Court Opinion

ID: 9792617
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:31:48.839558+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:43.931714
License: Public Domain

HALL, Chief Justice
(dissenting):
I do not join the Court’s opinion because I view the claimant’s letter to his employer as a voluntary resignation without good cause. As such, the letter rendered the claimant ineligible for statutory unemployment benefits.
The primary issue in this case was appropriately identified by the claimant as follows:
When an employee submits a letter of resignation to be effective at some future date and the employer terminates the employment relationship prior to that date, should the claimant be disqualified from receiving unemployment benefits subsequent to the date he stated would be his last day of work in his letter of resignation?
Although this issue has not heretofore been directly addressed by the Court, it is readily resolved by applying basic principles of statutory interpretation.1 The main opinion sets forth these principles in an analytical scheme; the first being that the Court’s *448primary responsibility in construing legislative enactments is to give effect to the underlying legislative intent. Next, the Court should apply the statute in accord with its literal and ordinary wording, unless the ordinary meaning of its terms would result in a contradiction to the purpose of the statute.
Notwithstanding the main opinion’s acknowledgment of these principles, it fails to apply them. The Court’s fundamental duty to consider and give effect to legislative intent is expressly recognized, yet in its effort to interpret the ordinary meaning of the statutory terms, the main opinion virtually disregards the underlying legislative intent thereof. Consequently, the determination made as to the ordinary meaning of the statute is inconsistent with its legislative purpose.
This Court has previously articulated the underlying legislative purpose for this particular enactment (Employment Security Act) as follows:
The Employment Security Act was designed to ease the burdens of unemployment and multifarious evils which ramify from it. Its primary purpose is to assist the worker and his family in times when, without fault on his part, he is out of work.2 [Emphasis added.]
Clearly, the legislature’s intent was to provide benefits to the unemployed, but to restrict those benefits to a class of workers who become unemployed by no fault of their own. Any application of the statute, or interpretation of the ordinary meaning of its terms, should be consistent and reconcilable with this underlying purpose. Although the act should be liberally construed, it does not follow that it should be construed unrealistically or unreasonably, and certainly not so liberally construed so as to defeat the very purpose of the act.
The only variable the main opinion considers in reaching the conclusion that the claimant is eligible for benefits is the “proximate cause” of claimant’s leaving work on November 26. The opinion disregards his manifested intent to leave voluntarily on December 10, as well as the fact that it was his action in writing the letter of resignation that set in motion the events which resulted in his unemployment. Because he was responsible for his unemployed status, at least beyond the December 10 date, he was not “without fault,” and therefore making claimant eligible for benefits is irreconcilable with the legislative purpose of the statute.
The main opinion relies upon Rule 135.4 of the Industrial Commission’s General Rules of Adjudication in support of its position, yet it acknowledges that this Court is not bound by such rules. Especially is this so when they are out of harmony with the purpose of a statute, as well as inconsistent with predominant judicial policies.3
The main opinion, as well as Rule 135.4, is contrary to prevailing judicial attitudes concerning this same issue. Courts in other states which have addressed this issue have held that the claimant who has submitted a letter of resignation is ineligible for benefits subsequent to the date he or she designates therein as the effective date of termination. Several such cases were cited by the claimant in his brief and an effort was made to somehow distinguish them. However, the cases are not distinguishable, but are indeed contrary to claimant’s position.
Although the rulings of the courts of our sister states are not binding on this Court, a judicial opinion which is based on substantially similar facts and statutes certainly demands a higher degree of consideration than a commission regulation. Judicial opinions are inherently more reliable and credible due to the process whereby they are created and adopted. The general rule regarding statutory construction by foreign courts of the same or similar statutory language is found at 73 Am.Jur.2d Statutes 166, p. 370 as follows:
*449It is a general rule of law that, where a question of statutory construction is one of novel impression, it is proper to resort to decisions of courts of other states construing statutory language which is identical or of similar import [citing cases]. Indeed, it is highly desirable that a statute be given a similar interpretation by the courts of the several states wherein it is in force.
The issue presented in this case was decided in the case of Amado v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 177 Pa.Supra. 506, 110 A.2d 807 (1955). In that case, the employee gave notice of his resignation to be effective on March 31. That resignation date was accelerated by the employer to March 6, and the employee sought unemployment compensation for the weeks subsequent to the accelerated date and beyond the effective date of resignation. As to the period subsequent to the effective date of resignation, the court held:
It brings into the unemployment compensation law the principles and theory of legal causation. And by applying these principles to the instant facts we can come to no other conclusion than that the claimant’s voluntary resignation was the cause of his unemployment after March 31. Barring this volitional act on the claimant’s part he would have had continuing employment for an indefinite period.
Id. 110 A.2d at 808.
In Amado, the court not only acknowledged the importance of the legislative intent variable, they applied it. Their decision, unlike that of the Court in this case, illustrates a consistency between underlying legislative intent and the ordinary and literal meaning of the relevant statute.
We cannot subscribe to the theory that once the employer elected to discharge him the claimant must be deemed eligible irrespective of causative factors. This act is for the “benefit of persons unemployed through no fault of their own.” How can we realistically say that this claimant’s unemployment after March 31 was “through no fault of his own?” The claimant himself set in motion a chain of circumstances leading to his separation and resultant unemployment and he must bear the onus therefor.

