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  1. #1
    Join Date
    May 2010
    Posts
    20

    Exclamation UI Denied

    My question involves unemployment benefits for the state of: California

    I have a couple of questions regarding winning an appeal with EDD after being denied UI benefits.

    In March I quit my job for health reasons, on the advice of my physician. There were several circumstances which contributed to the decision that leaving my job was the only reasonable solution for me, and after filing I promptly had a phone interview with EDD. The interviewer was much nicer than 99% of the people I have dealt with at EDD, however less than a week later I received a letter from them saying they denied my claim because:

    “You quit your last job with ********** Corp. because of health reasons. You did not request lighter work or explore all reasonable solutions before you quit. After considering available information, the department finds that you do not meet the legal requirements for payment of benefits.”

    As I read further down the letter it gave examples of what EDD considers "reasonable solutions":

    “Title 22, Section 1256-3(c) provides:
    Prior to leaving work the claimant has a duty to attempt to preserve the employment relationship. Failure to do so negates what would otherwise constitute good cause.
    This duty may be satisfied by reasonable steps, including, but not limited to, any of the following:
    1. Seeking an adjustment of the problem by allowing the employer an opportunity to remedy the situation if the employer can reasonably do so.
    2. Seeking a leave of absence or transfer to other employment with the same employer if likely to remedy the problem and if the claimant knew or should have known that a leave or a transfer probably would have been granted had one been requested.
    3. Taking steps within his or her own control, such as hiring a sitter for child care to solve a child care problem, or joining a car pool or repairing an automobile or purchasing a replacement vehicle to solve a transportation problem.”


    The problem I have with their argument is that prior to my leaving, I did all of those things! Infact, when talking to the EDD interviewer, I mentioned them as reasons for leaving, but I guess they did not listen?... In fact, during my interview they did not ask me one single question whatsoever about whether or not I tried to make any accomodations to preserve my employment. At the end, I asked specifically if there were any other questions they needed to ask me in order to make a determination, and she replied "No.".

    One of the main factors that lead to my leaving was the fact that I was being harrassed by my manager. I filed a claim with HR and instead of dealing with it, they told me I must first go to my manager's boss. I did, and was told that unfortunately there was no room on the other team in our office, so I could not be moved to another manager.

    Then my company closed our local office in South Orange County, and forced all employees from our location to commute to another office in North Orange County. This added more than 60 miles to my daily commute, and took more than an hour out of my working day. I went to management and discussed this with them, asking them to either change my territory (I was an outside sales rep) so that I would not be commutting as far and losing so much working time, or to allow me to only commute to this new office for required meetings. I was told no on both accounts - there were no open territories, so they couldnt give me a closer one, and they said that if they allowed me to come into the office less than other reps, it would not be fair, eventhough I had the furthest commute by far.

    Finally, I took a leave of absence to try to deal with the stress and anxiety my work was placing on me. When it was time to return, my employer was still unwilling to work with me on the issues I had with the new changes, so I quit. My employer was not willing to make any changes, and my doctor and I agreed that it would be best for me to seek other employment.

    I put all of this into a letter to dispute their denial, but it has been over a month since I received the letter from EDD stating they received my appeal, and they have still not even sent me a court date. I have tried calling to speak with an UI representative, but am not even able to get onto HOLD! It always tells me "The maximum number of callers waiting to speak with an Unemployment Specialist has been reached. Please try your call again later." CLICK!

    I am now out of money and will soon be applying for welfare. I am a college educated single mom, and now I am becomming a stereotype. This is seriously the worst time ever in my life.

    I know eventually EDD will give me my day in court, but now I want to make sure that I leave that judge no doubts or wiggle room to deny my claim! What all should I bring to the hearing? I dont really have anything on paper, but I know I could get a letter from my doctor. Should I hire an attorney?

    What is my best course of action to winning my appeal?

    Thank you in advance for your help!!

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Posts
    2,357

    Default Re: UI Denied

    What type of harrassment? Explain. Did the "harrassment" cause or exacerbate your health problems? Do you have any notes or dates relative to when you spoke with your employer? Was the company subject to FMLA, and if so, were you eligible?

  3. #3
    Join Date
    May 2010
    Posts
    20

    Default Re: UI Denied

    e harrassment did not cause my condition, but it definitely exaccerbated it. The harrassment itself was not of a sexual nature, which EDD did ask me, but was in the form of threatening to fire me frequently for things that had nothing to do with my job. In short, my manager made an already horrible job just that much worse, and in my opinion (which I told to HR) was creating a hostile work environment.

