Court Opinion

ID: 9884482
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 02:59:12.742944+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:48:38.919733
License: Public Domain

Mr. Chief Justice Underwood, specially concurring: The court reaches the constitutional issues in this case only because it holds the burden is on the Department to show the absence of “good cause” for claimant’s second period of unemployment. With this holding I disagree. The claimant left his job because of an ankle injury and not because of any action by the employer. So far as I am aware, this record contains no indication that the claimant could not have returned to that employment as soon as he had sufficiently recovered. He made no attempt to do so. Under these circumstances it seems to me the burden is properly upon the claimant to demonstrate the unavailability of that employment in order to receive unemployment compensation benefits. I would accordingly affirm on that ground without reaching the constitutional issues.