Court Opinion

ID: 9585777
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:03:45.362896+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:24:14.421889
License: Public Domain

*218Justice MEYER,
dissenting.
I am unable to agree with the majority’s statement that “[t]he employer has the burden to show that the claimant is disqualified from recovering benefits.” The statement comes from Intercraft Industries Corp. v. Morrison, 305 N.C. 373, 376, 289 S.E. 2d 357, 359 (1982), a 4 to 3 opinion which cites as its authority a 1954 decision in the Pennsylvania intermediate court of appeals, Kelleher Unempl. Compensation Case, 175 Pa. Super. 261, 104 A. 2d 171 (1954). The same Pennsylvania court, in a case decided subsequently, seriously criticized the decision in Kelleher and in fact held that “[t]here is no burden upon the employer to establish ineligibility.” Gagliardi Unempl. Compensation Case, 186 Pa. Super. 142, 153, 141 A. 2d 410, 416 (1958). The court explained in Gagliardi the intent of its earlier language in Kelleher:
In Kelleher Unemployment Compensation Case, it was said that the burden is upon the employer to show circumstances which would bring a claimant under the condemnation of the disqualifying provisions of the Unemployment Compensation Act. This is true only in the sense that without evidence to the contrary, it is to be assumed that the disqualifying provisions are not applicable. There is no burden upon the employer to establish ineligibility.
Id. (citation omitted).
In another case decided by the same court in the same year, the court said:
[Claimant] argues that the employer has the burden of rebutting the presumption that the employe is entitled to benefits, relying on Kelleher Unemployment Compensation Case, 175 Pa. Superior Ct. 261, 104 A. 2d 171. However, that case was criticized in Gagliardi Unemployment Compensation Case, 186 Pa. Superior Ct. 142, 143 A. 2d 410, wherein Judge Wood-side said: “There is no burden on the employer to establish ineligibility”. Rather, it is the duty of the unemployment compensation authorities to fairly develop all the relevant facts.
Davis Unempl. Compensation Case, 187 Pa. Super. 116, 118, 144 A. 2d 452, 454 (1958) (citation omitted).
*219The Pennsylvania Superior Court which decided this case apparently no longer hears appeals in unemployment compensation cases, and the appellate jurisdiction in such cases has been transferred to the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania. Several cases more recently decided by the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania are instructive. In Lee v. Unempl. Comp. Bd. of Review, 42 Pa. Commw. 461, 401 A. 2d 12 (1979), the claimant was held to have voluntarily quit her job when she did not return to work after the employer relocated its plant a distance of eleven miles (the same distance as in the case at bar). In McCann v. Unempl. Comp. Bd. of Review, 35 Pa. Commw. 628, 386 A. 2d 1086 (1978), the court affirmed a decision disqualifying a claimant who was held to have voluntarily quit his job rather than commute thirty-six miles to a new job site after the employer relocated.
A few decisions by our Court of Appeals have held, as does the majority in this case, that the burden is on the employer to show that the claimant is disqualified to recover benefits. See, e.g., McGaha v. Nancy’s Styling Salon, 90 N.C. App. 214, 368 S.E. 2d 49, disc. rev. denied, 323 N.C. 174, 373 S.E. 2d 110 (1988); Umstead v. Employment Security Commission, 75 N.C. App. 538, 331 S.E. 2d 218, disc. rev. denied, 314 N.C. 675, 336 S.E. 2d 853 (1985).
In my opinion, there is no burden on the employer to prove that an employee is disqualified to receive benefits, nor should there be. It makes little sense to cast the burden on the employer to prove a negative. The burden should be upon the party who is in the best position to prove the matter in question. Here, it is the claimant who can best prove the crucial fact, not yet established in this case, that transportation to the new plant site is, in a practical sense, unavailable to her. It is impractical to place upon the employer the burden of showing, for instance, what efforts the claimant has made to find someone else with whom to ride; or that the claimant does not have, and is practically unable to obtain, the financial resources to pay someone to take her back and forth to work; or that she cannot buy a car; or that she cannot obtain a driver’s license.
It is only infrequently that justice tolerates an uneven playing field for parties to a legal controversy. A rule which tilts the scales in favor of either the claimant or the employer was never *220intended by our legislature when it enacted the Unemployment Compensation Act. The fairer and therefore better rule was enunciated by the Pennsylvania court in Gagliardi Unempl. Compensation Case, 186 Pa. Super. 142, 153, 141 A. 2d 410, 416, as follows:
It is the duty of the employer and the employe to present the relevant facts to the unemployment compensation officials truthfully and accurately, and then it is for those officials to determine the eligibility of the claimant. It is the duty of the board to develop all the relevant facts, regardless of whether or not such facts are presented voluntarily by the claimant and the employer ....
Such should be the rule in this state, and this Court should announce it to be so.
Neither before the Appeals Referee nor the Commission did the claimant argue that she had quit her job involuntarily (the basis upon which the majority has decided the case). Instead, claimant argued that she quit work with good cause attributable to the employer. The focus of the hearing in this case seems to have been whether alternative transportation to the new work place was reasonably available to the claimant. The facts established at the hearing before the Commission do not permit the claimant to recover under the facts of this case. The Commission made no finding on the crucial question of whether transportation was unavailable to the claimant. This is not at all surprising, as it has not been established, for instance, that the claimant has made reasonable efforts to find another ride, that claimant is unable to hire her brother-in-law (or someone else) to drive her to and from the new plant location, that she is unable to obtain a driver’s license, or that she cannot buy a car. The failure to establish such facts means that, at least at this point, it has not been established that the claimant is unable, in a practical sense, to reasonably continue her work at the new work place, which is only eleven more miles distant than the old work place.
I vote to affirm the Court of Appeals. As an alternative, I would remand this case to the Commission to the end that it make proper findings as to whether other means of transportation either were or were not reasonably available to the claimant.
Justice Mitchell joins in this dissenting opinion.