    As I believe I mentioned, I worked as an outside sales rep, servicing existing accounts and expanding my company's base of business in a specified territory. The sole responsiblity of my position was to handle my accounts, and I had no management responsibilities assigned to me. I was, however, extremely good at all aspects of my job, and would always do what I could to help out my fellow co-workers if they asked.

    We ended up hiring a new girl at one point, and my manager asked me to help her get aquainted with how things worked in the business. I agreed, because there was no training in place on how to do anything whatsoever in the job (they were not even *able* to provide us a list of all of our customers who currently leased our equipment), besides get an appointment on the phone, and I remembered how excruitiating it was trying to figure out how to do everything by myself when I started.

    Thats as far as the conversation went- an agreement to "help her out"- and nothing was put into writing.

    For the first few months, I helped her out quite a bit, taking her on my appointments, and going on some of hers, but after a while she did not need my help, and started doing things on her own.

    Out of nowhere one day, I got called into my manager's office under the pretense that the meeting was to discuss my performance, and how we could improve sales, and I ended up having one of the most ridiculous and infuriating conversations of my entire life.

    He started it by saying "Did we, or did we not agree that you were going to work with ******?"

    When I answered "yes?", completely confused, I was shocked to hear him then continue with: "Then why has she been riding in the field with ********?!"

    Naturally, I was completely befuddled as to what I was supposed to say because after all, I was not her manager, and that was not my job to keep tabs on everything she was doing. In fact, it wasnt even what I agreed to do, which was help her if she needed help.

    When I expressed that, asking if I was supposed to have told her, a rep who I had no seniority over, that she was not allowed to ride with someone other than me, he said no. I then asked if I was expected to go to him and report that she was riding along with another rep, and he again said no.

    He did however start going on about how I signed something stating that I would dedicate 2 full days a week to working with her, something which he refused to show me a copy of.

    He then also told me that since I was arguing over this, that I was "not acting like someone who wants to remain employed" by him. Later that day I received text messages from him about how I needed to start changing my attitude before he changed the roster of our team.

    The next week, when it was time for us to again have a meeting to discuss my progress, we went into another absolutely bizarre conversation. This time when I tried to discuss the customer's I had worked with that week, he went off on this strange string of allegations against me.

    "I am giving you the opportunity to act like an adult. I know for a FACT that you have been going around to three different members of our team and telling them that I lost X, Y, and Z accounts for you."

    Again, all I could do was sit there and stare with a puzzled look on my face. I answered his allegations, which were false, and asked him to bring in the people making these claims. He refused to reveal their identity, and continued on with an incoherent rant about how I was single-handedly destroying the team.

    I told him that the purpose of the time scheduled was to talk about my progress, and that I wanted to do that, not sit and listen to him harrague me about alleged gossip. When it became apparent that was not going to happen, I again answered that the allegations were false, especially given the fact that he had nothing to do with the accounts named, and said that I wanted us to then either hold a meeting between the accusing parties, or a meeting with our entire team in order to address this, and allow us to move on from this nonsense.

    Just on a whim, I threw out 3 names of reps on our team, and he told me that they were not the ones who were accusing me, and that he promised to protect the three loyal team members from my "venomous fury" by not revealing their identity to me. But, he pretty much confirmed he was making this all up when I pointed out that there were only 7 people on our team, and that if it wasnt the 3 people I just mentioned, then he had just revealed the my 3 accusers, because the 7th member of the team was ME, and I was not in a conspiracy against MYSELF!

    I asked that we bring those 3 people in to talk about this, and he refused and declared: "You think youre so smart! I never said it was those 3!"

    After another 5 minutes of berating comments and name calling, I walked out of the "meeting". When I refused to come back in and continue to let him harrass me over things that had nothing whatsoever to do with my job, I continued to get threats from him via text message.

    Later that day I called my HR rep and made an official complaint. The HR manager called me and said this was a unique situation, and that I first needed to make a complaint with my manager's manager.

    I did that, and was not suprised to learn that all other members of the team had been voicing concerns and complaints over our manager's bizarre behavior. He said that they were following the procedure's necessary by law to fire my manager Captain CrazyPants, but in the meantime could not reassign me to a different team with a different manager.

    After the meeting with my manager's boss, things got worse. There was yet another ridiculous meeting where I was told to "fess up" to gossiping about him, and to stop being a "back-stabbing bitch", and the entire nonsense started all over again. He claimed he had "solid evidence" that I was doing what he accused me of, and insinuated he could access my emails and texts from my phone because he was a billionaire. (No joke, I couldnt make this sh*t up!)

