Title: Beddow v. Employment Sec. Com'n of Wyoming

State: wyoming

Issuer: Wyoming Supreme Court

Document:

Beddow v. Employment Sec. Com'n of Wyoming1986 WY 94718 P.2d 12Case Number: 85-270Decided: 04/22/1986Supreme Court of Wyoming
Eddie G. BEDDOW, 
Appellant (Claimant),

v.

EMPLOYMENT SECURITY 
COMMISSION OF WYOMING, Appellee (Respondent), and Wind River Land & 
Livestock, dba Best Packing, Appellee (Employer).

Appeal from District 
Court, FremontCounty, Elizabeth A. Kail, 
J.

Sky D. Phifer, 
Lander, for 
appellant.

Karen A. Byrne, 
Asst. Atty. Gen., Casper, Donald Legerski, Lander, for appellees.

Before THOMAS, C.J., and BROWN, CARDINE, URBIGKIT 
and MACY, JJ.

URBIGKIT, 
Justice.

[¶1.]     Eddie Beddow, an 
ex-employee of a Lander, Wyoming, packing plant, appealed a denial of 
an unemployment compensation claim by petition for review to the district court 
as then certified for review to this court, which denial is now 
affirmed.

[¶2.]     We consider 
if

"* * * the finding of the 
Employment Security Commission that Claimant quit his most recent employment 
without `good cause' [is] unsupported by the evidence and contrary to 
law."

[¶3.]     Sequentially, Beddow, a 
22-month packing employee, quit November 23, 1984, although thereafter he worked 
part time at the plant on an apparently irregular basis. On March 18, 1985, an 
unemployment compensation claim was filed, and was then protested by the 
employer based upon voluntary employee termination without good cause. The 
agency denied the claim, which denial was appealed for hearing before an appeals 
examiner who affirmed the denial by written determination, with findings and 
conclusions, on June 3, 1985. Subsequent appeal was taken to the Wyoming 
Employment Security Commission, which, by hearing held July 22, 1985, affirmed 
the hearing examiner's decision and adopted his findings and conclusions by 
reference. Appeal was then taken to the district court, which certified to this 
court without consideration.1

[¶4.]     The hearing examiner, 
W.O. Kuhn, included the following in his decision 
document:

"The claimant appealed 
from the Deputy's redetermination which disqualified him for benefits effective 
March 17, 1985, on the grounds that he voluntarily left his most recent 
employment without good cause attributable to the employment and not for bona 
fide medical reasons.

* * * * * 
*

"During the last six 
weeks of the claimant's employment, he worked part-time only because of his 
desire to pursue an avocation of trapping. Although the claimant may have been 
dissatisfied with working conditions, and safety conditions he failed to pursue 
his concern through the proper channels. There were no unusual sanitary 
violations at the employer's place of business. The claimant voluntarily quit 
work without good cause attributable directly to the employment and not for bona 
fide medical reasons and he is, therefore, subject to 
disqualification.

* * * * * 
*

"The Deputy's 
redetermination disqualifying the claimant for benefits effective March 17, 
1985, on the grounds that he voluntarily left his most recent employment without 
good cause attributable to the employment and not for bona fide medical reasons 
is hereby affirmed."

[¶5.]     It is from this 
administrative decision that the present appeal is 
pursued.

[¶6.]     We have reviewed the 
transcript of the hearing, and find substantial evidence to sustain the decision 
made.2

[¶7.]     This court only 
recently restated the test for consideration of contested evidence in an 
administrative-hearing appeal:

"We have adopted a 
definition of substantial evidence, when conducting a review of an agency, to be 
such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support 
a conclusion. Mountain Fuel Supply Company v. Public Service Commission of 
Wyoming, Wyo., 
662 P.2d 878 (1983); Board of Trustees, Laramie 
County School District No. 1 v. Spiegel, Wyo., 549 P.2d 1161 (1976). Such evidence may 
be less than the weight of the evidence but cannot be contrary to the 
overwhelming weight of the evidence. Mountain Fuel Supply Company v. Public 
Service Commission of Wyoming, supra.

