Court Opinion

ID: 9675280
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:47:59.051999+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:33.117366
License: Public Domain

DISSENTING OPINION
SHARPE, Justice.
I respectfully dissent. Although J. L. Redd is a party to this suit and appeal, reference will be made herein only to appellant Stella M. Redd, his wife, since she is the former employee here involved.
I agree that appellant’s first and second points should be sustained and that we need not pass upon the merits of her third point. I approve the discussion of these points in the opinion of Chief Justice Green. However, I am of the opinion that appellant’s fourth and fifth points should also be sustained and that the judgment of the lower court, based on the findings and decision of appellee Texas Employment Commission, should be reversed.
Appellant’s points four and five read as follows:
“IV
There is no substantial evidence on the record as a whole that appellant was not available for work during the period from her dismissal through the period of her potential eligibility.
V
The Commission’s determination, sustained by the trial court, that appellant was not available for work and thus ineligible for unemployment compensation is as a matter of law erroneous.”
On the record before us I am unwilling to find that there was substantial evidence reasonably sufficient to support the determination of the Commission that appellant was not available for work and therefore ineligible for unemployment compensation. I would hold that appellant has carried her burden in such respects and that the said determination of the Commission should be set aside. It is difficult to understand what more could have been done by Mrs. Redd to make herself available for work or to demonstrate in the hearings below that she had done so. Although she was duly registered for work and had regularly reported the office of the Commission, she was never referred to any employment by it and when she sought work independently after the first Commission decision warned her to push her search for employment, she was rejected, or at least was not accepted.
Only two Texas cases have been cited to us in connection with the question of availability for work. These are Texas Em*27ployment Commission v. Hays, 360 S.W.2d 525 (Tex.Sup., 1962), reversing 353 S.W.2d 924, and Keen v. Texas Unemployment Compensation Commission, 148 S.W.2d 211 (Tex.Civ.App., Galveston, 1941, n. w. h.). In Hays, our Supreme Court briefly discussed Keen, but held that it had no occasion to approve or disapprove the holding therein made.
In Texas Employment Commission v. Hays, supra, our Supreme Court held in part as follows:
“Ineligibility is to be distinguished from disqualification, although the two may sometimes seem to overlap. 30 Texas Law Review 735, 740-743. Disqualifications are provided in Article 5221b-3. An applicant may meet all requirements of eligibility for benefits but be disqualified from receiving them for a stated period for any of the reasons set out in Article 5221b — 3. One disqualification is that the applicant ‘has failed, without good cause, either to apply for available, suitable work when so directed by the Commission or to accept suitable work when offered him * * It is this disqualification which seems to overlap ineligibility. An applicant is ineligible for benefits when, for personal reasons, he initially lays such restrictions on his availability for suitable work as effectively to detach himself from the labor market of the community. If no such restrictions are laid initially, the applicant may later become disqualified for benefits, or continuing benefits, by refusing, for the same reasons, to apply for, when directed, or to accept suitable work. Courts have been inclined to refer to an applicant who is denied benefits in either of the two instances as not being ‘available for work.’
The phrase, ‘available for work,’ obviously is ambiguous. It is not defined in the Unemployment Compensation Act. Any effort to define it in language covering every conceivable fact situation would require such generalities as to leave the definition less certain in meaning than the phrase itself. It is usually said to mean ‘willing, able, and ready to accept suitable work.’ See 55 Yale Law Journal 124; 30 Texas Law Review 735-740. It is also generally recognized that to be available for work an applicant ‘must be genuinely attached to the labor market.’ Ibid.”
