Court Opinion

ID: 9476730
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:03:39.940031+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:28.511667
License: Public Domain

WEIS, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I concur with the result reached by the majority, except with respect to denial of Delaware’s request for the set-off of unemployment compensation benefits that Gelof had received. As the majority explains, the state reimburses its fund, dollar-for-dollar, for the benefits paid to state employees. In effect Delaware transfers funds from one pocket to another, and realistically makes direct payments to its former employees. The case, therefore, is quite unlike Craig v.Y&Y Snacks, Inc., 721 F.2d 77 (3d Cir.1983) where the state paid benefits on behalf of a private employer.
In Craig the court conceded that the issue of set-off for unemployment benefits “is extremely close and one over which reasonable persons could differ.” 721 F.2d at 82. In concluding that no set-off should be allowed, the court said, “[ujnemployment compensation most clearly resembles a collateral benefit which is ordinarily not deducted from a plaintiff’s recovery.” Id. at 83. Significantly, the court then made the point that, “[ujnder the collateral benefit rule, payment which a plaintiff receives for his or her loss from another source is not credited against the defendant’s liability for all damages resulting from its wrongful or negligent act.” Id. at 83. The Craig court relied on NLRB v. Gullet Gin Co., 340 U.S. 361, 71 S.Ct. 337, 95 L.Ed. 337 (1951), in which the Supreme Court had denied a set-off and observed that payments of unemployment compensation were not made by the employer but by a third party, the state in that instance.
The case before us is more analogous to Dillon v. Coles, 746 F.2d 998 (3d Cir.1984), where the state had paid unemployment benefits to its former employee. We allowed a set-off, citing the recoupment provisions of the Pennsylvania statute. Bécause that basis of decision readily distinguished Craig, discussion of the collateral source rule was unnecessary. The majority gives Dillon v. Coles an unduly narrow reading by emphasizing the recoupment provision.
The facts here are clear enough. Delaware has paid, through unemployment benefits, part of the wages that plaintiff lost as a result of her unlawful discharge. By denial of a set-off, the state must now pay these same losses again. General principles of damage calculations are not vitiated by the absence of specific statutory provisions. The plaintiff is entitled to be made whole, but double payment is a windfall to her and an unwarranted penalty on the state. Particularly when the taxpayer’s money subsidizes the windfall, the court should not condone such a result.