Opinion
C.A. No. 02A-02-006 HDR
Submitted: June 20, 2002
Decided: August 21, 2002
Upon Appeal from a Decision of the Unemployment Insurance Appeal Board.
AFFIRMED.
ORDER
This 21st day of August, 2002, upon consideration of the parties' briefs and the record below, it appears that:
(1) This is an appeal from a decision of the Unemployment Insurance Appeal Board ("Board") that found Appellant Carol L. Cassell disqualified for benefits. The Board's decision is affirmed because it is supported by substantial evidence and free of legal error.
(2) Appellant, through her former employer, Barrett Temp Service ("Barrett"), worked in a position with the State of Delaware at the Air and Waste Management Department for over a year. On October 5, 2001, she informed Barrett that she was leaving that job because she needed to find a job with benefits. Appellant responded to an advertisement in the newspaper offering such a job. When she discovered that the new job was not what she thought the advertisement had represented, Appellant called Barrett and asked to be restored to her State job. As Barrett had already filled the position with someone Appellant had spent a day training, they declined to do so, and informed Appellant that they had no positions available for her.
(3) Appellant applied for unemployment compensation benefits, and her application was denied by the Claims Deputy. Appellant then appealed to the Appeals Referee ("Referee"), who affirmed the Claims Deputy's decision. The Referee found that Appellant had left her job for personal reasons, and that therefore she was not qualified for unemployment compensation benefits. Appellant has appealed the decision of the Unemployment Insurance Appeal Board ("Board") which denied Plaintiff's request for further review of the decision of the Referee.
(4) In reviewing the factual decisions of the Board, this Court must determine whether the Board's findings are supported by substantial evidence and free from legal error. Substantial evidence means such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion. The standard of review for this Court considering an action of the Board is whether the Board abused its discretion. A decision by the Board is an abuse of discretion if it is based on "clearly unreasonable or capricious grounds" or the Board exceeded the "bounds of reason in view of the circumstances" and "ignored recognized rules of law or practice so as to produce injustice." Absent such an abuse, the decision of the Board must be upheld.
19 Del. C. § 3323(a); Unemployment Ins. App. Bd. v. Duncan, Del. Supr., 337 A.2d 308, 309 (1975).
n3 Breeding v. Contractors-One, Inc., Del. Supr., 549 A.2d 1102, 1104 (1988).
Funk v. Unemployment Ins. App. Bd., Del. Supr., 591 A.2d 222, 225 (1991).
K-Mart, Inc. v. Bowles, 1995 Del. Super. LEXIS 175, *5, Del. Super., C.A. No. 94A-10-007, Cooch, J. (March 23, 1995).
Id.
(5) Here, the Board upheld the Referee's findings of fact with regard to the Appellant voluntarily quitting her employment and further held that the Referee's decision was controlled by settled law. 19 Del. C. § 3315(1) provides that:
An individual shall be disqualified for benefits:
(1) For the week in which the individual left work voluntarily without good cause attributable to such work and for each week thereafter until the individual has been employed in each of 4 subsequent weeks (whether or not consecutive) and has earned wages in covered employment equal to not less than 4 times the weekly benefit amount.
Because the Referee had found that Appellant had voluntarily left her work without good cause attributable to the work, she was disqualified from the receipt of unemployment benefits because leaving one's job to seek one with a better salary or benefits is a personal choice. Therefore, the Board denied Appellant's application for further review. The Board's adoption of the Referee's findings of fact is supported by substantial evidence on the record, and its statement of the settled law on this matter is free from legal error. Further, the Board did not abuse its discretion in any way. Therefore, its decision must be upheld.
NOW, THEREFORE, IT IS ORDERED that the decision of the Unemployment Insurance Appeal Board is AFFIRMED.