Title: Deiss v. UNEMPLOY. COMP. BD. OF REVIEW

State: pennsylvania

Issuer: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Document:

475 Pa. 547 (1977) 381 A.2d 132 Walter E. DEISS, Appellant, v. UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION BOARD OF REVIEW. Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. Argued September 27, 1977. Decided December 23, 1977. *548 *549 Michael A. Donadee, Edward Van Stevenson, Jr., and Richard E. Gordon, Pittsburgh, for appellant. Sydney Reuben, Charles G. Hasson, Asst. Attys. Gen., Harrisburg, for appellee. Before EAGEN, C.J., and O'BRIEN, ROBERTS, POMEROY, NIX, MANDERINO and PACKEL, JJ. O'BRIEN, Justice. This appeal arises from an order of the Commonwealth Court, affirming the decision of the Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, which affirmed the action of the referee in denying benefits to appellant, Walter E. Deiss. Appellant was employed by the Canada Dry Corporation until he was laid off on December 5, 1974. On January 6, 1975, petitioner accepted a job with the Gordon Service Terminal Company (Gordon). His job was to remove molded plastic bottles from a production line and place them into shipping boxes. On January 10, 1975, appellant terminated his employment. It was appellant's contention that he left his employment for a "cause of necessitous and compelling nature" and thus remained eligible for benefits under § 402(b)(1) of the Unemployment Compensation Law, 43 P.S. § 802(b)(1). According to appellant, he had no choice but to *550 terminate his employment with Gordon because of the anxiety and emotional stress which were caused by the pressures of working on a production line. When appellant first appealed to the referee, he did not have an attorney. However, by the time of the hearing before the board, he had secured an attorney from Neighborhood Legal Services, who petitioned for a remand for a second hearing before a referee. At the second hearing, appellant presented the testimony of Edward Wimberly, a psychotherapist for the Northern Communities Mental Health and Mental Retardation Center (the "McClure Center"), the community mental health program in appellant's neighborhood. According to the witness, appellant had been a patient at the McClure Center for over a year at the time he left the employ of Gordon. According to Wimberly, appellant had a longterm psychiatric problem which he called "a character disorder." The witness said that appellant was "an awfully sincere and capable person, he is very meticulous . . . he cares very much for people and for himself. He is a perfectionist in ways of things that he does, he wants everything to be just so, not only the things he does but his life, his relationship with people, his parents. Often he is a very hard taskmaster about that." Wimberly further testified that he was familiar with reports of the Bureau of Vocational Rehabilitation[1] which indicated that appellant would not be suited for work which required either fine motor co-ordination or close social interaction. When asked how Wimberly would expect appellant to perform in a job which required fine motor co-ordination, the witness replied: *551 According to Wimberly, appellant was only suited for work that left him a great deal of freedom to work at his own speed with a limited amount of social contact (apparently such as the work he had previously done in distributing soda for the Canada Dry Corporation). Wimberly was then asked: To which he replied: Wimberly was then asked about appellant's complaints about headaches, sleeplessness, nausea and diarrhea, and he indicated that these were caused by anxiety from the job with Gordon. According to the witness, appellant's anxiety would have led to an emotional breakdown. The witness concluded that he would have advised appellant to quit his job if he had been asked and that when appellant did quit it was "the psychologically healthy thing to do." There are no new findings of fact made by the second referee who heard the case on remand. The board had an additional finding of fact that "at the time the claimant terminated his employment he was not under the care of a doctor and he was not advised by a doctor to terminate his employment." After re-emphasizing that appellant had not been advised by a physician that he must terminate his employment. The board concluded, "there was no competent evidence that the working conditions were so onerous as to leave him no other choice than to voluntarily terminate his employment." The Commonwealth Court, after restating the proposition that the burden was on appellant to establish that he had no *552 real choice but to leave his employment, concluded as follows: 3 There may be a case where a claimant terminates while suffering from a mental disorder of such a nature as to mitigate his failure to consult a doctor before quitting. This is not such a case and falls under the general rule of Eckenrod [supra]." Appellant filed a petition for allowance of appeal, which we granted on May 16, 1977. Section 402 of the Unemployment Compensation Law provided, in relevant part: *553 "Cause of a necessitous and compelling nature" was best defined in Sturdevant Unemployment Comp. Case, 158 Pa.Super. 