Id.

As claimant himself points out, this reasoning is followed, not by Pennsylvania alone, but by many other states.4 He also, however, refers to three specific cases whose decisions purportedly run consistent with the main opinion and Rule 135.4.5 A closer reading of these cases reveals that they are not supportive of that position; in fact, they are contrary thereto. Each of these three cases involves facts in which the claimant did not officially resign nor give an effective date of resignation. Because there was no definite date of intended voluntary termination, the discharge by the employer in each case constituted an involuntary discharge, making the claimant eligible for unemployment benefits. Although these cases do not discuss what the result would have been if a definite date of resignation had been given by the employee, they do emphasize the fact that their decision is based on the indefiniteness of the employee’s intent to quit. The Massachusetts court illustrated this in the following language:
At the time the claimant was told to leave by the foreman he did not know when, if ever, he would be leaving for the new job and apparently would have continued in uninterrupted employment except for the fact that his foreman became irritated and terminated his employment then and there.6
Although the main opinion does not delve into the question of the validity of the claimant’s resignation, this issue was argued strongly by the parties in their briefs and should be addressed by this Court. The *450claimant submitted a letter of resignation to his employer which indicated his intention to voluntarily terminate his employment on December 10, 1980. The precise wording of his resignation was:
As it stands, the decision for not accepting me to the position I feel is extreemly [sic] unfair, and if it is maintained, then please accept this as my letter of resignation and advance notice that my last day will be December 10, 1980. [Emphasis added.]
The only condition to that voluntary resignation was that the employer maintain his decision regarding a certain promotion. That condition was satisfied and the resignation became final upon the immediate issuance by the employer of the letter accepting the resignation.
I would therefore hold that Rule 135.4 does not comport with the purpose of the Employment Security Act, and that the board’s decision in reliance thereon should be reversed.

. U.C.A., 1953, § 35-4-5.

. Kennecott Copper Corp. Employees v. Department of Employment Security, 13 Utah 2d 262, 372 P.2d 987 (1962).

. Rule 135.4 reads in pertinent part: “When a worker submits his/her resignation to be effective at some definite future date but is discharged prior thereto, the leaving is usually not considered voluntary.”

.See Susan M. Ennis v. Employment Division, 37 Or.App. 281, 587 P.2d 102 (1978); Guy Gannett Publishing Co. v. Maine Employment Security Commission, Me., 317 A.2d 183 (1974).

. (CCH, Mass. ¶ 8219.17); (CCH, Miss. ¶ 8154); (CCH, Wis. ¶ 8969).

. (CCH, Mass. ¶ 8219.17).