I won my first appeal in front of a referee, now ex employer is appealing to the UC Board live in PA

Hi Anonymous

I’d be happy to conduct a free initial consultation to discuss your situation of how to defend against employer lies, if you wanted me to refer you to a professional hearing rep.

But it sounds like you already have an attorney, so I would suggest asking them how to win whether you need to approach either a suspension (lack of work until,or unless discharged for cause), or a discharge to win this appeal hearing where the appellant is unclear as of yet.

As a matter of positioning, I would never tell anyone to defend themselves against employer lies concerning work misconduct, but instead think of ways to offensively show the employer is in fact telling lies, or at least telling half truths about the cause in their burden they are mandated to prove at the hearing that your actions amounted to work misconduct.

Hi,

I am in Ohio and I have a hearing coming up. I was terminated for making a phone call to a coworker and then put on suspension. Employer is claiming I violated policy, but my handbook shows we can share confidential information, but they are claiming misconduct because they told me not to speak while under investigation of an alleged abuse incident that I had no involvement in and that I was cleared from. I spoke to co worker before any warnings and before I was made aware of the verbal rule when I was interviewed over the phone by my boss.

My boss told unemployment they have multiple witnesses, but I was only told of one witness which was HR when they originally called me. I believe they are now adding witnesses because they know they are lying and employers are usually seen as being more credible.

I haven’t been written up since I’ve been there in 5 years. I have the handbook that contradicts confidential info.

How do I defend against my employers lies?

They submitted witness statements mainly of the interview questions they’ve done with me over the phone. One of my answers to their question is a lie. They are also claiming I refused to come to the facility to give my statements which is a lie.

They called me 9 days later after being suspended to tell me I was terminated, then asked me to come in to sign some forms. I declined because I I was given 2 hours notice to come there and because I had an interview somewhere else. I told them I would arrange to come back on a Monday…then when I had hung up I called and asked if I could have my reason mailed to me and they told me they couldn’t though my hand book says this is an option.

I went to the facility the following month and I did not sign the papers because I did not agree with the statements and I refused to sign because I did not have my attorney present.

Good for you!

The referee’s office actually said all that to you? Including, “they knew they were wrong from the beginning. It’s their loss, losing a reliable hard worker” too?

Wow, it must of been a clear cut stinker of a case for the employer for an employee at the referee office to say that.

I’ve seen a few stinker appeals myself .. and I even managed to convince some employers a withdrawal would be a good idea .. once I explained what made the appeal .. stink.

I was terminated from my job of 12 years. Apparently the employer claimed willful misconduct. I did collect unemployment but, my ex employer filed an appeal. After preparing my defense, I was ready to go. while en route to the referees office, I received a telephone call from the referees office stated there will be no hearing, your employer withdrew their appeal. They can take no further action, they knew they were wrong from the beginning. It’s their loss, losing a reliable hard worker.

Hi Amanda,

I wish I could be only reassuring.

However, I need you to focus on what the IN DWD says about appeals to the board of review and the submission of new evidence that wasn’t submitted during the lower level appeal.

The ALJ’s decision will become final unless you appeal the adverse Decision to the Review Board within eighteen (18) calendar days after the mailing date of the decision. The appeal must be in writing and signed by you as the appealing party. The appeal must contain the case number, the Claimant’s social security number, and an explanation of the reason for appeal. If you have additional information or documents that were not available at the time of the ALJ hearing, a request to submit the additional evidence and the documents should be included with the letter of appeal to the Review Board. The appeal should be mailed to:

Department of Workforce Development
UI Review Board
100 North Senate Avenue, Suite N802
Indianapolis, IN 46204
or by fax at (317) 233-3348.

Amanda, I do believe though for that request to submit additional evidence would have to include a good cause reason why it was not submitted for the lower level hearing. The employer, just like any party to an appeal had the right to place a request for continuance on the record until at which time documents could be submitted per procedure.

Appeals to boards of review do not commonly fly because a party to an appeal failed to represent themselves properly due to ignorance.

A request for a continuance should have been placed into the record due to the lack of documentation during the first hearing.

You also have the right to submit an affirmation to this appeal. It’s basically now a written argument about what happened at the hearing and still focused on laws and regs. In this case, I’d say it’s the rules of procedures for a “quasi judicial proceeding otherwise called “administrative law” and these proceeding do have “rules of procedures”.

According to the following .. it looks like you should also know what reason the employer thinks their additional docs should be submitted as IN requires an appealing party to send everything to all parties including the request to submit them.

Indiana Unemployment Insurance Review Board Procedures

(Anyone notice that employers using an unemployment cost control company don’t have to endure the cost or the futility of finding a lawyer?)

