Case Name: MISSISSIPPI EMPLOYMENT SECURITY COMMISSION, Appellant, v. Alberta PARKER, Appellee
Court: Mississippi Court of Appeals
Jurisdiction: Mississippi
Decision Date: 2004-04-13
Citations: 905 So. 2d 613
Docket Number: No. 2003-CC-00114-COA
Parties: MISSISSIPPI EMPLOYMENT SECURITY COMMISSION, Appellant, v. Alberta PARKER, Appellee.
Judges: Before KING, P.J., BRIDGES, LEE and CHANDLER JJ.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 905
Pages: 613–619

Head Matter:
MISSISSIPPI EMPLOYMENT SECURITY COMMISSION, Appellant, v. Alberta PARKER, Appellee.
No. 2003-CC-00114-COA.
Court of Appeals of Mississippi.
April 13, 2004.
Rehearing Denied July 27, 2004.
B. Ray Therrell, attorney for appellant.
Alberta Parker, appellee, pro se.
Before KING, P.J., BRIDGES, LEE and CHANDLER JJ.

Opinion:
BRIDGES, J.,
for the Court.
¶ 1. Alberta Parker filed for unemployment benefits. The claims examiner investigating her case disqualified Parker for misconduct. Parker filed an appeal to the Board of Review. The Board of Review found that the appeal filed by Parker was not filed timely and was, therefore, dismissed. Parker appealed to the Circuit Court of Pearl River County which reversed the decision of the Board of Review. The Mississippi Employment Security Commission now appeals to this Court.
STATEMENT OF THE ISSUES
I. WHETHER THE CIRCUIT COURT OF PEARL RIVER COUNTY ERRED BY APPLYING RULE 6 OF THE MISSISSIPPI RULES OF CIVIL PROCEDURE AND MISSISSIPPI CODE ANNOTATED SECTION 13-3-83 (1972).
II. WHETHER THE BOARD OF REVIEW'S DECISION SHOULD BE AFFIRMED, FINDING THAT THE CLAIMANT, ALBERTA PARKER, FAILED TO TIMELY FILE HER APPEAL TO THE BOARD OF REVIEW, PURSUANT TO MISSISSIPPI CODE ANNOTATED SECTION 71-5-519 (REVISED 1995).
FACTS
¶ 2. Alberta Parker was employed as a dietary supervisor at Crosby Memorial Hospital in Picayune, Mississippi. In January 2002, Healthcare Services Group, Inc. ("HSG") took over operations of the hospital's dietary department. Parker, along with all other employees, was placed on a ninety day probationary period during which time she would be evaluated. Her employment ended on'April 12, 2002, when she was discharged for unsatisfactory job performance. Four days later, Parker filed for unemployment benefits, but was disqualified by the claims examiner for misconduct. Further the claims examiner stated in his June 2, 2002 "Notice of Non-monetary Decision," that Parker was terminated for failure to perform her duties satisfactorily, and that the final straw, serving a patient meatballs over rice instead of over spaghetti, constituted misconduct and disqualified her from benefits.
¶ 3. Parker filed a notice of appeal and a hearing was held before an appeals referee on June 26, 2002. At the conclusion of the hearing, the referee found that Parker had been discharged for misconduct, but did not employ the same "meatballs over rice" standard of misconduct. The referee found Parker was terminated for misconduct due to unsatisfactory job performance and her "willful behavior which violated a standard of behavior that the employer has a right to expect." According to Denise Calhoun, director of food services, whose testimony the referee accepted as substantial evidence upon which she based her decision to deny benefits, Parker created a hostile work environment by speaking poorly of HSG to other employees, by failing to lock the kitchen door, by failing to clean up the facilities and by feeding a patient on January 18, 2002, who was under orders not to be fed. The referee's decision was mailed to Parker on July 1, 2002.
¶ 4. On July 16, 2002, Parker appealed the decision of the referee to the Board of Review of the Mississippi Employment Security Commission. The Board of Review held that the appeal filed by Parker was not filed timely and was, therefore, dismissed. Parker appealed to the Circuit Court of Pearl River County. On December 6, 2002, the circuit judge reversed the decision of the Board- of Review and found that pursuant to Rule 6 of the Mississippi Rules of Civil Procedure and Mississippi Code Annotated section 13-3-83, Parker was entitled to an additional three days in which to appeal her decision to the Board of Review, meeting the appeal deadline. Additionally, the circuit court held that there was no "substantial, clear and convincing evidence" to support disqualification for misconduct. This appeal followed.
STANDARD OF REVIEW
¶ 5. The standard of review of administrative agency decisions is "[a]n agency's conclusions must remain undisturbed unless the agency's order 1) is not supported by substantial evidence, 2) is arbitrary or capricious, 3) is beyond the scope or power granted to the agency, or 4) violates one's constitutional rights." Maxwell v. MESC, 792 So.2d 1031, 1032(¶ 7) (Miss.Ct.App.2001).
¶ 6. A rebuttable presumption exists in favor of the administrative agency, and the challenging party has the burden of proving otherwise. Lastly, this Court must not reweigh the facts of the case or insert its judgment for that of the agency. Lewis v. MESC, 767 So.2d 1029(¶ 9) (Miss.Ct.App.2000). Factual findings of the Commission's Board of Review, if supported by substantial evidence, will be upheld on appeal. Miss.Code Ann. § 71-5-531 (Rev.2000).
ANALYSIS
I. WHETHER THE CIRCUIT COURT OF PEARL RIVER COUNTY ERRED BY APPLYING RULE 6 OF THE MISSISSIPPI RULES OF CIVIL PROCEDURE AND MISSISSIPPI CODE ANNOTATED SECTION 13-3-83 (1972).
