Court Opinion

ID: 9558268
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:05:41.722088+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:08:36.157645
License: Public Domain

STEWART, Justice
(concurring in result):
I would reverse the Commission and remand this case with directions to the Corn-*1103mission to award the plaintiff benefits forthwith. In my view, plaintiff clearly had good cause for quitting, and the Commission acted arbitrarily in ruling otherwise. The majority’s position that the claimant did not have “good cause” for quitting under U.C.A., 1953, section 35-4-5(a) (Supp.1983) is, I submit, contrary to law, based on an improper reading of Denby v. Board of Review, Utah, 567 P.2d 626 (1977). Furthermore, the majority’s resolution of this case under the “equity and good conscience” standard ignores the fact that the claimant did not rely on that standard before the Commission and therefore that standard is not appropriately before the Commission on this appeal.
The plaintiff, Lena Chapman, a 62-year old woman, was harassed, verbally abused, and otherwise harshly treated by her supervisor for a number of years. Chapman testified that at times her supervisor became very angry, swore at her, accused her of doing things she had not done, and even punished her for things she had not done by assigning her to work the night shift. At times the supervisor became so agitated that she had to take medication to calm herself. The plaintiff finally quit when the supervisor, in a fit of extreme rage, swore at her and acted “like a crazy woman” because plaintiff asked one of the waitresses to help her for a moment. A co-worker who was present at this incident testified on claimant’s behalf that the supervisor acted “crazy, upset, made, ... like she had lost her mind.”
The administrative law judge found that claimant’s supervisor acted irrationally, was very difficult to get along with, was moody, and was periodically given to emotional outbursts of anger during which she would swear and demean her employees.
Section 35-4-5(a) disallows unemployment benefits if “the claimant [leaves] work voluntarily without good cause.” In Denby v. Board of Review, Utah, 567 P.2d 626 (1977), we interpreted “good cause” to include situations where “external pressures [are] so compelling that a reasonably prudent person, exercising ordinary common sense and prudence, would be justified in quitting under similar circumstances.” Id. at 630 (quoting Stevenson v. Morgan, 17 Or.App. 428, 522 P.2d 1204, 1206 (1974)). This case clearly satisfies that standard. When minimum standards of civility in the work place are cast aside by supervisors, workers are not required to bear unreasonable abuse that is heaped on them.
I recognize that frictions invariably arise between workers and their supervisors and not every disagreement can justify a worker’s quitting. Surely workers must learn to tolerate some occasional abuses and injustices by supervisors or fellow workers. But a worker is not required to tolerate despotic, tyrannical, and wholly unreasonable conduct by a supervisor on a repeated basis. A worker is entitled to be treated civilly within the necessary restraints imposed by hierarchical control in the work place. More than that, the employer, not the employee, has the responsibility of assuring minimally decent conduct by the employer’s supervisors.
Jurisdictions with “good cause” provisions similar to ours have sustained the granting of unemployment compensation in similar circumstances. For example, in Associated Utility Services v. Board of Review, 131 NJ.Super. 584, 331 A.2d 39 (1974), a clerk typist was harassed, mistreated, and inappropriately scolded by her supervisor, who also frequently called her at night to “give her hell.” The court held that intentional harassment of an employee was an abnormal working condition and constituted good cause for leaving work voluntarily. See also Willet v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 59 Pa.Commw. 500, 429 A.2d 1282 (1981). See generally Annot., Unemployment Compensation: Harassment or Other Mistreatment by Employer or Supervisor as “Good Cause” Justifying Abandonment of Employment, 76 A.L.R.3d 1089 (1977).
The majority relies upon Denby v. Board of Review, supra, for the proposition that the claimant in the instant case could not show good cause for quitting because she did not first try to work the problem out *1104with her supervisor. Denby does not control this case. The 64-year-old claimant in Denby voluntarily left his job as a postal worker. He cited as one reason for quitting the requirement that he work overtime. The evidence showed, however, that the employer allowed exemptions from that requirement and that the employee never requested an exemption. In that context, the Court stated that “an employee with grievances about his employment must indicate an effort to work out the problems, unless he can demonstrate that such effort would be futile.” 567 P.2d at 630. Since Denby had not sought to work out the overtime problem with his superior, he could not demonstrate “good cause.”
The language in Denby that an employee must “indicate an effort to work out the problems” certainly cannot mean that an employee who is subjected to extreme harassment and verbal abuse by a supervisor must take up his or her grievance with that supervisor. That would no doubt only make matters worse. For the employee to go over the supervisor’s head to the next level would also likely be self-defeating and possibly jeopardize his employment. Furthermore, it is management that has the duty of monitoring and policing supervisors who engage in gross mistreatment of employees; it is hardly the responsibility of employees to restrain their supervisors. Even Denby made it explicit that there is no requirement that an employee must try to work out a problem with a supervisor if the effort would be “futile.” That is this case.1
The claimant here, a woman of advanced years, endured her supervisor’s mistreatment over a long period without complaining to the store manager. She did not complain because at times her supervisor would get better, and she didn’t want to jeopardize the supervisor’s job. Clearly it was management’s responsibility to correct the misconduct of its supervisor. To deny the claimant unemployment compensation under these circumstances is to penalize her for her patience and long-suffering. When management fails to correct a supervisor’s abusive treatment of employees, the law should not penalize the employee who finally breaks down and takes the drastic action of quitting.
In my view, the claimant, on the Commission’s own findings, had good cause for quitting and the Commission acted arbitrarily and capriciously in denying benefits.

. There is evidence that a K-Mart official testified that he would have worked the problem out had plaintiff come to her. That sounds fine after the fact, but management had the duty to solve the problem long before claimant quit.