Opinion ID: 2451259
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Hearing Officer was required to analyze the suitability of Calvert's job at Snug Harbor.

Text: In finding that Calvert failed to establish good cause for quitting suitable work, the Hearing Officer did not explicitly discuss whether Calvert's job at Snug Harbor was suitable. Calvert argues that the hearing officer improperly abandoned the issue of suitable work and therefore did not correctly analyze whether she was required to show good cause for leaving. We agree that the Hearing Officer was required to analyze the suitability of Calvert's work. But we hold that the Hearing Officer's decision implicitly found that Calvert's work was suitable. Alaska Statute 23.20.385 provides that the suitability of work depends on a range of factors, including whether wages, hours, or other conditions of work are substantially less favorable than prevailing conditions in the locality; the degree of risk to a claimant's health, safety, and morals; the claimant's physical fitness for the work; the distance of the work from the claimant's residence; and other factors that influence a reasonably prudent person in the claimant's circumstances. [19] Although suitability of work may not be presumed, it need not be analyzed in all cases. [20] Suitability of work must be examined if: (1) a worker objects to the suitability of wages, hours, or other conditions of work; (2) a worker specifically raises the issue of suitability of work; or (3) facts appear during investigation of a worker's claim that put the Department on notice that wages or other conditions of work may be substantially less favorable than prevailing conditions for similar work in the locality. [21] Calvert raised the issue of suitability in her initial appeal to the Appeal Tribunal, arguing that the Department makes no claim of sufficient and suitable work from my employer. She did not provide explicit justification for the claim that her work at Snug Harbor was unsuitable, but elsewhere in her appeal and in her initial Voluntary Leaving Statement, Calvert did identify a number of concerns that might be considered objections to conditions of work sufficient to place the Hearing Officer on notice that conditions were potentially unfavorable. Specifically, Calvert cited safety concerns, workplace violence, personality conflicts, and difficulties with transportation to work. The Department contends that none of the issues Calvert raised other than transportation could render her work unsuitable because they were not found to be the precipitating event that led Calvert to quit. We disagree with this reasoning. The precipitating event analysis described in the BPM identifies which of a worker's reasons for leaving is to be analyzed for good cause: good cause depends on the precipitating event and the other reasons [for quitting] are irrelevant. [22] By contrast, the determination of whether work is unsuitable is a separate inquiry that is not similarly limited; if work is unsuitable, a worker has good cause to leave it without having to make a separate showing. [23] The fact that a circumstance did or did not precipitate a worker's decision to quit is not relevant to whether the circumstance may render work unsuitable. The Department also argues that none of the issues Calvert raised can properly be considered conditions of work as the term is used in the BPM. It contends that this term should be interpreted to refer not to work conditions generally, but to an essential aspect of the job. [24] The Department argues that workplace hostility and transportation problems of the type Calvert claims are not properly categorized as essential aspects of a job and should instead be considered under the good cause rubric. [25] We find this argument convincing as it applies to Calvert's transportation problems. The BPM provides that [w]ork that is unreasonably distant from a worker's residence is unsuitable and the worker has good cause for leaving it. [26] The BPM illustrates this rule with a case involving a claimant whose employer assigned him to work in a community 118 miles from his home; the Commissioner found this to be an unreasonable commuting distance and concluded that the job was unsuitable, giving the claimant good cause for quitting. [27] But as the Department argues, there is a subtle but logical distinction between distance to work and personal factors affecting a commute; [p]ersonal circumstances that render a reasonable, customary commute no longer feasible cannot make a job unsuitable. Here, Calvert's ten-mile commute was not unreasonably distant by any objective measure; she had easily made the commute by bike during the previous summer and would have had no problem getting to work at other times of year if her means of transportation had been less limited. And unlike the case described in the BPM, Calvert's employer had not asked her to relocate or done anything else to change the distance she had to travel to get to work. Her difficulties stemmed from personal circumstances, not from an inherent characteristic of her job at Snug Harbor; they did not give rise to a question of suitability. In contrast with Calvert's transportation issues, the workplace hostility and safety breaches Calvert described in her Voluntary Leaving Statement and Appeal Tribunal brief may be considered circumstances surrounding the job, rather than merely personal circumstances surrounding the claimant. [28] By mentioning suitability and raising workplace hostility and safety issues, Calvert objected to conditions of her work, raised the issue of suitability, and put the Department on notice that conditions at Snug Harbor might be less favorable than standard conditions in the locality. Thus, the Hearing Officer was obligated to analyze the suitability of Calvert's job before determining that she had failed to show good cause for quitting.