Summary
In Wheeler this Court held that in "following spouse" cases, it is not enough for the Claimant to show economic and/or commuting hardships; the Claimant must also show that the spouse's relocation was caused by circumstances beyond the control of the spouse and not brought about by the spouse's purely personal preference.
Summary of this case from Woods v. CommonwealthOpinion
Argued February 3, 1982
September 29, 1982.
Unemployment compensation — Burden of proof — Voluntary termination of employment — Necessitous and compelling cause — Scope of appellate review — Family unit — Unemployment Compensation Law, Act of December 5, 1936, P.L. (1937) 2897.
1. In order to be eligible for unemployment compensation benefits in a case involving a voluntary termination of employment, the claimant must show a necessitous and compelling cause for the termination. [203]
2. When an unemployment compensation claimant fails to meet her burden of proof, the scope of review of the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania is limited to determining whether all the necessary findings of the Unemployment Compensation Board of Review are consistent with each other and with the conclusions of law and whether they can be sustained without a capricious disregard of competent evidence. [203-4]
3. The preservation of the family unit does not necessarily give rise to a necessitous and compelling cause to justify a voluntary termination of employment under Section 402(b)(1) of the Unemployment Compensation Law, Act of December 5, 1936, P.L. (1937) 2897; when one spouse terminates employment to accompany a spouse who is moving, the following spouse must show an economic hardship in maintaining two residences or show that the move has resulted in an insurmountable commuting problem. [205]
4. In ruling on an application for unemployment compensation benefits from a spouse who has voluntarily terminated employment to accompany a spouse who is relocating, the Unemployment Compensation Board of Review must consider not only the claimant's economic necessity and insurmountable commuting problems but also the spouse's motivations and circumstances. [205-6]
Judge BLATT filed a concurring and dissenting opinion, which was substantially as follows:
1. Section 402(b)(1) of the Unemployment Compensation Law, Act of December 5, 1936, P.L. (1937) 2897, confines the eligibility determination to an inquiry on whether the claimant herself established that her voluntary resignation was prompted by either economic necessity or an insurmountable commuting problem; the fact that her husband may have voluntarily relocated should not preclude the claimant from eligibility. [207]
Argued February 3, 1982, before President Judge CRUMLISH, JR. and Judges BLATT and MacPHAIL, sitting as a panel of three.
Appeal, No. 121 C.D. 1981, from the Order of the Unemployment Compensation Board of Review in the case of In Re: Claim of Audoralee Wheeler, No. B-190680.
Application to the Office of Employment Security for unemployment compensation benefits. Application denied. Applicant appealed to the Unemployment Compensation Board of Review. Appeal denied. Applicant appealed to the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania. Held: Vacated and remanded.
Robert C. Rayman, Devecka Rayman, for petitioner.
Steven J. Neary, Associate Counsel, with him Richard L. Cole, Jr., Chief Counsel, for respondent.
Audoralee Wheeler appeals a Pennsylvania Unemployment Compensation Board of Review order denying her benefits. We vacate and remand.
The novel issue presented for our consideration and determination is: Does a domestic transition resulting from the personal preference of a spouse obviate the necessitous and compelling reasons for a following spouse's voluntary quit? Mrs. Wheeler quit work in Wilkes-Barre to accompany her husband to State College where he intended to complete his education.
A domestic transition as used here refers to a familial move resulting from one spouse's action (moving spouse) requiring the other spouse (following spouse) to voluntarily quit his or her job so as to accompany the other spouse.
Mrs. Wheeler's husband, an engineering student at Penn State University, testified that he was forced to transfer to the main campus at State College after completing two years at the Wilkes-Barre branch campus.
Section 402(b)(1) of the Unemployment Compensation Law (Law) provides in part that:
Act of December 5, 1936, Second Ex. Sess., P.L. (1937) 2897, as amended, 43 P. S. § 802(b).
An employe shall be ineligible for compensation for any week —
. . .
(b) In which his unemployment is due to voluntarily leaving work without cause of necessitous and compelling nature. . . .
In order to be eligible for benefits, Mrs. Wheeler must demonstrate that her voluntary quit was for cause of necessitous and compelling reason. Ruckstuhl v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 57 Pa. Commw. 302, 426 A.2d 719 (1981). Mrs. Wheeler failed to meet this burden below, and our review is thus limited to determining whether all the necessary findings of the Board are consistent with each other and with the conclusions of law and whether they can be sustained absent a capricious disregard of competent evidence. Johnson v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 65 Pa. Commw. 409, 442 A.2d 853 (1982).
Whereas the initial fact finding and legal conclusion were made by the referee, and the Board adopted them without taking further testimony, we will refer to them as the Board's findings.
The undisputed purpose of the statute is to relieve workers who are unemployed through no fault of their own from the hardship flowing from loss of employment. Gilman v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 28 Pa. Commw. 630, 369 A.2d 895 (1977). (Emphasis added.) In voluntary quit cases, two hardships, namely economic necessity and insurmountable commuting distance, both have been held to constitute causes of necessitous and compelling nature.
See Richard v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 491 Pa. 162, 169, 420 A.2d 391, 395 (1980), where our Supreme Court held that:
Although the desire to join her husband might have contributed to [the wife's] decision to relocate, she has demonstrated that it was not the predominant reason. Rather, her uncontradicted testimony below, credited by the referee and the Board, established that the move was compelled by economic necessity. (Emphasis added.)
