Source: https://www.chanrobles.com/usa/us_supremecourt/402/121/case.php
Timestamp: 2020-08-14 11:18:22
Document Index: 578573858

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 303', '§ 1335', '§ 1335', '§ 303', '§ 303', '§ 1327', '§ 1335', '§ 503']

US Supreme Court Decisions On-Line> Volume 402 > CALIFORNIA DEPT. OF HUMAN RESOURCES V. JAVA, 402 U. S. 121 (1971)
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BURGER, C.J.,delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court. DOUGLAS, J., filed a concurring opinion, post, p. 402 U. S. 135. chanrobles.com-red
This case raises the issue of whether a State may, consistent with § 303(a)(1) of the Social Security Act, suspend or withhold unemployment compensation benefits from a claimant when an employer takes an appeal from an initial determination of eligibility. Section chanrobles.com-red
In late summer, 1969, appellees Judith Java and Carroll Hudson, having been discharged from employment, applied for unemployment insurance benefits under the California Unemployment Insurance Program. Appellees were given an eligibility interview at which the employer did not appear, although such an appearance was permitted. As a result of that interview, both employees were ruled eligible for benefits. Payments began immediately. In each case, the former employer filed an appeal after learning of the grant of benefits, contending that benefits should be denied because the claimants were discharged for cause. In accordance with the practice of the agency and pursuant to § 1335 of the California Unemployment Insurance Code, [Footnote 1] payments automatically stopped. At the subsequent hearings before an Appeals Board Referee, which stage is essentially an appeal from the preliminary determination under chanrobles.com-red
We agree with the conclusion of the District Court that § 1335 of the California Unemployment Insurance Code conflicts with the requirements of § 303(a)(1) of the Social Security Act. This holding makes it unnecessary to reach the constitutional issue involved in Goldberg v. Kelly, supra, on which the District Court relied. chanrobles.com-red
The California Unemployment Insurance Compensation Program, certified by the Secretary of Labor under § 303 of the Act, provides for payment of insurance benefits, over an extended period of time, to persons who find themselves unemployed through no fault of chanrobles.com-red
A claimant, appearing at an unemployment insurance office to assert a claim, initially is asked to fill out forms which, taken together, indicate the basis of the claim, the name of the claimant's previous employer, the reason for his unemployment, his work experience, etc. The claimant is asked to return to the office three weeks later for the purpose of receiving an Eligibility Benefits Rights Interview. The issue most frequently disputed, the claimant's reason for termination of employment, is answered on Form DE 1101, and the Department immediately sends copies of this form to the affected employer for verification. Meanwhile, the employer is asked to furnish, within 10 days, "any facts then known which may affect the claimant's eligibility for benefits." Cal.Unemp.Ins.Code §§ 1327, 1030. If the employer challenges eligibility, the claimant may then be asked to complete Form DE 4935, which asks for detailed information about the termination of claimant's previous job. The interviewer has, according to the Local Office Manual (L.O.M.) used in California, the "responsibility to seek from any source the facts required to make a prompt and proper determination of eligibility." L.O.M. chanrobles.com-red
If, upon appeal, the Referee finds the claimant eligible, chanrobles.com-red
The dispositive issue is the determination of whether § 1335 of the California Unemployment Insurance Code violates the command of 42 U.S.C. § 503(a)(1) that state unemployment compensation programs must "be chanrobles.com-red
The Social Security Act received its impetus from the Report of the Committee on Economic Security, [Footnote 9] which was established by executive order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt to study the whole problem of financial insecurity due to unemployment, old age, disability, and health. In its report, transmitted to Congress by the President on January 17, 1935, the Committee recommended a program of unemployment insurance compensation chanrobles.com-red
Other evidence in the legislative history of the Act and the commentary upon it supports the conclusion that "when due" was intended to mean at the earliest stage of unemployment that such payments were administratively feasible after giving both the worker and the employer an opportunity to be heard. The purpose of the Act was to give prompt, if only partial, replacement of wages to the unemployed, to enable workers "to tide themselves over, until they get back to their old work or find other employment, without having to resort to relief." [Footnote 12] Unemployment benefits provide cash to a newly unemployed worker "at a time when otherwise he would have nothing to spend," [Footnote 13] serving to maintain the chanrobles.com-red
We are not persuaded by appellants' suggestion that the initial determination is clouded with sufficient uncertainty as to warrant withholding benefits until the appeal is decided to protect the interests of the State or of employers. The California procedure for initial determinations is effective in insuring that benefits are limited to legally eligible claimants. From 95-98% of ineligible chanrobles.com-red
It would frustrate one of the Act's basic purposes -- providing a "substitute" for wages -- to permit an employer to ignore the initial interview or fail to assert and document a claimed defense, and then effectuate cessation of payments by asserting a defense to the claim by way of appeal. If the employer fails to present any evidence, he has, in effect, defaulted, and neither he nor the State can with justification complain if, on a prima facie showing, benefits are allowed. If the employer's defenses are not accepted and the claim is allowed, that also constitutes a determination that the benefits are "due." chanrobles.com-red
The argument of California in this case is surprisingly disingenuous. First, it seeks to distinguish Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U. S. 254, on the ground that "welfare is based on need; unemployment insurance is not." But that simply is not true, for the history makes clear that the thrust of the scheme for unemployment benefits was to take care of the need of displaced workers, pending a search for other employment. Second, California argues that delay in payment of benefits until the employer's appeal is ended is necessary in terms of due process because "it is chanrobles.com-red