Court Opinion

ID: 9652149
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 17:19:19.605402+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:48.831258
License: Public Domain

CONCURRING OPINION BY
Judge PELLEGRINI.
Both the majority and Judge Friedman’s dissenting opinion discuss at length the “follow the spouse” doctrine, while, at oral argument, counsel for Joan Procito (Claimant) only argued that her domestic circumstances were such that she had a necessitous and compelling reason to quit work. The Board does not disagree with that proposition, stating that she could have been eligible for benefits under Section 402(b) of the Act, but she had not set forth evidence under any theory that would have allowed for recovery. Because I agree with the Board that she has not established that she had a right to recovery, under any theory, [including the “follow the spouse” doctrine], I concur with the majority that the Claimant is ineligible for unemployment compensation benefits.
The facts here are not in dispute. Claimant worked as a full-time financial manager for Cushman and Wakefield of Pennsylvania (Employer) making $66 per hour. Claimant resigned on July 31, 2006 to follow her domestic partner to Florida. Claimant’s domestic partner found her job in Pennsylvania to be stressful and decided to relocate to Florida to be near her adult son, who was enrolled in college but had a learning disability. Claimant testified that she resigned her position and relocated to Florida because she was not financially able to maintain two separate households in two states.
In Wallace v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 38 Pa.Cmwlth. 342, 393 A.2d 43 (1978), we struck down an absolute prohibition contained in the Unemployment Compensation Act prohibiting a claimant who voluntarily received benefits because of the marital, filial or domestic reasons, stating that:
*268Because the absolute disqualification by Section 402(b)(2)(H)1 of all unemployment compensation claimants who voluntarily terminate their employment for marital, filial or domestic reasons bears no rational relationship to a legitimate legislative purpose, it violates the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution; because it denies such claimants individualized determinations of their entitlement to a significant property right when the administrative inconvenience of providing such determinations is negligible, it violates the Due Process Clause.
393 A.2d at 47.
Once the absolute prohibition against awarding benefits for marital, filial or domestic reasons was found to be unconstitutional, unemployment benefits could be awarded to care for a child, to follow a family member or other member of a household that moved or any other domestic reason that created necessitous and compelling reasons that justified a claimant to quit his or her employment. See also Truitt v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 527 Pa. 138, 589 A.2d 208 (Pa.1991).
In Beachem v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 760 A.2d 68 (Pa.Cmwlth.2000), a case concerning whether a father who voluntarily terminated his employment in another state to return to Pennsylvania to care for his emotionally and behaviorally disturbed child was eligible for benefits. In holding that he was eligible for benefits, we set forth the standard that a claimant must meet to be eligible for benefits when he or she voluntarily left employment for domestic reasons:
A cause of a necessitous and compelling nature exists where there are circumstances that force one to terminate his employment that are real and substantial and would compel a reasonable person under those circumstances to act in the same manner. Livingston v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 702 A.2d 20 (Pa.Cmwlth.1997). As stated by the Supreme Court in Taylor v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 474 Pa. 351, 359, 378 A.2d 829, 833 (1977), quoting from the Sturdevant Unemployment Compensation Case, 158 Pa.Super. 548, 557, 45 A.2d 898, 903 (1946):
A worker’s physical and mental condition, his personal and family problems, the authoritative demand of legal duties-these are circumstances that exert pressure upon him and imperiously call for decision and action.
When therefore the pressure of real not imaginary, substantial not trifling, reasonable not whimsical, circumstances compel the decision to leave employment, the decision is voluntary in the sense that the worker has willed it, but involuntary because outward pressures have compelled it. Or to state it differently, if a worker leaves his employment when he is compelled to do so by neces*269sitous circumstances or because of legal or family obligations, his leaving is voluntary with good cause, and under the act he is entitled to benefits.
760 A.2d at 71.
In this case, there is no evidence that Claimant’s domestic situation caused her to leave her employment and relocate to Florida. All evidence indicates that her domestic partner moved to Florida to be with her son in college because she wanted to, not because they needed to. This is clearly a personal choice and not a domestic reason that constitutes a necessitous and compelling reason to justify the award of benefits. Accordingly, I concur with the majority that Claimant is ineligible for benefits.

. Section 402(b)(2)(H) stated at that time: "An employe shall be ineligible for compensation for any week ... (2) In which his or her unemployment is due to leaving work (I) to accompany or to join his or her spouse in a new locality, or (II) because of a marital, filial or other domestic obligation or circumstance, whether or not such work is in 'employment' as defined in this act: Provided, however, That the provisions of this subsection (2) shall not be applicable if the employe during a substantial part of the six months either prior to such leaving or the time of filing either an application or claim for benefits was the sole or major support of his or her family, and such work is not within a reasonable commuting distance from the new locality to which the employe has moved.” The provision was repealed in 1980.