Judge DiSALLE, writing for this Court in Weinstock v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 46 Pa. Commw. 545, 547, 406 A.2d 855, 856 (1977), stated:
This court has consistently held that transportation difficulties constitute necessitous and compelling reasons for an employe's voluntary termination when they present an insurmountable problem to that employe. Boob v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 18 Pa. Commw. 624, 337 A.2d 293 (1975).
At the referee's hearing, Mrs. Wheeler testified that she quit to be with her husband at State College because she was unable to afford both a residence in Wilkes-Barre, where she worked, and one in State College where her husband was matriculating. The referee, however, failed to make findings regarding Wheeler's economic hardship, thereby precluding our affirming the Board. See Kostek v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 38 Pa. Commw. 271, 392 A.2d 909 (1978).
"[F]indings of fact 'must include all findings necessary to resolve the issues raised by the evidence and which are relevant to a decision.' " Curtis v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 32 Pa. Commw. 462, 467, 397 A.2d 1069, 1070 (1977), quoting from Page's Department Store v. Velardi, 464 Pa. 276, 287, 346 A.2d 556, 561 (1975).
Inherent in a situation such as this, where a spouse relocates due to a change in career or educational objectives, is the other spouse's desire and, traditionally, obligation to accompany the moving spouse to the new locality. This preservation of the family unit, though socially desirable, does not, in itself, give rise to necessitous and compelling reason under Section 402(b)(1). See Richard v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 491 Pa. 162, 420 A.2d 391 (1980). To circumvent this limitation on benefits, the following spouse need only show an economic hardship in maintaining two residences or that the move has resulted in an insurmountable commuting problem.
However, the purpose of the Law requires that an additional factor be considered before eligibility is established. The following spouse's voluntary quit, while necessitated by economic and/or commuting hardships, is the direct result of the other spouse's relocation. Stated another way, as applied to this case, had it not been for the claimant's husband's transfer to State College, claimant would not have quit her job. Even though it is the wife who is the claimant, this causal effect mandates that the circumstances of the husband's move be analyzed. Specifically, it must be determined whether the transition was caused by circumstances beyond the control of the husband or, rather, brought about by a purely personal preference. In the latter situation, benefits would be a mode of financing the domestic transition, affording the wife, and hence the family, compensation for any self-imposed economic hardships resulting thereform. But if circumstances beyond the husband's control result in his relocation, the ensuing hardships would be temporarily compensated by the wife's showing of economic necessity or insurmountable commuting problems.
We thus conclude that the unique circumstances of a following spouse's unemployment claim require the Board to consider not only the claimant's economic necessity and insurmountable commuting problems but also the motivations and circumstances of the husband's relocation.
Vacated and remanded.
ORDER
The order of the Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, No. B-190680 dated December 19, 1980, is vacated and this case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this Opinion.
Judge MENCER did not participate in the decision in this case.
Although I agree with the majority that a remand is required in this matter, I disagree with the conclusion that the voluntary or involuntary nature of the claimant's husband's move should determine whether or not she is eligible for benefits.
I believe, on the other hand, that Section 402(b)(1) of the Law requires us to confine our determination to whether or not the claimant herself established that her voluntary resignation was prompted by either economic necessity or an insurmountable problem of commuting distance, either of which would constitute a valid necessitous and compelling reason that would allow her to receive unemployment benefits. Richards v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 491 Pa. 162, 420 A.2d 391 (1980); Pittsburgh Pipe and Coupling Co. v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 401 Pa. 501, 165 A.2d 374 (1960); Teicher Unemployment Compensation Case, 154 Pa. Super. 250, 35 A.2d 739 (1944). The fact that her husband may or may not have voluntarily relocated should not preclude her from eligibility, for benefits are not paid to the husband and the claimant but rather solely to the claimant.
The clause, which would preclude a following spouse from receiving benefits, has been in and out of the Act. Currently it has been repealed by the legislature. When it was last out, between the years 1955 and 1959, the Supreme Court in Pittsburgh Pipe stated that the legislature, by repealing the provision, intended that the law return to its prior state which the court noted was accurately described in Teicher which held a woman to be eligible for benefits who left her job in order to join her husband in another state prior to his going overseas on account of his induction into the armed services.
Moreover, being mindful that the Unemployment Compensation Law was intended to be remedial legislation which is to be liberally and broadly construed, and cognizant of these troubled economic times, I believe that the majority's rule would promote a result that adversely impacts upon the preservation of the family unit. It would force families to divide in situations such as the present, and I cannot believe that the legislature intended such a result.
See e.g., Martin v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 32 Pa. Commw. 270, 378 A.2d 1052 (1977); Zinman v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 8 Pa. Commw. 649, 305 A.2d 380 (1973).
Inasmuch, of course, as the Board failed to make any findings regarding the economic necessity or the insurmountable problem of the commuting distance which the claimant maintains justifies her resigning from her job, I realize that a remand for a proper determination of these necessary facts is required; but, if they are established, I would then allow benefits.
We note that the claimant, in stating her basis for her decision to follow her spouse, testified before the referee that "there was no way we could afford two places" ( i.e., one home in State College and one in Wilkes-Barre). Additionally, in her appeal to the Board, she contended that they could not absorb the fuel costs of regular commutation by either from one place to another. The Board made no findings embracing this evidence.
We note that the claimant raised before the Board her contention that regular commutation was impossible due to the insurmountable distance, but that the Board did not address this issue.