Court Opinion

ID: 9759044
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 00:01:15.429482+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:58.477871
License: Public Domain

NIX, Chief Justice,
concurring.
I join the majority opinion, and write in response to certain assertions that appear in the dissenting opinion by Mr. Justice Larsen. Justice Larsen concedes that, by force of this Court’s decision in Barclay White Co. v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 356 Pa. 43, 50 A.2d 336, cert. denied, 332 U.S. 761, 68 S.Ct. 63, 92 L.Ed. 347 (1947), section 3 of the Unemployment Compensation Law1 *53provides an independent substantive basis, in addition to those set forth in section 402,2 for the denial of benefits to an otherwise qualified claimant. Nevertheless, the dissent argues that we should read section 3 as being coextensive in meaning with the concept of “willful misconduct” under section 402(e). His premise that section 402(e) requires a greater degree of culpability than has been shown in the instant case is irrelevant since section 3 provides a distinct and separate ground of ineligibility. Indeed, as this Court observed in Department of Labor and Industry v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 418 Pa. 471, 211 A.2d 463 (1965), section 3 is the “keystone upon which the entire Act rests.”
As the majority opinion points out, section 3 of the Unemployment Compensation Law expresses the legislature’s intention of providing employees with “[sjecurity against unemployment ... during periods when they become unemployed through no fault of their own.” Having concluded that this section provides an independent basis for the denial of benefits, we are left merely with determining whether the claimant’s unemployment in this case was the result of her fault, be it negligent or deliberate. Given the record before us, it is clear that she failed to meet an obligation her employer had every right to require; and thus, she must be charged with fault.

. Act of December 5, 1936, Second Ex.Sess., P.L. (1937) 2897, 43 P.S. § 752.

. 43 P.S. § 802