George v. UCBR – Commonwealth Court – April 13, 2020 – order to be reported June 23, 2020
Held: Claimant not eligible for UC benefits in Pennsylvania based on same wages used in prior North Carolina receipt of UC benefits.
Claimant filed a UC application in North Carolina in May 2018, establishing a base year for his North Carolina claim of January 1, 2017 through December 31, 2017. . . .The unemployment authorities determined that, under North Carolina law, Claimant was entitled to UC benefits in the amount of $350 per week for a maximum of 12 weeks.
After exhausting his N.C. benefits, claimant applied for Pa. UC benefit. Under 34 Pa. Code § 65.132(a), Claimant would be permitted to file a subsequent UC claim in Pennsylvania but only if he had “available benefit credits” in Pennsylvania. The Board found that, under 34 Pa. Code § 65.133(a), because North Carolina had used all of Claimant’s wages from 2017, including those earned in Pennsylvania, to determine his financial eligibility in North Carolina, and because Claimant exhausted his benefit credits in North Carolina, “[C]laimant had no available credits left . . . that could be used in calculating his financial eligibility in Pennsylvania.”
North Carolina used Claimant’s wages from 3Q and 4Q 2017 to determine his eligibility for UC benefits in that state, and those two quarters also fell within Claimant’s base year for his Pennsylvania claim. Under Pennsylvania law, when a claimant’s quarterly wages are used to determine his or her eligibility for UC benefits in a prior base year, they “cannot be used again to calculate [the c]laimant’s eligibility in [a] subsequent application for UC benefits.” Logan v. UCBR, 103 A.2d 451, 453 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2014); see Lewis v. UCBR, 454 A.2d 1191, 1193 (Pa. Cmwlth. 1983) (“[W]e would doubt that the legislature intended a claimant to be entitled to use the same quarter’s wages twice – i.e.[,] for two successive benefit years.”).
Consequently, because North Carolina used Claimant’s wages from 3Q and 4Q 2017 to establish his financial eligibility for UC benefits in that state, we conclude that Claimant could not use those same quarterly wages to establish his financial eligibility in Pennsylvania.
See also, federal combined benefits regulations, relevant but not used as a basis for the UCBR decision. See 20 C.F.R. § 616.1, et seq.
