Tuesday, August 27, 2013

UC - school employee - sec. 402.1 - layoff prior to end of school year

Chester Community Charter School v. UCBR – Cmwlth. Court – August 27, 2013


A school employee who is laid off prior to the end of a school year is not ineligible under sec. 402.1, even if, as the time of the layoff, she is given reasonable assurance of re-employment at the start of the ensuing school year.
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This Court has held that the legislature’s intent in enacting Section 402.1 was to eliminate the payment of benefits to employees who were unemployed for predetermined periods of time, but not to employees who become unemployed due to an unanticipated cause.….If a school employee is laid off and receiving benefits prior to the end of the academic term, she remains eligible for benefits during the summer break even if she has a reasonable assurance of work in the next term.

In this case. the claimant received reasonable assurance of returning to work at the start of the 2012-2013 school year. However, claimant was laid off on April 4, 2012, two months prior to the end of the school year; therefore, she was unemployed and eligible to collect benefits. It was not the intent of Section 402.1(2) of the Law to exclude a claimant in such a case.