Court Opinion

ID: 9684747
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 14:10:16.426366+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:59.282658
License: Public Domain

Tom Glaze, Judge. This is an Employment Security case in which the Board of Review found the claimant voluntarily quit his job without making reasonable efforts to preserve his job rights. The Board’s decision reversed the Appeal Tribunal which found that claimant quit work because of a personal emergency. The Board’s decision was based primarily upon an affidavit submitted to it by the employer, who had failed to appear before the Appeal Tribunal. In reversing the Tribunal, the Board found considerable discrepancy in the claimant’s testimony and the employer’s affidavit, and it determined that the more “credible evidence” was weighted on the side of the employer. We reverse and remand consistent with the Supreme Court’s recent holding in Smith v. Everett, 276 Ark. 430, 637 S.W.2d 537 (1982). In Smith, the Supreme Court, citing Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U.S. 254 (1970), applied the following rule to the State’s award of unemployment benefits: [B]efore state granted benefits . . . can be taken away claimant must be given an opportunity to confront and cross-examine adverse witnesses at an evidentiary hearing. The Arkansas Supreme Court held in Smith that the claimant had no opportunity to subpoena or cross-examine adverse witnesses either before the Appeal Tribunal or the Board of Review. The Court reversed and remanded with directions to permit Leardis Smith the opportunity to confront his adverse witnesses under the rule announced in Goldberg v. Kelly. A similar situation exists here and the same disposition as taken in Smith is required. The factual question here is whether the claimant made any attempt to preserve his job rights before he quit. At the Appeal Tribunal hearing, claimant testified that his wife had been shot, and pursuant to a doctor’s instructions, he needed to be with her. Additionally, the couple had an infant, and claimant had to care for the child, claimant testified that he had repeatedly told his boss (and boss’s son) that, because his job took him away from home overnight, claimant needed either to work in his home town or to be allowed to take his family with him. Claimant said that on November 9, 1981, he gave notice to his employer that he would have to quit unless arrangements could be made allowing him to be at home at night. The employer failed to appear at the Appeal Tribunal hearing and the Tribunal awarded claimant benefits. After the employer appealed the Tribunal’s decision, the Board of Review notified both the employer and claimant that another hearing would not be held but that each of them could submit an affidavit or other documentary evidence. The employer submitted an affidavit which indicated he had no notice that claimant was dissatisfied or had any intentions to quit. Based upon this affidavit, the Board held against the claimant, finding that claimant did not preserve his job rights because he failed to notify his employer that a personal emergency existed. Through no fault of his own, the claimant has never had the opportunity to cross-examine the employer. As the Arkansas Supreme Court announced in Smith v. Everett, the claimant must be afforded that opportunity as well as the right to subpoena and cross-examine other adverse witnesses whose names may have surfaced as the result of the employer’s belated affidavit. This cause is remanded to the Board with directions that a hearing be conducted consistent with this opinion and pursuant to the applicable procedures set forth in Ark. Stat. Ann. § 81-1107 (d) (3) (Repl. 1976). As a part of this decision, we further hold that the Board does not have the jurisdiction to accept additional evidence in appeals pending before it. See Brown Jordan v. Dukes, 269 Ark. 581, 583, 600 S.W.2d 21 (Ark. App. 1980); and Brewer v. Everett, 3 Ark. App. 59, 21 S.W.2d 883 (1981). Remanded.