Court Opinion

ID: 9754890
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 20:17:37.774868+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:00.390981
License: Public Domain

Terry Crabtree, Judge, concurring. At issue in this appeal ge, newly-enacted provision of Ark. Code Ann. § 11-10-513 that allows unemployment compensation benefits to an individual who quits his job when he has “voluntarily participated in a permanent reduction in the employer’s work force after the employer announced a pending reduction in its work force and asked for volunteers.” Ark. Code Ann. § 9-10-513(c)(1) (Supp. 2003). I am in full agreement with Judge Roaf s application of the statute, as it is written, to the facts of this case and the holding that the Board’s decision is supported by substantial evidence. I write separately only to express my concern about benefits being awarded to someone in this claimant’s position. The policy objectives of employment security law are to “lighten [the] burden which may fall with crushing force upon the unemployed worker and his or her family” and to provide benefits for “persons unemployed through no fault of their own.” Ark. Code Ann. § 11-10-102(1) & (3) (Repl. 2002). The statute under consideration, as applied here, does not comport with these laudable goals. In accepting the VSP, the claimant received a severance payment of $46,700, a lump-sum pension payment of $244,000, and $4,000 for unused vacation time. Now in addition, the statute permits him to receive unemployment compensation, even though his voluntary separation from work caused no undue hardship. Not every person who participates in a qualifying voluntary layoff will be fortunate enough to receive a lucrative severance package, and thus the statute serves to protect those deserving individuals in their time of need. However, it strikes me as obscene for unemployment benefits to be awarded someone who received almost $295,000 for quitting his job. Although it is for legislators, not judges, to write the laws, this case demonstrates that perhaps the statute sweeps too broadly to benefit persons who are not financially burdened by a voluntary layoff.