Court Opinion

ID: 9697096
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 19:05:44.487818+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:29.065860
License: Public Domain

HUTCHINSON, Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the result. I find it unnecessary to discuss the broad remedial purposes of the statute. I also object to the citation of Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission v. Norristown Area School District, 473 Pa. 334, 374 A.2d 671 (1977), a case involving an agency’s statements of policy, in support of this agency’s regulation which interprets specific statutory language.
Section 4(x) of the Unemployment Compensation Law, Act of December 5, 1936, Second Ex.Sess., P.L. (1937) 2897, as amended, 43 P.S. § 753(x) (Supp.1986), defines wages as “all remuneration ... paid by an employer to an individual with respect to his employment____” The Unemployment Compensation Board of Review has promulgated an interpretive regulation which provides in pertinent part:
Date of payment. Wages shall be deemed to be paid on the day on which amounts definitely assignable to a payroll period are generally paid by the employer, even though the wages have not actually been reduced to the possession of employes.
34 Pa.Code § 61.3(a). This regulation is consistent with the statute.
Therefore, a straightforward application of it to the facts before us would result in appellant’s severance pay being deemed paid at the normal time, January 10, 1983. So allocating the severance pay to the quarter within which it would have been normally paid brings appellant within the financial eligibility criteria of the act. This result is fully consistent with the language of Section 4(x) of the statute, the regulation interpreting it and the policy criteria for financial eligibility, that only those who demonstrate an attachment to the work force should receive unemployment compensation benefits.
FLAHERTY and ZAPPALA, JJ., join in this opinion.