Note: Decisions of a three-justice panel are not to be considered as precedent before any tribunal. 

ENTRY ORDER

SUPREME COURT DOCKET NO. 2016-056

AUGUST TERM, 2016

Karla Riendeau } APPEALED FROM:

}

} Employment Security Board

 v. }

}

Department of Labor,

State of Vermont

} DOCKET NO. 11-15-014-10

In the above-entitled cause, the Clerk will enter:

Claimant Karla Riendeau appeals from an Employment Security Board decision that she 

was disqualified from benefits under the provisions of 21 V.S.A.§ 1344(a)(2)(A) because she left 

her employment “voluntarily without good cause attributable” to her employer, the Vermont 

Department of Corrections (DOC). Claimant contends the Board’s decision “lack[ed] support in 

the record.” We affirm.

The facts may be summarized as follows. Claimant was employed by DOC as a 

correctional officer for approximately fifteen years. She had been formally disciplined by DOC 

for issues relating to tardiness or leave time in February 2012, September and November 2014, 

and March 2015. In June and July 2015, DOC issued separate “Loudermill” letters to claimant 

informing her that she would be afforded an opportunity to respond to additional allegations of 

tardiness.1 A third such letter was prepared by DOC in August 2015, alleging that claimant had 

arrived late to work on August 1, 2015 without providing notice, and late to a training session on 

August 5, 2015 in which she was the trainer. Although the copy of the August 2015 letter entered 

into the record was not dated or signed, claimant acknowledged that she had received it. The 

 

1 Based on the procedural safeguards for employees with a property interest in their 

continued public employment mandated by the U.S. Supreme Court in Cleveland Board of 

Education v. Loudermill, 470 U.S. 532, 534 (1985), the purpose of a Loudermill letter is to provide 

the employee with “notice of the charges, an explanation of the evidence, and an opportunity for 

the employee to present evidence.” In re Hurlburt, 2003 VT 2, ¶ 29, 175 Vt. 40. 
2

record also reflects that claimant and Bob South, a union representative from the Vermont State 

Employees Association, attended a hearing on some or all of the charges in September 2015. 

Later that month, the DOC prepared a letter, dated September 29, 2015, informing claimant 

that she was being placed on a temporary, paid leave for up to thirty days to permit the State to 

conduct and complete an investigation into allegations of misconduct. Claimant testified that she 

did not receive the letter, although she also testified that she did not return to work after September 

28, 2015. The Board found that claimant’s union representative told her that if she appeared at 

work on her next scheduled day she would be escorted off the premises as she was being 

temporarily relieved from duty. 

Both claimant and South recalled that, in late September 2015, they discussed claimant’s 

options. As the Board here found, “South saw [claimant’s] options as obtaining a stipulated 

separation from the employer, resigning, or being terminated.”2 

The union and DOC then negotiated a proposed stipulated agreement, which claimant 

received on October 22 or 23, 2015. Prior to that, however, claimant had indicated to the State 

that she intended to resign. The proposed separation agreement provided, among other things, that 

claimant would resign from her position effective September 30, 2015; that at no time in the future 

would claimant apply for or accept employment with DOC in any capacity; that claimant would 

not file any grievance; and that, “[i]n the event [claimant] applies for unemployment compensation 

benefits, DOC agrees it will not contest said application” while claimant “understands and agrees 

that this provision shall not be construed or interpreted as a guarantee that unemployment benefits 

will be awarded to her.” Claimant opted not to sign the stipulation, and submitted a separate 

written letter of resignation, dated October 23, 2015. In her letter, claimant indicated that “the 

decision to resign was made on September 30, 2015.” 

In response to claimant’s subsequent application for unemployment benefits, a claims 

adjudicator determined that claimant was disqualified under the provisions of 21 V.S.A. § 

1344(a)(2)(A) because she left her employment voluntarily without good cause attributable to her 

employer. Claimant appealed the determination. Following a hearing, an administrative law judge 

issued a written decision sustaining that decision.3 The ALJ observed that the “question to be 

resolved” was whether, in deciding to resign, claimant “had a reasonable choice.” In resolving 

 

2

 South testified in this regard that he informed claimant the State was “looking to 

terminate” her, and that she had “three options”: they could “work[] out a stip” or “you can resign 

anytime you want or they were going to terminate you.” Claimant testified similarly that her 

understanding from South was that DOC was “looking to terminate me, period. They wanted me 

gone.” She recalled that she asked South if she had the option of returning to work, and he 

responded, “You aren’t going to be able to work. You can either—if you don’t resign or sign the 

stipulation, you will be terminated, period.” 

