Opinion
November 16, 1961
Present — Bergan, P.J., Coon, Gibson, Reynolds and Taylor, JJ.
Appeals by claimant from (1) a decision of the Unemployment Insurance Appeal Board which held him ineligible to receive benefits effective February 8, 1960 upon the finding that he was not available for employment; and (2) a decision of ineligibility upon the same ground for the period March 15-30, 1960. Claimant, while employed by a brokerage house as a customer's man, at a salary of $7,000 per annum, was enjoined by court order from engaging in activities of that nature. After receiving benefits for some time he was absent from the State and upon his return refiled for benefits, and these were denied by the first decision appealed from. Although under the necessity of finding work in a new field, claimant would not accept employment paying less than $100 per week, even after approximately nine months of unemployment. He turned down a sales job paying $70 plus commissions, without knowing what the commissions might amount to. He did not investigate an advertisement for a sales trainee at a $7,000 salary. Despite previous warnings, he failed to keep any record of his efforts at finding work and to make job applications in person. He was able to recall but a very few of the opportunities he said he had investigated, all or most of them by telephone. He said that he rejected some jobs because the salary was too low but could not in either case recall the salary offered; but many of the advertisements which he failed to investigate did not specify the salary. Thus there was substantial support in the evidence for the determination effective February 8, 1960 and for the subsidiary findings that his efforts were not diligent or genuine, were token in nature and were made solely to bolster his claim that he was in the labor market in good faith. The second determination found him ineligible for the period March 15-30, 1960 but eligible commencing March 31, 1960, when his efforts were found to have been "substantially increased." For the questioned period, little change in claimant's efforts (properly found to have been "very meager") from those during the prior period was demonstrated and the second decision appealed from was fully supported by the evidence. Decisions unanimously affirmed, without costs.