II. WHETHER THE BOARD OF REVIEW'S DECISION SHOULD BE AFFIRMED, FINDING THAT THE CLAIMANT, ALBERTA PARKER, FAILED TO TIMELY FILE HER APPEAL TO THE BOARD OF REVIEW, PURSUANT TO MISSISSIPPI CODE ANNOTATED SECTION 71-5-519 (REVISED 1995).
¶ 7. The Circuit Court of Pearl River County reversed the decision of the Board of Review both as to the time of Parker's appeal and the referee's decision to deny benefits. In his opinion and order with respect to the untimeliness of Parker's appeal, the circuit judge set out the law as follows, Mississippi Code Annotated section 71-5-519 reads, in pertinent part, "[t]he parties shall be duly notified of such tribunal's decision . which shall be deemed to be the final decision . unless, within fourteen (14) days after the date of notification or mailing of such decision, further appeal is initiated...." Also, Mississippi Code Annotated section 71-5-525 reads, "[t]he manner in which appealed claims shall be presented . shall be in accordance with regulations prescribed by the board of review for determining the rights of the parties, whether or not such regulations conform to common law or statutory rules of evidence and other technical rules of procedure."
¶ 8. The order adopting the Mississippi Rules of Civil Procedure reads:
Pursuant to the inherent authority vested in this Court by the Constitution of the State of Mississippi . to promote justice, uniformity, and the efficiency of courts, the rules attached hereto are adopted and promulgated as Rules of Practice and Procedure . in all civil actions. [A]ny and all statutes and court rules previously adopted to the contrary notwithstanding, and in the event of a conflict between these rules and any statute or court rule previously adopted these rules shall control.
¶ 9. Rule 6 of the Mississippi Rules of Civil Procedure reads:
(a) Computation. In computing any period of time prescribed or allowed by these rules, by order of court, or by any applicable statute, the day of the act, event, or default from which the designated period of time begins to run shall not be included.
(e) Additional Time After Service by Mail. Whenever a party has the right or is required to do some act or take some proceedings within a prescribed period after the service of a notice or other paper upon him and the notice or paper is served upon him by mail, three days shall be added to the prescribed period. This subdivision does not apply to responses to service of summons under Rule 4.
(emphasis added).
¶ 10. The circuit judge concluded by stating that the "MESC can not promulgate rules of procedure in conflict with the Mississippi Rules of Civil Procedure. Specifically, the court finds that pursuant to Miss. R. Civ. P. 6(a) and 6(e), Parker's time to appeal her case to the Board of Review began on July 2, 2002, the day after the appeals referee mailed her decision to Parker, and ended July 19, 2002, which reflects the addition of an additional three days for Parker to respond, as required by Rule 6(e)." Therefore, Parker's appeal was filed timely with the Board of Review.
¶ 11. In his opinion and order with respect to the appeals referee's decision to deny benefits, the circuit judge set out the law as follows:
The question before the court is not whether there was substantial evidence for HSG to terminate Parker, but whether or not there was substantial, clear and convincing evidence for HSG to disqualify Parker for unemployment benefits due to an action rising to the level of misconduct as that term is defined in Wheeler.
¶ 12. The evidence composing this .case was testimony of Calhoun's and Parker's versions of the events occurring between January 14, 2002 and April 12, 2002. This conflict was dealt with by the Mississippi Supreme Court in Trading Post, Inc. v. Nunnery, in which the court held, "[t]he evidence here was the employee's word against that of the [employer] as to what [occurred]." Trading Post, Inc. v. Nunnery, 731 So.2d 1198, 1202(¶ 15) (Miss.1999). The court found that'the referee and the Board of Review, charged with fact-finding responsibility, found that a denial of permission to be absent was not clearly conveyed and that the absence was not wilful misconduct. Id.
¶ 13. In the present case, HSG failed to offer anything outside of Calhoun's uncorroborated testimony to establish Parker's misconduct. The circuit court found that it would have been easy for Calhoun to "have brought the nurse or nurses that heard Parker talking down HSG and the hospital to the hearing or at least offered their affidavits as exhibits." The lower court concluded that the evidence, "while closer to misconduct than the 'meatballs over rice' standard employed by the claims examiner, is still nowhere near the level of, 'substantial, clear and convincing evidence' that the discharge was due to misconduct." Nunnery, 731 So.2d at 1200-01(¶ 9).
¶ 14. We reverse and remand on additional and different grounds than those set forth by the lower court. ' We find that while Parker may not have perfected her appeal within the fourteen day statutory period for the Board of Review to consider this matter, said Board of Review in its decision letter dated July 25, 2002, clearly states that Parker may appeal to the circuit court in the county in which she resides . within ten days for a review of its decision which would become final within twenty days after the date thereof being July 24, 2002. We, therefore, reverse and renaand this case to the referee for consideration of Parker's claim and for appropriate findings by that tribunal whether there was or was not substantial, clear and convincing evidence to support the denial of her unemployment benefits by the claims examiner.
¶ 15. THE JUDGMENT OF THE PEARL RIVER COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT IS AFFIRMED AND REMANDED TO THE REFEREE FOR FINDINGS CONSISTENT WITH THIS OPINION.
KING, P.J., LEE, MYERS, AND CHANDLER, JJ., CONCUR. ' SOUTHWICK, P.J., DISSENTS WITH SEPARATE WRITTEN OPINION JOINED BY MCMILLIN, C.J., THOMAS, IRVING, AND GRIFFIS, JJ.
. Wheeler v. Arriola, 408 So.2d 1381, 1383 (Miss.1982).