    I do have all of the names and dates recorded for all of the events pertaining to this situation, and my manager's boss (who also ended up leaving the company) might be willing to write a letter supporting the erradic and abusive behavior reported to him about his subordinate.

    Is this something I should get for the hearing? I had not planned on suing the company over it because I just want to get away from them and move on with my life.

    My LOA that I took was subject to FMLA, and they did not try to challenge me on any of that.

    My employer is not the one challenging my UI claim, EDD is, on the basis that they did not see that I made any attempt to seek accomodation before quitting.

    Again, EDD did not ask "did you attempt to make any accomodations with your employer" to remedy the situation before quitting? All the interviewer said was "Oh wow. Yeah, I understand how _______ would cause problems." about everything.

    Actually, my employer is so disorganized that they still send me mail as if I work there. They gave another former employee benefits, and when she called to ask them what it was all about, they did not even realize she had resigned 6 months prior! And I heard from another former employee that they even received a few paychecks after they quit, and our employer was totally unaware until it was brought to their attention!

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Posts
    2,357

    Default Re: UI Denied

    Although what you describe was uncomfortable, it was not illegal harrassment under the law.

    If your LOA was at least 12 weeks, you exhausted your FMLA anyway, and could have been let go right then.

    The employer was not required to let you "face your accuser"; that's in a court of law, not the employment arena.

    You walked out of a meeting.

    NONE of this does the EDD care about one iota, except your walking out of a meeting that the EDD saw as a "chance to save your job".

    You did what you felt had to be done; that was your choice to make, but it doesn't mean it was a qualifying reason under the UI laws to be granted benefits.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    May 2010
    Posts
    20

    Default Re: UI Denied

    I didnt tell any of this detail to EDD for the simple reason that they did not ask for any of it. You asked for details on harrassment, so I went ahead and outlined them for you.

    All EDD asked in my interview was if it was sexual harrassment, and I answered that it was harrassment over non-work issues via text message that I felt were creating a hostile work environment. And, I told them that I filed a complaint with HR but that my request for a new manager was denied.

    The issue of the harrassment had *nothing* to do with EDD's decision. They said they based the decision soley on the fact that with the information they had gathered, they did not think I established "good cause" for quitting by seeking possible accomodations before deciding the job was bad for my health.

    “You quit your last job with ********** Corp. because of health reasons. You did not request lighter work or explore all reasonable solutions before you quit. After considering available information, the department finds that you do not meet the legal requirements for payment of benefits.”

    The above statement was from the denial letter verbatim, and then they went on to say that I shouldve either: 1) requested lighter work 2) sought an adjustment 3) asked for a transfer or 4) taken a LOA, in order to establish "good cause".

    But, since to their knowledge I did not do any of those things, they deemed me ineligible under CA Code of Regulations, Title 22, Section 1256(c).

    My appeal is based on the fact that I *DID* do ALL of those things prior to resigning. The EDD interviewer just did not ask me that, even when I asked specifically if there were any other questions that they needed answered to fully make their determination.

    And just for clarification (because from your response it sounds like you are under the wrong impression) I was not fired from my position...

    I quit under medical advisement because after taking a medical LOA my employer was still unwilling to remedy any of the situations that were causing me undue stress and anxiety, such as a manager who texts me threatening messages and threatens he can intercept stuff coming to my phone, closing my local office and forcing an unreasonable addition in commuting (to the office alone- 60+ additional miles!!), refusing my request for "lighter work", transfer, or other accomodation, and a laundry list of other things.

    The whole entire reason for EDD's denial is they did not know that I attempted to work with my employer. I did send an appeal letter however that painstakingly detailed the steps I took, the people and dates the events occurred, and the exact part of Title 22, Section 1256(c) that my actions exemplified, and therefore satisfied in order to establish the "good cause" EDD requires an employee to establish in order to show the "voluntary" quit was the only reasonable solution for the employee to make.

    My whole reason for this post however, is to find out from a legal perspective exactly what sort of stuff I should bring to my appeal hearing. My dad wants to hire an attorney for me, but I dont know if thats necessary or would just annoy the judge.

    I know these EDD judges are up to their eyeballs in appeals, and I want to make sure to go in and present my case in the best way possible, but without overkill that will frustrate and perhaps piss off my local EDD judge.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Posts
    2,357

    Default Re: UI Denied

    I understand that you quit; I said the employer COULD have let you go if you had exhausted your FMLA.

    You may or may not want an attorney to represent you in the appeal, but I suggest you at least consult with one. I already asked you if you had any documentation, even extemporaneous notes, about when you asked for "accommodations" (the term being loosely applied). Without them, it's probably going to come down to a he said/she said.

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