Court Opinion

ID: 9542962
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:40:43.630395+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:09:22.474177
License: Public Domain

DeBRULER, Justice,
dissenting.
With reasonable effort the trial court below, given an opportunity to do so, could determine the form and effect of the administrative practices utilized by the Employment Security Division at the deputy level in making determinations of eligibility and disqualifications in disputed cases. The record before us presently is somewhat hazy in this regard. Certainly the statute, Ind. Code § 22-4-17-2(d) and (e) quoted in part in the majority opinion is a primary determinant of the practices, but it is equally apparent that Division itself has made some law which guides these practices.
From the standpoint that our determination upon the issue of whether these administrative practices satisfy basic constitutional requirements has the potential of affecting vital interests of many, many individuals and the public interest being served by this substantial agency of state government, and in light of our conclusion that the trial court had jurisdiction to hear this case, contrary to the position taken by that court when it dismissed the suit, this case should be remanded to that court for trial. Such a result would be fair to Ms. Wilson and the Division, and would in all likelihood provide a better definition of the practices followed in Ms. Wilson’s claim and claims similar to it. Such a defining process could, in addition to providing this Gourt with a complete record, conceivably and in and of itself result in the adoption by the agency of revised rules governing the practice before it, or in the claimant becoming satisfied that she had been treated in accordance with due process, in either of which eventualities a constitutional adjudication by this Court would then become unnecessary. However, the majority calls for a resolution of the merits of Wilson’s due process claim on the record presented. As presented the administrative practices employed by the Division at the deputy level for resolving claims in which eligibility or disqualification to receive weekly benefits are present and disputed, do not satisfy basic constitutional requirements of due process and due course of law. An essential attribute thereof is absent from the process by which the deputy arrives at his determination and it is that no requirement is imposed upon the deputy to weigh any answer given by the claimant to the charges of the employer contained in the Form 501 in the course of making a determination of ineligibility or disqualification. The answer may be only a statement of the claimant or a friend who has accompanied the claimant to the office to file a weekly claim; it may only be a doctor’s excuse or a prescription for medicine; it may only be a newspaper article regarding working conditions; it may be an offer by the claimant for the deputy to view a cast on the claimant’s arm or a receipt for automobile repairs. But a judicial-like consideration of just such responses by the initial decision maker is, in my judgment and in the judgment of the courts which decided the cases of Torres v. New York State Dept. of Labor, (S.D.N.Y.1971) 333 F.Supp. 341; Steinberg v. Fusari, (D.Conn. *4471973) 364 F.Supp. 922; and Steinberg v. Fusari, (1975) 419 U.S. 379, 95 S.Ct. 533, 42 L.Ed.2d 521, an essential part of a fair process by which an adjudication can be made that a person, unemployed without fault, has become disqualified to receive unemployment benefits.