548, 556, 45 A.2d 898 (1946), where the court stated:[2] In Taylor v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 474 Pa. 351, 378 A.2d 829 (1977), we stated: Further, ". . . possible aggravation of a nervous condition can be a necessitous and compelling cause for terminating work." Kernisky v. Unempl. Comp. Bd. of Review, 10 Pa.Cmwlth. 199, 202, 309 A.2d 181, 183 (1973); McComb Unempl. Compensation Case, 179 Pa. Super. 424, 116 A.2d 92 (1955). In cases such as the instant one, the party alleging that termination is based on "necessitous and compelling reasons" has the burden of proving the same. Taylor v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, supra. We believe that appellant has established on this record that his termination is based on necessitous and compelling reasons. Appellant introduced testimony of his psychotherapist who testified that appellant was emotionally unsuited for assembly line work. The psychotherapist also testified that, in his *554 opinion, had appellant remained on the job, he very well may have suffered a nervous breakdown. In recent years, the Commonwealth Court has set forth the following criteria requiring a claimant to (1) introduce documentation that a physician advised claimant to terminate prior to termination, Eckenrod v. Unempl. Comp. Bd. of Rev., 15 Pa.Cmwlth. 166, 325 A.2d 320 (1974), (2) inform the employer of the health problems, Elshinnawy v. Commonwealth, 12 Pa.Cmwlth. 597, 317 A.2d 332 (1974), and (3) specifically request the employer to transfer him to a more suitable position within the company, Tollari v. Unempl. Comp. Bd. of Review, 10 Pa.Cmwlth. 589, 309 A.2d 833 (1973).[3] The referee, the board and the Commonwealth Court all based their denial of appellant's benefits on the failure to comply with the Eckenrod mandate. We believe, however, the Eckenrod is not an accurate statement of the law in this commonwealth. In Eckenrod, supra, 15 Pa.Cmwlth. at 169, 170, 325 A.2d at 322, the Commonwealth Court stated: However, in Elshinnawy, supra, 12 Pa.Cmwlth. at 600-601, 317 A.2d at 334, the court stated: We believe that the emphasized portion of Elshinnawy is controlling, as the relevant consideration is the claimant's health at the time of terminating employment. If a claimant realizes that either physically or emotionally he *556 is unable to continue working and he offers competent testimony that at time of termination, adequate health reasons existed to justify termination, we can perceive no reason to require claimant to prove that he was advised to quit his job. In the instant case, appellant was under a psychotherapist's care for over a year before terminating his employment with Gordon. The psychotherapist testified that at the time of termination, appellant would have suffered a nervous breakdown had he continued his employment. This opinion was based on the results of over one year of analysis prior to appellant's termination of employment. We believe that the referee, the board of review and the Commonwealth Court all erred in holding the psychotherapist's testimony was of little evidentiary value. As appellant offered competent evidence to support his claim that he terminated employment for cause of a necessitous and compelling nature, he is entitled to benefits under the act. The decision of the Commonwealth Court affirming the board's denial of unemployment compensation is reversed, and the matter is remanded to the board with direction that appellant's claim be allowed. [1] Appellant underwent counseling at the Bureau of Vocational Rehabilitation. [2] The statute analyzed in Sturdevant used the term "good cause". The phrase "cause of necessitous and compelling nature" was substituted by the legislature for the words "good cause" in a 1955 amendment. We termed this modification "simply a matter of phraseology." Pgh. Pipe & Coupling Co. v. U.C.B.R., 401 Pa. 501, 507, 165 A.2d 374, 377 (1960). [3] Appellant offered uncontradicted testimony that he did inform his employer of the health problems. Further, while appellant never requested a transfer, he testified that all jobs with Gordon involved assembly line work, so such a request would have been a futile gesture.