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Appealing UI Decision

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Julian Alvarez

Junior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)?

California, Fresno 93721

I honestly believe I was wrongfully denied UI. I was fired from work for playing with my Ipod at work. EDD reason; Wasting production time. My job was as a stacker at foster poultry farms. Last month while there was absolutely no product for me to stack I walked about 40 feet from my work area. What I then did was attempt to generate some laughs by getting some co-worker's to view themselves by looking into my Ipod. And they did while they continued to work. Some one reported that to a supervisor. A week later I was suspended. 3 days after that I was fired.
Yesterday is when I received the Determination letter. Today I have mailed out the appeal form.
On the (Determination Letter) denial of benefits letter it states that I must return to work after the disqualifying act and earn 5 times what my weekly benefit amount would be in BONA FIDE EMPLOYMENT. then reopen my case.
My question now is how can I earn a Bona Fide income if I can not find employment ?
 


LillianX

Senior Member
That sounds like the reason for your denial was that you hadn't made enough money in the qualifying period. How long did you work for the company?
 

cbg

I'm a Northern Girl
I'm sorry - you were playing with your ipod instead of working and distracted other employees from doing their jobs, and you think you were WRONGFULLY denied UI?

When you don't have anything to do, my friend, you go to your supervisor and ask him or her what you should be doing. You don't goof off and try to make your co-workers laugh while they're trying to get their jobs done.

Your termination was justified and quite frankly, I'm not surprised you were denied. You have the option of appealing the decision. It's barely possible that you might prevail, though I wouldn't count on it.

Unless, of course, Lillian is right that you did not have sufficient base wages, in which case you were still not wrongfully denied and in which case an appeal will do no good.
 

commentator

Senior Member
Nope, you're monetarily eligible, and you had a claim to set up, or there would have been no decision at all on the reason for your termination.

But once you're denied, have a disqualification decision, like this person does, you have to work for a covered employer (that's the Bona Fide employment thing) and make so many times your weekly amount. This would remove the denial, and make you able to begin drawing this claim if you are out of work through no fault of your own any time during this coming benefit year, which is one year from the date the original claim was filed.

What you should be doing is continuing to certify for weeks of benefits until the hearing regarding your appeal. That way if you were to be approved in the hearing, you'd be able to be back paid for these weeks since you had filed the claim.

You should also be looking vigorously for other employment, as frankly, your chances of being approved in the hearing don't sound terribly good to me.

In a few days you will be receiving a notice that a hearing is scheduled, either in person or by telephone, at which both you and a representative of your company is present, as well as a hearing officer/judge/whatever they call them for the EDD.

You will present your reason why you believe that your firing was unjust. They will present the reason why you were terminated. The appeals officer may ask questions, and will after the hearing, render a decision as to whether or not your firing was justified. In order to keep you from receiving benefits, the company must show that they had a valid, misconduct reason to terminate you.

Valid means it has to be a fairly reasonable good reason. Misconduct means you should have known better, you had the ability to control your actions, and you deliberately chose to do whatever it was, knowing that it possibly could result in your termination.

They will want to know what the company policies were on use of electronic equipment such as your Ipod. Was there a company policy at all? Were you allowed to have them on, was there a rule that you could or could not wear them while working? Was there a policy about conversation while people were working? VERY IMPORTANTLY, has there been any prior discussion with you about wasting time on the job, misusing your electronics, goofing off, kidding around, etc? Have you ever seen any other employees disciplined, warned or terminated for this type of behavior?

If there was an extremely casual atmosphere at this job, where when people were not busy they made a practice of walking off the job a few feet, sitting down, telling jokes, whittling, whatever, then singling you out for something like this and firing you would probably be judged to be unreasonable, not something that would deny your benefits.

But if you were the only one who had done this, if you had been warned before to get on task, if there are strict policies about having electronics on the job, and yet you pulled yours out, then you're not going to have as good a chance to show that the incident was not misconduct.

If you had no prior warnings, there was no clearly stated policy on the job about this type of behavior, and your co-workers did it all the time, with the knowledge of the supervisors, (supervisors had seen people act this way and done nothing before) then to keep you from being approved, they would have to show it was gross misconduct.

Gross misconduct means that it was something so bad that you should have known it was the wrong thing to do, even one single time, though there is no formal policy against it. A classic example is punching out your boss when he gives you an order. Walking away when not busy, playing with your Ipod, and joking around with your busy co-workers may or may not rise to that level. You will definitely need to stress that you had no idea your behavior was possibly going to result in your being terminated.

As to the question you actually ask, how are you supposed to make a bona fide income if you are not find able to a job, that is something that the EDD is not concerned about

Unemployment benefits are not in any way based on your income or personal situation. They are not given to you just because you are unemployed, but because you are determined to be out of work through no fault of your own and eligible for benefits that have been taken from employer taxes, not your paychecks.

If this denial is not overturned on appeal and you are approved, then you would have to get another job and work a while at it before you could come back to EDD and re-open the claim and begin drawing benefits. That's to keep people from being fired, getting denied benefits, and going to work for their Uncle Fred at his restaurant for two days, who then gives them a lay off slip so they can get their benefits. You'd have to work for Uncle Fred, or any other covered employer for several weeks, long enough to make 5 times the weekly amount you could draw before you could start drawing a claim, even if Uncle Fred's business closed.
 
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