Piggly Wiggly Operators' Warehouse, Inc. v. Doyal

297 So. 2d 494, 1974 La. App. LEXIS 3326
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedJuly 1, 1974
DocketNos. 12335 and 12336
StatusPublished

This text of 297 So. 2d 494 (Piggly Wiggly Operators' Warehouse, Inc. v. Doyal) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Piggly Wiggly Operators' Warehouse, Inc. v. Doyal, 297 So. 2d 494, 1974 La. App. LEXIS 3326 (La. Ct. App. 1974).

Opinion

AYRES, Judge.

These consolidated cases are before this court on appeals by plaintiff-employer from decisions of the district court affirming rulings of the Board of Review of the defendant agency that two of plaintiff’s employees, Eddie Powell and Abe Payne, Jr., were, following a discharge from their employment, entitled to unemployment benefits. The employer contends the employees’ discharges were justified on a basis of misconduct consisting of insubordination to a superior.

The records show that on Saturday, June 10, 1972, plaintiff’s employees were required to work until their tasks for the day had been completed. Each of the claimants had worked for this employer approximately two-and-a-half years in filling orders and loading merchandise for their employer’s customers.

The findings of fact by the Appeals Referee were similar in the case of each of these claimants. In his report, the referee noted these findings:

“The claimant along with four other persons clocked out at twelve noon for lunch and were gone until 12:50 p. m. Before they could return to their job station, the assistant director of the warehouse met them and told them to go home and return Monday. The claimant asked why as other employees were working. The warehouse director became angry and words were passed between them which caused an argument and loud talking. When he [the employee] reported for work Monday, he was told to go to the assistant director’s office immediately with his supervisor. He was then told he was getting a three day suspension for his action Saturday, June 10, 1972. Again there was an argument and loud talking by both parties who were angry. The claimant was then discharged by the assistant director of warehouse.”

In his opinion, the referee appropriately observed:

“R.S. 23:1601(2) provides that a claimant shall be disqualified when discharged for misconduct connected with the employment. Such disqualification shall continue until such time as the claimant has returned to work and earned wages equivalent to ten times the weekly benefit amount, and must then have been separated under non-disqualifying circumstances.
“Misconduct has been defined by the Courts as: ‘Conduct evincing such wilful or wanton disregard of an employer’s interest as is found in deliberate violations or disregard of standards of behavior which the employer has a right to expect of his employees, or in carelessness or negligence of such degree or reoccur-rence as to manifest equal culpability, wrongful intent or evil design, or to show an intentional and substantial disregard of the employer’s interest or the employee’s duty and obligation to his employer.’
“The claimant’s dismissal may have been justified from a management point of view, but there is insufficient evidence of misconduct on his part to disqualify him from the receipt of Unemployment Insurance benefits. His reaction under such circumstances was not insubordination. He was only seeking his rights. Both parties were guilty of loud abusive language during their discussions. The announcement made June 10, 1972 about the noon break was optional. Therefore, he chose to take off and secure his meal away from the plant. This made the assistant director angry and he unjustly reprimanded him. Therefore, it is held that his separation was under non-disqualifying circumstances.
[496]*496“IT IS ORDERED That the Agency determination disqualifying the claimant effective June 10, 1972, be reversed and removed.”

The Board of Review, upon appeals taken by the employer from decisions of the Appeals Referee, affirmed and adopted as its own the decisions of the referee. On appeal to the district court, the decisions of the Board of Review were affirmed and the appeals to this court followed.

The facts in these two cases are substantially the same. A difference is that in the case with reference to Powell the referee did not find disqualifying misconduct; whereas, in the case concerning Payne, the referee did find disqualifying misconduct on the basis of insubordination, but, as noted, neither the Board of Review nor the district court, on judicial review, found disqualifying misconduct in either case.

The pertinent section of the Louisiana employment security law is LSA-R.S. 23:1601(2), which, so far as it is applicable, provides:

“An individual shall be disqualified for benefits:
4c ifc # 4* 4* if*
“(2) If the administrator finds that he has been discharged for misconduct connected with his employment.”

“Disqualifying misconduct” has been defined by this court in Horns v. Brown, 140 So.2d 781, 783 (La.App., 2d Cir., 1962), and by the Supreme Court in the same case (243 La. 936, 148 So.2d 607, 609 [1963]). For this court, the late Judge Hardy stated:

“Adverting to the definition of the term, ‘misconduct’ within the meaning of the statute, this court has declared that it must be an act of ‘wanton or willful disregard of the employer’s interest, a deliberate violation of the employer’s rules, and a disregard of standards of behavior which the employer has a right to expect of his employees’; ...”

For the Supreme Court, Justice Hamiter, quoting from 48 American Jurisprudence, verbo “Social Security,” “Unemployment Insurance, etc.,” Section 38, page 541, defined the word “misconduct” as follows:

“ ‘Misconduct within the meaning of an unemployment compensation act excluding from its benefits an employee discharged for misconduct must be an act of wanton or wilful disregard of the employer’s interest, a deliberate violation of the employer’s rules, a disregard of standards of behavior which the employer has the right to expect of his employee, or negligence in such degree or recurrence as to. manifest culpability, wrongful intent, or evil design, or show an intentional and substantial disregard of the employer’s interest or of the employee’s duties and obligations to the employer. * * * ’ ”

In cases of this kind, where an employer resists the payment of unemployment security to a former employee on the basis that the employee was guilty of disqualifying misconduct, it was stated in Gardere v. Brown, 170 So.2d 758, 764 (La.App., 1st Cir., 1964):

“Under the established jurisprudence it was clearly and unmistakably the duty, burden and obligation of the employer to establish claimant’s discharge for misconduct connected with his employment. Gatlin v. Brown, La.App., 154 So.2d 224; Fruchtzweig v. Southern Specialty Sales Company, La.App., 149 So.2d 623.”

Moreover, this court, in Jackson v. Administrator of Division of Employment Security, 128 So.2d 915, 917 (La.App., 2d Cir., 1961 — cert. denied), after observing that the Louisiana Employment Security Act comes within a class of social and economic legislation remedial in its nature, held that the statute should be so interpreted by the courts as to extend its benefits so far as possible within the bounds imposed by expressed legislative restrictions, and that the term “misconduct” should be [497]*497construed in a manner least favorable to working a forfeiture so as to minimize the penal character of the provision by excluding cases not clearly intended to be within the exception. See, also, Sewell v. Sharp, 102 So.2d 259 (La.App., 2d Cir., 1958).

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Related

Gardere v. Brown
170 So. 2d 758 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1964)
Wilson v. Brown
147 So. 2d 27 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1962)
Sewell v. Sharp
102 So. 2d 259 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1958)
Gatlin v. Brown
154 So. 2d 224 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1963)
Horns v. Brown
148 So. 2d 607 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1963)
Barber v. Lake Charles Pipe and Supply Company
148 So. 2d 326 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1962)
Jackson v. ADMINISTRATOR OF DIVISION OF EMPLOY. SEC.
128 So. 2d 915 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1961)
Horns v. Brown
140 So. 2d 781 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1962)
Fruchtzweig v. Southern Specialty Sales Co.
149 So. 2d 623 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1963)

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297 So. 2d 494, 1974 La. App. LEXIS 3326, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/piggly-wiggly-operators-warehouse-inc-v-doyal-lactapp-1974.