Daniel HARMON, Petitioner v. UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION BOARD OF REVIEW, Respondent
No. 787 C.D. 2015
Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania.
Argued: March 8, 2017 Filed: June 7, 2017
163 A.3d 1057
Paul R. Jordan, Assistant Counsel, Harrisburg, for respondent.
BEFORE: HONORABLE MARY HANNAH LEAVITT, President Judge, HONORABLE ROBERT SIMPSON, Judge, HONORABLE P. KEVIN BROBSON, Judge, HONORABLE ANNE E. COVEY, Judge, HONORABLE MICHAEL H. WOJCIK, Judge, HONORABLE JULIA K. HEARTHWAY, Judge, HONORABLE JOSEPH M. COSGROVE, Judge
OPINION BY JUDGE BROBSON
Petitioner Daniel Harmon (Claimant) petitions for review of an order of the Unemployment Compensation Board of Review (Board). The Board affirmed an Unemployment Compensation Referee‘s (Referee) decision, finding Claimant ineligible for unemployment compensation benefits pursuant to Section 402.6 of the Unemployment Compensation Law (Law).1 We now affirm.
Claimant was employed by Browns Shop Rite (Employer). On December 18, 2013, Claimant pled guilty to a charge of driving with a suspended or revoked driver‘s license,
During the hearing before the Referee, Claimant, who was unrepresented by counsel, testified that he worked an average of twenty hours per week prior to Employer‘s termination of his employment for “violation of company policy.” (C.R., Item No. 7 at 4.) Claimant began serving his sentence for driving with a suspended license on March 14, 2014. (Id. at 5.) Throughout the length of his sentence, Claimant reported to the prison at 5:00 p.m. on Fridays and was released every Sunday at 3:00 p.m. (Id.) When he began serving his sentence, Claimant continued to work for Employer during the week. (Id. at 8.) After Employer terminated his employment, Claimant sought alternative employment, because he “was always available to work.” (Id. at 9.) Claimant testified that he did not knowingly withhold information from the Service Center while filing for unemployment compensation benefits. (Id. at 6.) Claimant indicated that he received but had not fully read an Unemployment Compensation Handbook. (Id.)
Andrea Quirk, an Unemployment Compensation Claims Examiner, also testified at the hearing before the Referee. Ms. Quirk testified that the Unemployment Compensation Handbook informs claimants that they are not eligible for “benefits for any week in which [the claimant is] incarcerated due to a conviction.” (Id. at 7.) Although Claimant received the Unemployment Compensation Handbook, he did not inform the Service Center that he was incarcerated on the weekends. (Id.) Ms. Quirk cited Claimant‘s knowing failure to report his incarceration to the Service Center as justification for the assessment of the penalty and penalty weeks. (Id. at 7, 9.)
The Referee issued a decision, affirming the Service Center‘s determination as to Claimant‘s ineligibility for benefits under Section 402.6 of the Law. In so doing, the Referee made the following findings of fact:
- The Claimant was last employed by Browns Shop Rite as a Customer Service Aide, part-time from 2/14/2013 through 3/24/2014 at a final rate of $9.75 per hour.
- The Claimant‘s separation from employment is not at issue in this appeal.
- The Claimant was incarcerated from 3/14/2014 through 8/7/2014 as a result of a traffic conviction for driving on a suspended license.
- As part of the Claimant‘s conviction, the Claimant was ordered by the court to serve consecutive 48 hour periods, weekends in incarceration in prison.
- The Claimant‘s weekly incarceration begins Friday at 5:00 p.m. through Sunday at 3:00 p.m. each week.
- The Claimant states he is able to work and available to work around his incarceration.
(C.R., Item No. 8 at 1.) The Referee reasoned that Claimant was ineligible for benefits “due to his conviction and incarceration during the weeks at issue.” (Id. at 2.) The Referee further found that Claimant did not intentionally withhold the information concerning his incarceration from the Service Center. Accordingly, the Referee modified the portion of the Service Center‘s award which assessed penalty weeks.
Claimant retained counsel and appealed the Referee‘s decision to the Board. Claimant contended that incarceration during the weekend does not render a claimant ineligible for benefits under Section 402.6 of the Law. Claimant‘s incarceration was not continuous, and Claimant argued that
On appeal,2 Claimant contends that the Board erred in concluding that Section 402.6 of the Law rendered him ineligible for benefits. In support of that contention, Claimant first argues that the plain language of Section 402.6 of the Law requires that a claimant must be incarcerated for an entire week to be found ineligible for benefits. If, however, this Court concludes that the language of Section 402.6 of the Law is ambiguous, Claimant argues that the legislative intent behind the enactment of Section 402.6 of the Law precludes application of the section to claimants who are only incarcerated on the weekends. Claimant next argues that because the Law is to be liberally construed, Section 402.6 should not be applied in an overly punitive matter. Last, Claimant argues that Section 402.6 of the Law should be interpreted so as to be internally consistent with other provisions of the Law.3
We first address Claimant‘s argument that the plain language of Section 402.6 of the Law does not preclude him from being eligible for benefits. Section 402.6 of the Law provides: “An employe shall not be eligible for payment of unemployment compensation benefits for any weeks of unemployment during which the employe is incarcerated after a conviction.” Claimant asserts that Section 402.6 requires that the claimant must be continuously incarcerated for the full week in order for a claimant to be found ineligible for benefits for a week. In support of this assertion, Claimant relies on the definition of the word “during,” which is not defined in the Law and can, in some instances, imply continuity. Claimant contends that such a definition results in a “durational requirement“—namely, that a claimant is only ineligible for benefits under Section 402.6 of the Law if he or she is continuously incarcerated throughout the entirety of the week. Because Claimant was only incarcerated during the weekends, Claimant thus contends that he is eligible. The Board counters that “during” may also mean “at some point,” and the Board‘s interpretation of Section 402.6 of the Law as precluding a claimant who is incarcerated during the weekend from receiving benefits is, therefore, reasonable.
