Roseland Wirebound Box Co. v. Administrator, Division of Employment Security

119 So. 2d 142, 1960 La. App. LEXIS 1397
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedMarch 21, 1960
DocketNo. 4981
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 119 So. 2d 142 (Roseland Wirebound Box Co. v. Administrator, Division of Employment Security) 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
Roseland Wirebound Box Co. v. Administrator, Division of Employment Security, 119 So. 2d 142, 1960 La. App. LEXIS 1397 (La. Ct. App. 1960).

Opinion

TATE, Judge.

By these proceedings the plaintiff seeks judicial review of an administrative ruling. The District Court dismissed the suit, and the plaintiff’s consequent appeal to the Supreme Court was transferred to us because that tribunal lacked appellate jurisdiction of it. 237 La. 292, 111 So.2d 118.

The plaintiff (“Roseland”) is an employer subject to the provisions of the Louisiana Employment Security Law, LSA-R.S. 23:1471-23:1713. The substance of Rose-land’s contention is that its experience-rating record, upon which its rate of tax contribution for unemployment compensation is based, was improperly charged with the payment of benefits to certain unemployed workers, and that it is therefore entitled to have these charges against its record removed. To understand the respective contentions of the parties, it is necessary first to summarize the statutory background in the context of which this litigation takes place.

The Louisiana Employment Security Law, above-cited, establishes and regulates a program of unemployment compensation benefits. Under this program, which is administered by the Division of Employment Security of the State Department of Labor, eligible employees who become unemployed are paid benefits from a fund derived from taxes paid by the employers subject to the act. The standard rate of tax contribution payable by each of such employers is 2.7% of the wages paid by him to his employees, but the employer’s contribution rate may be reduced according to a fixed schedule, if in a given period the employer has a favorable experience-rating under which the total of his tax contributions exceeds the total benefits chargeable to his experience-rating record. See LSA-R.S. 23 ¡1471-23:1713, esp. Sections 23:-1532-23:1536; Comment, “Unemployment Compensation in Louisiana”, 19 La.L.Rev. 448 (1959).

When an unemployed worker first files a claim for unemployment compensa[144]*144tion and when this claim is initially and (in the event of contest) subsequently determined, certain employers (in general, those to whose experience-rating record the payment of the benefits may be charged) are entitled to notice and to contest the eligibility and qualification of the claimant and the amount of benefits payable under the claim; as well as to seek further administrative and judicial review of any determinations made by the administrative agency with regard thereto. LSA-R.S. 23:1622-23:1634. Also, in preparing the employers’ experience-rating records, the Administrator of the Division of Employment Security is required to render to each employer quarterly statements of individual benefits paid which have been charged to the employer’s experience-rating record, which benefit charges are conclusive against the employer in the absence of his timely application to review same. LSA-R.S. 23:1541.

The basis of the present litigation is Roseland’s protest that the administrator’s statement of benefit charges sent to it pursuant to LSA-R.S. 23:1541 for the period ending June 30, 1954, improperly charged claims totaling $13,067 against the aforesaid plaintiff employer’s experience-rating record. The substance of Roseland’s protest is that as to each individual claim so listed it did not receive the notice of the determinations of the claims to which Roseland is statutorily entitled under LSA-R.S. 23:1625: “Notice of [each claim’s initial] determination, together with the reason therefor shall be promptly delivered to the claimant, to his last employer or employing unit and to all of the base period employers or mailed to their last known address.” (As amended Acts 1952, No. 400, § 1.) 1 Roseland claims that it was prejudiced by its failure to receive notice that a former employee was to be paid unemployment compensation, since it might have offered re-employment to such claimants and thus have avoided the charge against its experience-rating record for such employees’ compensation benefits.

It must at this point be noted that the record reflects without contradiction that Roseland received prompt notice of both the filing of the claims and of claim determinations relative to former employees of which Roseland was the last employer before they made their claims. Roseland’s. sole complaint is that to its prejudice it did not receive such prompt notice as required by LSA-R.S. 23:1625 with regard to employees of which it was, not the last employer, but merely a "base-period” employer. Benefits paid to a claimant are charged against the experience-rating records of his employers for his “base period”2 in “the [145]*145same ratio to the total benefits paid to an individual as the base period wages paid to the individual by such employer bear to the total amount of base-period wages paid to the individual by all his base-period employers”, LSA-R.S. 23:1533.

We think that the District Court correctly held that the evidence preponderantly proves that notices of determinations were sent to Roseland as the base-period employer in all the protested claims charged to Roseland’s experience-rating record. Based upon an examination of the administrative records of each of the protested claims, this fact was found to be true in the administrative proceedings. The plaintiff employer introduced no evidence to rebut this finding, either in the administrative proceedings or in the judicial review of it.

For we see little merit to Rose-land’s contention that the “Notice to Base Period Employers” (P-2; Form LDES 152), which it admits receiving (although, supposedly, tardily), did not constitute the notice required by LSA-R.S. 23:1625. This notice, inter alia, listed the name of each claimant, the date his claim was filed, the weekly benefit amount payable him, and the maximum benefit amount, together with (on the reverse side) the information that it had been determined that such claim-antis) had'sufficient earnings to qualify for benefits which would be paid if the employee (s) continued the claim (s) and met all eligibility requirements. The information furnished by this initial determination report (P-2) substantially complies with the requirements of LSA-R.S. 23:1624 3, which is the notice LSA-R.S. 23:1625 requires to be sent to, among others, base-period employers.

Although Roseland also introduced into evidence an agency form entitled a “Notice of Claim Determination” (P-3; form LDES-385) and contends that base-period employers were additionally required by LSA-R.S. 23:1625 to receive same, it is apparent on its face that this form is designed “to assess a disqualification only or to remove it” (Tr. 84). Pertinently, it is used to furnish notice only of determinations that deny or allow benefits where disqualification is urged.4 (There is no contention by Roseland that it did not receive this form in instances involving determinations where disqualification of its former employees to receive unemployment benefits was raised.)

Insofar as Roseland contends that the administrative agency itself admitted that it did not send out such notices (citing Tr. 84, 85, 86), examination of the testimony referred to as supporting such contention readily indicates that the notices there referred to are notices of claim filed, required to be transmitted by LSA-R.S. 23:1624, the failure to receive which is no longer urged by appellant to have been prejudicial (see footnote 1).

Essentially, as stated by the trial court, the plaintiff’s argument that the claims in [146]

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Bluebook (online)
119 So. 2d 142, 1960 La. App. LEXIS 1397, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/roseland-wirebound-box-co-v-administrator-division-of-employment-lactapp-1960.