Case ID: so2d_785/html/0689-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "PER CURIAM. FARMER, J.,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Michael RANKINE, Appellant, v. UNEMPLOYMENT APPEALS COMMISSION and Insurance Recovery Specialists, Appellees.
    No. 4D99-3967.
    District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fourth District.
    May 16, 2001.
    Michael Rankine, Miramar, pro se.
    Judy L. Harrelson, Tallahassee, for Ap-pellee Unemployment Appeals Commission.
   PER CURIAM.

The appeals referee determined the claimant was discharged for misconduct and thus ineligible for unemployment compensation benefits. The record supports the referee’s findings, and the law supports her decision. See Boyd v. Ikon Office Solutions, Inc., 743 So.2d 1152 (Fla. 3d DCA 1999) (contentious and argumentative refusal to perform assigned work justified determination of misconduct); Jennings v. Unemployment Appeals Comm’n, 689 So.2d 1193 (Fla. 4th DCA 1997) (repeated warnings and no explanation for continued unsatisfactory behavior justified determination of misconduct). Benefits were properly denied.

AFFIRMED.

GUNTHER and GROSS, JJ., concur.

FARMER, J., concurs specially with opinion.

FARMER, J.,

concurring specially.

Although this is a close case, I agree that the decision of the Commission should be upheld, but not because of the cases cited by the majority. In my opinion the facts of this case are analogous to those in Odom v. Unemployment Appeals Commission, 586 So.2d 504 (Fla. 5th DCA 1991), where a finding of misconduct was affirmed. There, after previous incidents in which he had miscounted truckloads, the referee found that the employee had been given specific instructions to leave his forklift and count every pallet loaded. The referee found that the employee’s later failure to count drums of concentrate evinced a willful and wanton disregard for employer’s interest and a deliberate intent to refuse to follow reasonable instructions after a prior warning and thus amounted to misconduct connected with work, thereby disqualifying him from benefits.

Here the employee was told more than once (but not what I would characterize as “repeated times”) to input only accident cases and to finish a specific number each day but failed to do so on more than one occasion. There is no evidence in this case, however, of “contentious and argumentative refusal to perform assigned work.” Nevertheless I feel compelled to affirm.