Court Opinion

ID: 9753152
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 19:01:09.397074+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:31.078307
License: Public Domain

O’Sullivan, J.
(dissenting). I take the rule of law to be that unemployment compensation legislation, being, as it is, an attack upon a recognized social and economic evil, is entitled to a liberality of con*250struetion. Derench v. Administrator, 141 Conn. 321, 324, 106 A.2d 150; Kelly v. Administrator, 136 Conn. 482, 487, 72 A.2d 54; Harris v. Egan, 135 Conn. 102, 105, 60 A.2d 922; Reger v. Administrator, 132 Conn. 647, 650, 46 A.2d 844; Waterbury Savings Bank v. Danaher, 128 Conn. 78, 82, 20 A.2d 455. In applying that rule, it is just as necessary to construe in a strict manner the statutory provisions disqualifying employees as it is to construe liberally the provisions qualifying them for benefits.
The provision upon which the defendant relied recites that “[a]n individual shall be ineligible for benefits . . . during any week with respect to which the individual has received or is about to receive remuneration in the form of... any payment by way of compensation for loss of wages.” General Statutes § 7508 (4) (a) (as amended, Cum. Sup. 1953, § 2314c). A proper construction of this provision is that the remuneration has to be allocated to a specific week if it is to disqualify.
The defendant concedes, as, indeed, frankness demands, that “the contract does not expressly allocate the vacation benefit to any specific week [and it] is also a fact that the parties at the time of its payment did not allocate it to any specific week.” It necessarily follows that, in the absence of such an allocation, there was no cause to disqualify the plaintiffs.