* * * * * 
*

"If there is substantial 
evidence to support a finding, as there is here, the ultimate weight to be given 
that evidence is to be determined by the agency in light of its expertise and 
the experience of its members in such matters. Mountain Fuel Supply Company v. 
Public Service Commission of Wyoming, supra. If the agency's decision is found 
to be supported by substantial evidence, we cannot substitute our judgment for 
that of the agency, but we are required to uphold its findings upon appeal. 
McCulloch Gas Transmission Company v. Public Service Commission of Wyoming, 
Wyo., 627 P.2d 173 (1981); Williams v. Public Service Commission of Wyoming, 
Wyo., 626 P.2d 564, cert. denied 454 U.S. 896, 102 S. Ct. 394, 70 L. Ed. 2d 211 
(1981)." Big Piney Oil & Gas Company v. Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, 
715 P.2d 557, 561-62 (1986).

See § 16-3-114, 
W.S. 1977.

"`* * * [S]uch a cause as 
justifies an employee's voluntarily leaving the ranks of the employed and 
joining the ranks of the unemployed; the quitting must be for such a cause as 
would reasonably motivate in a similar situation the average able-bodied and 
qualified worker to give up his or her employment with its certain wage rewards 
in order to enter the ranks of the compensated unemployed. The terms "good 
cause" and "personal reasons" connote, as minimum requirements, real 
circumstances, substantial reasons, objective conditions, palpable forces that 
operate to produce correlative results; adequate excuses that will bear the test 
of reason; just grounds for action. * * *'" Sage Club, Inc. v. Employment 
Security Commission of Wyoming, Wyo., 601 P.2d 1306, 1310 (1979), quoting from 
81 C.J.S. Social Security and Public Welfare § 226a, pp. 
448-452.

 

[¶8.]     The State of Wyoming 
concurred that an unsafe place to work could constitute good cause under the 
purview of § 27-3-311 and § 27-3-312, W.S. 1977, 1985 Cum.Supp., as recently 
defined and confirmed in Sage Club, Inc. v. Employment Security Commission of 
Wyoming, supra. See also Scott v. Fagan, Wyo., 
684 P.2d 805 (1984).

[¶9.]     With the acceptance by 
the State of the legal standard to be applied, the remaining question is 
sufficiency of the evidence to meet the burden of the employee to prove that in 
this case of a voluntary work termination good cause did exist because of a 
contended unsafe place to work. Sage Club, Inc. v. Employment Security 
Commission of Wyoming, supra. The administrative agency found 
adversely.

[¶10.]  By application of the established rule of 
appellate consideration, we affirm the administrative agency by finding 
substantial supporting evidence. Utah Power & Light Co. v. Public Service 
Commission of Wyoming, Wyo., 713 P.2d 240 
(1986). See also Employment Security Commission of Wyoming v. Young, Wyo., 713 P.2d 198 (1986); and State v. Weisz & Sons, 
Inc., Wyo., 
713 P.2d 176 (1986).

[¶11.]  Affirmed.

FOOTNOTES

1 The appeal in this case 
essentially involves no question of law and presents only a question of the 
sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the administrative action. In adopting 
the 1983 amendment to Rule 12.09, W.R.A.P., this court assumed that normally 
cases such as this would be reviewed by the district court rather than certified 
directly to this court. This presumably would provide for an earlier and less 
expensive resolution for the parties. In this instance, however, the case was 
certified without review by the district court. While there may have been 
exigent circumstances justifying that approach, the record does not inform us 
about them. It would be helpful if the district court in such instances would 
provide in the record an explanation of the justification for 
certification.

2 Contested issues of fact 
included the dispute as to whether the employee quit to trap full time, the 
effect of continued part-time employment after full-time termination, and the 
intrinsic safety of the workplace, involving employment conditions wherein 
conflicting evidence was presented but upon which both the hearing examiner and 
the commission determined adversely to the employee. A detailed discussion of 
the contention of the parties in regard to the electric shock from the saw, the 
plywood that fell down, the temporary ramp, and the later-discovered staph 
infection, would serve no additional purpose by repetition and evaluation in 
this decision but to denominate that a conflict in fact did exist wherein 
substantial evidence in support of the decision was admitted into evidence at 
hearing. We do not undertake to reconstruct by opinion detail, except to observe 
that substantial evidence with probative value did exist to justify the decision 
of the administrative agency.