Court Opinion

ID: 9705627
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:14:23.808879+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:13.089661
License: Public Domain

DUFRESNE, Justice
(concurring).
I concur in the result. I fully agree with the majority’s interpretation of R.S.1954, c. 29, § 15, subd. I, in so far as it rules that the involuntary character of the separation must be found within “good cause”, and that the employer’s discharge or layoff of an employee is the common-type involuntary separation contemplated by the Act.
I maintain however that disability induced by travel comes within the statutory good cause attributable to the employment, and that a voluntary quit under such circumstances should not disqualify the employee for benefits. Mere separation by the employee induced by travel without proof of factual disability to do the job does not meet the statutory prerequisites of employment attributability.
Disability, as defined by Webster, means — state of being disabled — deprivation or want of ability — absence of competent physical * * * power, means, fitness
Distance or travel is not usually a cause attributable to employment but rather is a personal inconvenience incidental to one’s employment arising from one’s choice of residence. In the instant case, the employee entered into the employment contract with knowledge of the necessary travel incidental to the employment, but so did the employer.
Distance or travel however, may, as a matter of fact and medical science, when superimposed upon the physical stresses of the employment, conjointly endanger the health of the employee and reduce the physical power, ability and fitness of the employee to do the job to such an extent that the particular job has become unsuitable and beyond the physical capacity of the employee. In other words, medical proof could probably show that the travel to and from the place of employment, together with the physical exertions of the job, make it unsuitable as a danger to the health of the employee if the employee continued in the same work, in the same way that bending or standing jobs become unsuitable because of physical degeneration.
From the record, in the instant case, no finding of disability appears, and the reason for separation is said to have been primarily due to travel and not attributable to the work. True, the claimant had claimed before the appeal referee, that the daily travel had become too much for her physically and she introduced a medical certificate to the effect that due to a previous back injury, driving 100 miles a day to work would be too strenuous.
The lower tribunal, as the fact finder, could find with support in the evidence, that the separation was no in way con*212nected with the work hut was primarily induced by the travel involved, and without a specific finding of disability to do the work, because of the travel, the findings only mean that the separation was due to personal reasons unconnected with the employment, to wit, primarily to travel, and thus must stand. For these reasons, I agree with the conclusion of the court that the appeal must be denied.