the requested date.

On November 13, 1973, the Bureau of Employment Security denied appellant benefits for the week ending November 10, 1973,1 pursuant to Sections 401(d) and 402 (a) of the Unemployment Compensation Act, Act of December 5, 1936, Second Ex. Sess., P. L. [1937] 2897, as amended, 43 P.S. §§801 (d), 802(a). Upon appeal and [497]*497after a hearing, referee modified the Bureau’s determination and on December 11, 1973, pursuant to Section 401 (d), ruled the appellant ineligible for benefits for the week ending November 10, 1973.2 The referee rejected the Bureau’s 402(a) determination on the grounds that the employer had not complied with the requirements of the Department’s Regulation 307.3 The Unemployment Compensation Board of Review affirmed the referee’s decision and this appeal followed. We affirm.

Our scope of review in unemployment compensation cases is confined to questions of law and, absent fraud, to a determination as to whether the Board’s findings (in this case, the referee’s findings adopted by the Board) are supported by the evidence. Questions of credibility and the weight to be given evidence are for the Board. Shira v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 10 Pa. Commonwealth Ct. 457, 310 A. 2d 708 (1973). In the case before us we find that the referee and the Board have both erred as to questions of law. However, we do find that the referee and the Board have reached the correct result for incorrect reasons.

Section 402(a) of the Unemployment Compensation Law provides: “An employe shall be ineligible for compensation for any week — (a) In which his unemployment is due to failure, without good cause, either to apply for suitable work at such time and in such manner as the department may prescribe, or to accept suitable work when offered to him by the employment office or by any employer, irrespective of whether or not such work is in ‘employment’ as defined in this act: Provided, That such employer notifies the employment office of such offer within three (3) days after the making thereof.”

[498]*498The words “good cause” found in this section have been interpreted to be synonymous with “good faith.” See Brilhart Unemployment Compensation Case, 159 Pa. Superior Ct. 567, 49 A. 2d 260 (1946).

A close reading of the record reveals that appellant failed without good cause to respond to Manpower’s offer of employment. While it is possible that appellant, as she alleges, was misled by the ambiguous letter from Westinghouse, the fact remains that Manpower, not Westinghouse, was appellant’s employer and that appellant owed a statutory duty “to accept suitable work when offered ... by any employer.” (Emphasis added.) The record clearly indicates that appellant would not accept work from her former employer, Manpower. We have before us a clear offer of employment from an employer and a clear rejection of that offer. Though appellant may have been misled by having received a second allegedly conflicting letter on the same day as her job offer, it is clear that any conflict was caused by the ambiguity of the letter from Westinghouse, who was not the prospective employer, and that a simple call to the offeror, Manpower, could have quickly remedied the ambiguity. Unfortunately for appellant, her reasons for refusing the offer are not a sufficient “good cause” for her rejection of Manpower’s offer.

It is a sound principal of law that “ [ajlthough the principal objective of unemployment legislation is to alleviate economic distress in individual cases, sound policy requires that a claimant who refuses employment may remain eligible for benefits only where there is some necessitous and compelling reasons [sic] for the refusal of work. Trabold Unemployment Compensation Case, 191 Pa. Superior Ct. 485, 159 A. 2d 272. A claimant who seeks benefits must at all times be ready and willing to accept suitable employment, and must have substantial and reasonable grounds for refusing offered work. Bentz Unemployment Compensation Case, 190 Pa. Superior Ct. [499]*499582, 155 A. 2d 461.” Sparano Unemployment Compensation Case, 193 Pa. Superior Ct. 349, 351, 165 A.2d 131, 132 (1960).

Nowhere in the record before us are there presented any necessitous and compelling reasons for a refusal to accept this job offer. A reading of the record also reveals that the referee’s refusal to withhold benefits on the basis of Regulation 307 is premised on his mistaken interpretation of the law. Undoubtedly, this resulted because he did not have the benefit of our recent decision in General Motors Corporation v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 14 Pa. Commonwealth Ct. 537, 322 A. 2d 762 (1974). In that case, pertaining to an appeal from a ruling of the Board granting benefits to a claimant who had rejected a job offer, Judge Crumlish, Jr., writing in support of a reversal, stated:

“As the last subsection to this regulation suggests, after it had determined that Harvey refused an offer of suitable employment, the Board was without authority, absent a showing of prejudice, to grant compensation merely because the form of the notice of an offer of work by a claimant’s prior employer was defective. Porter Unemployment Compensation Case, 197 Pa. Superior Ct. 337, 178 A. 2d 788 (1962); Baigis Unemployment Compensation Case, 160 Pa. Superior Ct. 379, 51 A. 2d 518 (1974). As Judge Reno, writing for the Court in Baigis (where the employer’s notice of an offer of employment failed to list the terms of employment required by a predecessor regulation) explained:

“ ‘The most liberal interpretation and humane administration of the law will not sanction this result. The “good cause” assigned by the claimant having been found insubstantial and inadequate, no obligation rested upon the board to defeat appellant’s contention by adjudicating the insufficiency of the offer. By so doing the board rejected a contention which it recognized as meritorious and valid in favor of a mere technical objection [500]*500of its own invention and founded upon its rigid interpretation of its own rule.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
333 A.2d 199, 17 Pa. Commw. 494, 1975 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 823, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/macdonald-v-commonwealth-pacommwct-1975.