Opinion
No. C7-99-123.
Filed June 1, 1999.
Appeal from the Department of Economic Security, File No. 6712 UC 98.
Abdikadir H. Mahamed, (relator pro se).
Quality Staffing Solutions, (respondent employer pro se).
Kent E. Todd, (for respondent commissioner).
Considered and decided by Harten, Presiding Judge, Klaphake, Judge, and Amundson, Judge.
This opinion will be unpublished and may not be cited except as provided by Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (1998).
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
Pro se relator Abdikadir H. Mahamed challenges a decision rendered by a representative of respondent Commissioner of Economic Security disqualifying Mahamed from receiving reemployment insurance because he failed to accept respondent Quality Staffing Solutions' offers of suitable employment. Because the evidence reasonably supports the decision of the Commissioner's representative, we affirm.
DECISION
An employee who, without good cause, fails to accept or avoids an offer of suitable employment is disqualified from receiving reemployment insurance benefits. Minn. Stat. § 268.09, subd. 14(a)(2), (3) (Supp. 1997).
At the hearing before the reemployment insurance judge, Quality Staffing, a temporary employment agency, submitted a document showing that it had contacted Mahamed 13 times between February 10 and July 13, 1998, by leaving phone messages. Quality Staffing's witnesses testified that this document is prepared at the time an out-going call is made, and one of the witnesses actually made six of the calls. Mahamed testified that he never received these messages and that he, in fact, had called Quality Staffing at least 20 times during this same time period to request work, but was always told nothing was available.
The Commissioner's representative obviously chose to accept the testimony and documents submitted by Quality Staffing. Mark W. Peterson Law Offices v. Murphey , 392 N.W.2d 319, 322 (Minn.App. 1986) (credibility determinations for fact finder). This evidence was sufficient to meet Quality Staffing's initial burden to prove that it had made several offers of suitable employment to Mahamed. See Gonsior v. Alternative Staffing, Inc. , 390 N.W.2d 801, 806 (Minn.App. 1986), review denied (Minn. Aug. 27, 1986).
The burden then shifted to Mahamed to show good cause for failing to accept those offers. Lewis v. Minneapolis Moline, Inc. , 288 Minn. 432, 437, 181 N.W.2d 701, 704 (1970). "Good cause" for refusing suitable work exists "only when there is some necessitous and compelling reason for refusal"; good cause reasons "are usually personal to the claimant and extraneous to the employment, and are usually of a temporary and emergency nature so as not to detach the claimant from the labor market." Minn. R. 3305.0800 (1997).
Mahamed claimed that he did not receive the messages because other people living at his home did not forward them to him. The Commissioner's representative refused to accept Mahamed's explanation or find that it constituted good cause. Rather, the Commissioner's representative concluded that "[i]n view of the number of * * * messages left by the employer, * * * it is more likely than not that [Mahamed] intentionally did not respond to the employer's offers and was avoiding suitable job offers."
Given the Commissioner's representative's ability to assess witness credibility and this court's limited review of reemployment insurance cases, we conclude that the evidence in the record reasonably tends to support the decision rendered here. See Lolling v. Midwest Patrol , 545 N.W.2d 372, 377 (Minn. 1997) (appellate court reviews factual findings of commissioner's representative in light most favorable to decision and determines whether there is evidence in record that reasonably tends to sustain those findings).