In 30 Texas Law Review 735, 744, Comment, “Available for Work” Criterion for Payment of Unemployment Compensation by Gordon Griffin, Jr. (referred to in Hays) it is said:
“The meaning of ‘available for work’ is not subject to exact definition but each case is and should be considered in the light of its own facts. Only in this way can there be any assurance that only the justifiably unemployed receive compensation. Determination of the meaning of ‘available for work’ is made difficult because facts also bearing on disqualification, ability to work, and unemployment must be considered to determine when a person is available for work. In particular, difficulty is encountered because the Commission determines the question of disqualification even when it has found a claimant unavailable. The reason for such a determination is valid, but there is a danger that in making these determinations one may be misled into a finding of unavailability on facts that are grounds for disqualification only. If the concept of availability and disqualification can be visualized as two large circles that in part overlap, this difficulty and danger may be more easily seen. Within one circle are the facts indicating availability, and within the other are the facts indicating disqualification. In the area where the two circles overlap are the facts that evidence both availability and disqualification. Clearly within this area are such facts as refusal of a job referral. That fact not only may indicate a disqualification under Section 5 (c) of the Act, but may also indicate that a claimant is not actually available (either not willing or not ready *28to work). It is in this area that consideration must be made of facts that may evidence disqualification in order to decide the question of availability. But when the facts lie within the area occupied exclusively by disqualifications, there is danger in considering them until a claimant has been determined available for work. The fact that a claimant has voluntarily left his last work without good cause connected with his work, a disqualification under Section 5(a), should he within the exclusive area of disqualification, yet apparently because disqualifications have so long been considered at the same time as eligibility this fact has been placed in either the overlap area or perhaps even in the area occupied exclusively by availability. The danger is that in other situations facts that belong in the exclusive area of disqualification will be placed in the overlap area or made a specific test for avail- . ability as was done in the cases of students who quit work to enter school.
In general, the Texas Employment Commission seems properly to limit benefits to those claimants who are a part of the labor force, but if in so doing they merge the meaning of availability with disqualification, they will have disregarded the apparent meaning of the Act that eligibility and disqualification serve different purposes and have different meanings.”
The Commission, in adopting the findings and conclusions of its appeals tribunal, found in part that Mrs. Redd was physically able to work and that she was available to work, but, nevertheless, ruled her to be unavailable and therefore ineligible for benefits under Article 5221b-2(d), V.A.C.S. All members of this Court have agreed that the Commission erroneously concluded that Mrs. Redd was disqualified under Article 5221b-3(a), V.A.C.S. In my view the erroneous conclusion of the Commission concerning disqualification led to its erroneous conclusion concerning ineligibility and tainted the entire determination. The only explanation I can find for the ambiguities in the findings and conclusions of the commission with respect to “unavailability” is that the Commission was not really addressing itself to “unavailability” and treated Mrs. Redd as “unavailable” because she had allegedly detached herself from the labor market due to the compulsory retirement policy of her employer. The record reflects that the six weeks disqualification imposed under Article 5221b-3(a) had expired on September 21, 1965 when the Commission decided the case on rehearing, but the Commission, nevertheless, adopted its entire decision of August 4, 1965, just as though such disqualification had not run out. I believe that the above-quoted excerpt from 30 Texas Law Review, 735, 744 is applicable here, and particularly the last paragraph thereof. In my view the Commission erred in holding that Mrs. Redd was not available for work and therefore “ineligible” for compensation under Article 5221b-2(d). I would sustain appellant’s points four and five which complain of such action.
I further believe it should be pointed out that we are not here dealing with a disqualification under Article 5221b-3(c) which reads as follows:
“If the Commission finds that during his current benefit year he has failed, without good cause, either to apply for available, suitable work when so directed by the Commission or to accept suitable work when offered him, or to return to his customary self-employment (if any) when so directed by the Commission. Such disqualification shall be for not less than one (1) nor more than thirteen (13) benefit periods following the failure, as described above to apply for or accept suitable work, the degree of disqualification to be determined by the Commission according to the circumstances in each case.”
The disqualification provided by that section does not apply unless an applicant fails to act when directed by the Commission to apply for suitable work or to accept it or to return to customary self-employ-*29tnent. The Commission did not direct appellant to do any of these things in this case. She did not limit her availability for work and complied with all procedural requirements to entitle her to benefits.
In my view the judgment of the trial court should be reversed. I am unable to find a basis for rendition of the judgment, and the question has not been briefed. I would therefore reverse and remand the case to the trial coutt.