Unemployment Denied - Any Help with filing for an appeal is Appreciated

[marley123]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? New York
My husband and I owned a restaurant which was closed in June 2009. We filed for unemployment and were denied due to the reason that we "quit voluntarily without good cause". What would be considered good cause?
We were in business for 10 years. We were located in the NYC. Our customers were directly affected by the financial crisis. Our sales decreased. Our rent went up in Feb. 2009. We were able to negotiate part of reduction of the rent for a couple of months, but the sales kept decreasing. In exchange for the rent reduction, the landlord took our personal deposit. The discounted rent was only for a couple of months and it was expected that the landlord was going to increase it back up again and ask for another deposit. We were able to pay the vendors while in business, but just barely. Since June 2009, we've been paying vendors out of pocket personal funds since we don't want to penalize them. The unemployment office asked us before they issued out a denial why we didn't cut our salaries. We explained to them that we depended on our salary since we had bills to personal bills and that the number of hours we spent working justified the salaries. The salaries are comparable to other restaurants.

What would constitute good cause? Why would have we had to cut our salaries to qualify for unemployment? Talking with others, its seems like we would qualify for unemployment if the restaurant or we personally declared bankruptcy. However, we didn't feel right screwing vendors out of payments. The business paid the unemployment taxes.

Thank you.

 

[GonzoFL]

I realize that your in New York,but here is how a District Court of Appeals in Florida defined "good cause":

To voluntarily leave employment for good cause,the cause must be one which would reasonably impel the average able bodied qualified worker to give up his or her employment...the applicable standards are the standards of reasonableness as applied to the average man or woman,and not to the supersensitive.

Google the term "good cause to quit employment in New York" and see what turns up. Maybe you can find something on point to your situation. Good luck.

 

[commentator]

As on the other post, because you did not run the restaurant into the ground, and because you continued to pay yourselves, it's probably not a winnable case. Good cause to quit is very hard to define when you are the employer AND the employee. Quote: "We depended on our salaries as we had personal bills" There you go, it was a personal choice to continue to pay yourself until you quit. If you were an employee and you had quit because the employer was no longer able to pay you, that would have been defined as "good cause. But you didn't miss a paycheck until you made the personal decision to shut the business down. That's what they're looking at.

While it was commendable that you chose to close before bankrupting yourselves and shafting your vendors, still it was a personal choice. You may have been dealing with less profits, but not to the extent that you missed paychecks.

The unemployment system is just not geared to pay business owners who chose to go out of business. My state and many others have a clause in the law which forbids the business owner who paid in the taxes from filing for unemployment benefits, though he or she may lay off everyone else who was working for them. Your state seems not to have this restriction, but it doesn't sound as though they are going to approve you anyway.