3 Claimant represented herself at the hearing. She subsequently retained counsel, who 

represented her before the Board and in this appeal. 
3

this question, the ALJ rejected the argument that claimant’s only options were returning to work 

only to be escorted from the premises, or resignation. The ALJ found that claimant “could of 

simply not gone to work, served out the temporary relief from duty or administrative leave, and 

seen what the outcome would be.” Accordingly, the ALJ concluded that claimant had not shown 

that she left her employment due to any conditions attributable to her employer, and sustained the

claims adjudicator’s ruling. 

Following a hearing, the Board issued a written ruling sustaining the ALJ’s decision. In 

its key conclusion, the Board similarly rejected claimant’s assertion that she was confronted with 

no choice but to resign, observing that “[t]he argument fails to address the other alternative 

available to the claimant, which was that she could have continued to contest the charges against 

her while exploring other options that may have been available to her prior to termination.” The 

Board further explained that the claimant made a conscious decision to voluntarily resign rather 

than continue to contest the disciplinary charges against her. The disciplinary action was based on 

numerous incidents of well-documented tardiness, most of which the claimant conceded. Noting 

that it is entirely within an employer’s rights to discipline its employees for unexcused tardiness, 

the Board concluded that the employer’s conduct here was not the sort that would justify an award 

of benefits for voluntary resignation. This appeal followed. 

Claimant contends the Board based its decision on “speculation utterly lacking support in 

the record.” More specifically, claimant asserts that the “supposition that she could negotiate a 

better deal” than the proposed stipulation finds no support in the record, and that the record shows 

she “had only one reasonable option, which was to resign . . .” Claimant notes her testimony 

that she had not received the DOC letter informing her that she had been placed on administrative 

leave pending a resolution of the charges and asserts that she did not understand that there was an 

ongoing process that might have led to a result other than her termination. 

“Our review of decisions by the Employment Security Board is deferential, as decisions 

within the expertise of the Board are presumed to be correct, valid, and reasonable. We will uphold 

the Board’s findings of fact unless they are clearly erroneous, and its conclusions if they are 

supported by the findings. In general, we also defer to the Board’s interpretation of the statutes it 

is charged with administering.” Kelley v. Dep’t of Labor, 2014 VT 74, ¶ 6, 197 Vt. 155 (citations 

and quotations omitted). 

The question on appeal is not whether claimant resigned—that she did is well supported 

by the record. The issue here is whether she voluntarily quit “without good cause attributable such 

employing unit.” 21 V.S.A. § 1344(a)(2)(A). We have long recognized that a termination from 

employment may not meet the disqualifying standard under 21 V.S.A. § 1344 where the employee 

was given no reasonable “alternative to resignation.” Lane v. Dep’t of Emp’t Sec., 134 Vt. 9, 11 

(1975). Indeed, in Vennell v. Dep’t of Emp’t Sec., “[w]e recognize[d] that, given certain facts, a 

resignation under a quit-or-be-fired offer may be involuntary,” although we rejected that 

characterization where the claimant had resigned under threat of dismissal due to a conviction for 

possession of marijuana. 141 Vt. 282, 283 (1982); see also Quick v. Dep’t of Labor, 2009 VT 

121, ¶ 8, 187 Vt. 585 (mem.) (rejecting employee’s claim that her resignation was involuntary 
4

where she had “assumed” she would be fired if she refused polygraph but Board found that

claimant quit because she was “offended by employer’s suggestion that she was lying”). In this 

case, the Board concluded that employer’s initiation of proceedings to terminate claimant on the 

basis of numerous instances of well-documented tardiness was within its rights, and that claimant 

opted to unconditionally resign rather than see that process through to its conclusion. Although 

claimant’s prediction of the outcome of that process may be well-founded, the Board’s conclusion 

that her decision not to see the process through does not amount to “good cause attributable to” 

the employer is supported by its findings and within the Board’s discretion.

Affirmed.

BY THE COURT:

_______________________________________

Paul L. Reiber, Chief Justice

_______________________________________

Beth Robinson, Associate Justice

_______________________________________

Harold E. Eaton, Jr., Associate Justice