Court Opinion

ID: 9782630
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 19:00:37.751552+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:35:06.731790
License: Public Domain

KIRSCH, Judge,
dissenting.
The purpose of statutory construction is, indeed, to give effect to the intent of the legislature. Here, the legislative intent is clear and provides guidance for our decision. Section 1 of the Unemployment Compensation Act states:
As a guide to the interpretation and application of this article, the public policy of this state is declared to be as follows: Economic insecurity due to unemployment is declared hereby to be a serious menace to the health, morale, and welfare of the people of this state and to the maintenance of public order within this state. Protection against this great hazard of our economic life can be provided in some measure by the required and systematic accumulation of funds during periods of employment to provide benefits to the unemployed during periods of unemployment and by encouragement of desirable stable employment. The enactment of this article to provide for payment of benefits to persons unemployed through no fault of their own, ... is, therefore, essential to public welfare; and the same is declared to be a proper exercise of the police powers of the state.
Ind.Code § 22-4-1-1.
I believe that my colleagues’ decision to deny unemployment compensation benefits to the claimants in this case contravenes this explicit directive, and for such reason, I respectfully dissent.
The Great Recession has had a catastrophic effect on this country and this state. Few, if any, industries were harder hit than automotive manufacturing, and the thousands of workers affected are unemployed through no fault of their own. There is no evidence in the record before us that any Chrysler worker bundled mortgages having no value, speculated with other peoples’ money in derivative securities that they did not understand, rated such worthless investments as secure, insured such investments without quantifying the risk or otherwise were responsible for throwing the economic security of the country and the world into jeopardy. The claimants were just welders and finishers and line workers whose world came crashing down around them.
To say that the workers who accepted EVTEP retired for personal reasons is to ignore economic reality. This economic reality was marked by layoffs and plant closings across our state and our country. Those layoffs and plant closings drove the decision of the claimants in this case to accept EVTEP. In this economic reality, Chrysler did not have to say that EVTEP was offered to lessen or avert a layoff or plant closing. Such fact was obvious to all. EVTEP was not offered by Chrysler because its financial prospects were good. To the contrary, EVTEP was offered by Chrysler to its workers because those prospects were dire.
The Review Board of the Indiana Department of Workforce Development concluded that the claimants accepted EV-TEP as an offer of payment to avert or lessen the effect of a layoff or plant closure and that they otherwise met the eligibility requirements of the Act. I would defer to the Board and its expertise in employment matters and affirm its decision in all respects.