Court Opinion

ID: 9675681
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:02:08.826351+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:37.135139
License: Public Domain

DIXON, Judge,
concurring in result.
I concur in the result of the opinion in this case but wish to express my reasons for that concurrence.
The determinative issue is the reason for the lack of employment. If the employee left “voluntarily,” then the employee may not receive benefits.1 Section 288.050(1) RSMo Supp. 1980.
In this case, there is no claim that the employer induced the employee to leave. In fact, the employer had made some accommodation to the employee’s personal problem.
Viewing the situation as it existed when the arrangement was made, the employer agreed to retain the employee if work was available in the accounting department when the voluntary period of work suspension ended. Implicit in the “if” is the assumption by the employee of the risk of unemployment at the expiration of the period of leave. That risk was undertaken by the employee voluntarily. The employee simply voluntarily left work with no unconditional right to return to work. To hold that benefits were available would make the employer bear a burden the employer was unwilling to assume. As the majority opinion correctly states, in a true leave of absence situation, the employer agrees to the unconditional future resumption of full employment status and does so voluntarily. In the instant case, it is apparent'the employer did not wish to assume that burden.
Paradoxically, the result in this case denying benefits to the employee is consistent with the legislatively stated purpose of the employment security law, § 288.020 RSMo *6291978, which enunciates the purposes of the Act.
A contingent arrangement between an employer and employee, as the evidence discloses in this ease, tends to promote the stability and continuity of employment by deferring the necessity for the employee’s voluntary termination of employment. If .an employer is not permitted to enter into such contingent arrangements with employees without becoming, in effect, an insurer of the employee’s benefits, employers will not undertake such contingent arrangements. If an employer in the circumstances of the instant case were required to provide benefits, the employer would never undertake such an arrangement. The employer would simply refuse the leave and compel the employee to voluntarily quit. It is also apparent that there is nothing in this opinion which prevents the employer and employee from creating a true leave of absence situation in which the employer promises to reemploy, regardless of the availability of a particular job, after termination of the furlough period. What is encouraged here is the possibility of retention of the employee, and the concomitant benefits of seniority to the employee and an experienced, stable work force to the employer.

. The issue of leaving voluntarily without good cause, such as the disability of the employee, is not here involved.