Okay if you have a hearing tomorrow morning, they probably have decided you have the required wages or you would not have been allowed to go through this appeals process. But in any case, I would have available for showing my last pay stub, with my gross wages on it, proving exactly what you have made since you went back to work for them after your last unemployment denial.
Now if this is an appeals hearing, after you have already been denied once, it will be a formal procedure, held before an appeals official, will be taped and all parties will be sworn in. Both you and the employer will be there. Since, I am assuming, you have been denied and are the one appealing, you will present your evidence first.
What you will do is go over how long you had been employed at this job, and what happened on the last day you worked. In other words, how did you find out you were fired? Did you go home as usual at quitting time one day, and then decide to go to detox again, and did you call your employer the following day and let them know you were not coming in because you were in a detox facility? Did you follow the required call in procedures?
Or did you have an incident at work that caused you to go back to detox, like coming to work drunk, going to sleep on the job,failing a drug test or having an accident? Had you had any prior warnings or notices about your job performance? How about your attendance? Did you show up for work drunk or impaired and unable to work, is this the reason you were fired,or were you fired just for being in detox, not being at work? Did your employer have a policy that they would allow one session of detox, not two? Was there any policy about it? Had you discussed your issues with your employer/HR before you went into detox this time?
If you called in and told your employer you were going to detox, and then you received a letter or notice that you had been fired, or you called them as soon as you were out of detox and told them that you had a doctor's statement and were released to go back to work, and they said, "No, you are fired!" whatever happened, you will present your letter from the doctor and tell what day you were told you were fully released to return to work and what your employer told you.
If you are having your actual appeals hearing, you'll be speaking first, then your employer will speak, and then you'll be asking them questions and they'll be asking you questions. The official will ask questions if something isn't clear about what is going on or if you get off track.
The thing that might win this for you is that you have a medical excuse, releasing you back to work. If you followed the proper notification procedures in telling your employer you were going to be out while in detox, even if you had had dozens of prior absences, your claim may have a fair chance to be approved, as the detox may be considered an unavoidable medical necessity.
It appears you went to detox about six months ago, and they/or another employer fired you, and you filed for unemployment and were denied, right? And then you went back to work and have worked until now, and are fired again and filed for unemployment again.
If you had some major issue at work, or work related/intoxicant related situation that precipitated your going into detox again, then you may be out of luck getting the claim approved.
It depends on what happened, what evidence and issues are going to be presented by you and by your employer. If this is your second appeals hearing, then beyond this, if you do not win, you can ask for an appeal to the board of review, but beyond that, you can't really take it further. If you have lost three decisions, going to civil court isn't worth the time and trouble. The unemployment laws are pretty cut and dried, and if you don't win the first ones, you very rarely are able to overturn the decisions in civil court.