I am not going to smother you with the facts of this case. I just need some reassurance and peace of mind (before I lose mine).
-Was terminated by my employer for attendance. I was very very ill with cellulitis and in the hospital, and provided proof including my discharge info and doctors notes on the day I called off.
-I had missed days before dt illness (I had a weakened immune system, side effects of long-term prednisone therapy (which I am no longer on) and was susseptible to contracting illnesses.And my body wasnt able to “fight anything off” d/t the medication.
-I filed with unemployment in Indiana to recieve benefits. I got denied initially.
-I appealled. My employer did attend the phone hearing, however, did not provide the appeallate judge ANY documentation regarding my attendance, their attendance policies, ect prior to the hearing. The judge did allow a “read in” of parts of my employers attendance policy.
-I “won” my appeal. listed several reasons for reversing original decision, including employer failed to provide information as required prior to hearing, and that employer failed to prove dates for attendance write ups, ect. It also said that I was ill the day I called in.
-My joy was short lived as I recieved a packet in the mail from my employer with a copy of a letter sent to the appeals office stating they would like to appeal the decision. the packet also included “evidence” such as attendance write ups, ect. I am very worried about this. The “burden of proof” at my appeal hearing was on my employer to prove that I was not wrongfully terminated. Looking over this information, I am getting very worried. Can/should the judge accept this new evidence? It doesnt seem fair or just. In the “appeal of the appeal decision letter my employer sent, it requested the judge reverse the decsion based on this evidence.
-I feel like Im going to have a heart attack if there is no resolution soon. This has been very very difficult for me the past few months, and has been hard to remain strong. I really need some advice here.
-Thanks so much…God bless you for what you do on this site.

My previous employer has contracts with NYS and I had no chance in there without a lawyer. I cannot afford a lawyer and no lawyers in my area are doing pro-bono for unemployment cases.

I believe the judge may have added a document to my file after I left. I was denied for misconduct, the reason given was that I admitted to sending an email with profanity to a coworker on 12/5 and was warned. I sent an email to my employer on 12/18 using the “f” word and was discharged for unprofessional behaviour.

I never admitted to sending an email to a coworker using the ‘F’ word, and never sent one to a coworker using an ‘f’ word. I have this horrible feeling that the ALJ added a email to the file after I left. After the hearing he told me I could use the back door and thinking it was because he was being nice I did. When I look at the transcript I am going to get copies and if there is any documents in it that were added after my hearing I will fill out a complaint form to the State Commission of Judicial Conduct.

If I do complain about this judge will it help me to have my appeal in front of a new judge?

Also, a week prior to the hearing when I viewed the file there were all these documents added to it that were never shown to me before I was discharged. The employer added a handbook that was submitted after my discharge with new rules and tried saying I broke rules that were not in my original handbook. There was also a note written by two managers that was never shown to me and I never saw them until the hearing. I objected to the notes three times and they left them in the file.

How do I fight this?

Ohio I was intially denied unemployment but appealled it and was granted unemployment. Now after this my former employer wanted a redetermination which again i was ganted my benefits then i received a letter saying that my former employer was requesting a telephone hearing now i was fired after being employed for over a year and in that year i was never in trouble for anything and then during my last month of employment i was written up 3 times and fired the first write up was for not putting interventions in a patients chart which i had no idea we were supposed to do that the next write up was for accidentally leaving a sec tion of an incident report blank but the information was in one of the other 3 places it was supposed to be so i could have just looked back and wrote it in the third and final write up was for not doing a tube feeding in the alotted time to be in compliance which was also a mistake now i had my telephone hearing and i feel like i was being fired all over again. i don’t think it went well but i did let them know that i did not intentionally hurt the company and even now 3 months later i am still very upset because i did my job and went to work and do not agree with getting fired everything that happened was truly human error i just don;t know how they can say i did willful misconduct please let me know what you think thank you.

Have you received the hearing decision yet? I wouldn’t even want to guess how it turns out because I don’t know how well you represented yourself or how you attempted to rebut that any of the incidents when viewed in isolation would rise to a level considered misconduct ..

But it is the sum total of all of them that an employer would argue amount to an attitude which shows it was a general attitude of negligence causing the poor performance.

This is why I recommend reps for hearings .. because many times, it’s all contingent upon the quality of what might be seen as an argument of technicalities that is presented on your behalf.

This is not to say that there aren’t some cases of misconduct that are so blatantly easy to disprove that a person wouldn’t be able to handle it themselves .. but from my perspective those are the cases where an employer is blatantly ignorant of how unemployment works themselves, but can always be counted on to answer a question truthfully and without no what an employer should never say while giving testimony.

If you’re still there .. tell me this .. what impression did you get from the hearing officer?

Chris

Thank you for the information, and you right I do not know how to write an affirmation letter. Maybe you could recommend some one that can help me.
For they had some one there to represent them and did have the opportunity to present their evidence and testimony.

The hearing reps I refer everyone to are capable of writing affirmations .. if you really think it is necessary.