When interpreting a statute, this Court is guided by the Statutory Construction Act of 1972,
As observed above, the term “during” is not defined in the Law. Where a term is not expressly defined in a statute, this Court will construe the term according to its common and approved usage.
Having concluded that the language of Section 402.6 of the Law is ambiguous, we must engage in statutory construction to discern the intent of the General Assembly. “One aid in construing statutory language is an administrative agency‘s interpretation of the language of the statute it is charged with administering, which will be given deference unless the interpretation is clearly erroneous.” Summit Sch., Inc. v. Dep‘t of Educ., 108 A.3d 192, 198 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2015). The Board‘s interpretation, which relies on one of two equally reasonable definitions of the term “during,” is not clearly erroneous, and we address Claimant‘s remain
Claimant contends that the legislative history underlying the enactment of Section 402.6 of the Law illustrates the General Assembly‘s intent to preclude from receiving benefits only those claimants who are granted work release, but remain incarcerated and live at the taxpayers’ expense throughout the entire week. In support of this argument, Claimant cites the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania‘s decision in Chamberlain v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 631 Pa. 489, 114 A.3d 385 (2015). There, the Board found that a claimant was ineligible for benefits under Section 402.6 of the Law, because the claimant was sentenced to serve a term of house arrest. During this house arrest, the claimant “spent no time in prison or any other state correctional institution, but rather lived at his sister‘s residence, and had permission to work, run errands, and shop for Christmas.” Chamberlain, 114 A.3d at 387. The claimant appealed the Board‘s determination as to his eligibility to this Court, which reversed. In so doing, we explained that interpreting house arrest as the equivalent to incarceration for purposes of Section 402.6 of the Law would contravene the remedial purpose of the Law. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed our decision. Our Supreme Court cited the following comment, which was made immediately prior to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives’ vote on the amendment of the bill concerning Section 402.6 of the Law:
Mr. Speaker, this amendment would put into the ... Law a prohibition which is similar to one which we inserted into the workers’ compensation law in 1993. Specifically, this amendment says that someone who is incarcerated after a conviction does not receive unemployment benefits.
I learned to my surprise a month or so ago from a business in my district that it is possible now, if you are convicted and you are in prison and you qualify for work release and your employer does not want you back, you then get unemployment compensation. This businessman in my district and the other employees in that company do not think
that is right; I do not think that is right either, and I think we ought to change the law.
Id. at 396 (quoting H.R. Legis. Journal No. 31, 180th Gen. Assemb., Reg. Sess. 835 (Pa. 1996) (statement of Rep. William Lloyd)). The Supreme Court explained that this comment demonstrated the General Assembly‘s intent to change the law established by this Court‘s decision in Greer v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 38 Pa. Cmwlth. 310, 392 A.2d 918 (1978), wherein we concluded that an incarcerated claimant participating in a work release program was able to obtain unemployment compensation benefits. There was no evidence, however, that the General Assembly‘s intent to supersede Greer extended to the disqualification of “claimants who were not incarcerated in a prison or an alternative institutional setting, but rather were sentenced to the less severe sanction of home confinement.” Id. Accordingly, the Supreme Court concluded that claimants sentenced to house arrest were not automatically ineligible for benefits under Section 402.6 of the Law.
Here, Claimant contends that unlike claimants participating in a work release program, he was not incarcerated and living at the taxpayers’ expense for the majority of the week. Claimant thus argues that the legislative history, as explained in Chamberlain, does not support precluding claimants from receiving benefits when they are free from incarceration for the majority of the week. This Court, however, has recently applied Section 402.6 of the Law to a claimant sentenced to weekend incarceration, rather than work release. In Gonzalez v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 2015 WL 5511031 (Pa. Cmwlth., No. 1825 C.D. 2014, filed Aug. 18, 2015),6 the Board concluded that a claimant who was sentenced to weekend incarceration was ineligible for benefits under Section 402.6 of the Law. The claimant appealed to this Court, arguing “that because he is only incarcerated for two days per week, days in which he did not usually work anyway, that he established eligibility for unemployment compensation benefits.” Gonzalez, slip op. at 1. In affirming the Board‘s order, we explained that the claimant‘s ability to work during the week was not dispositive. Rather, “the decision in Chamberlain makes clear that the applicability of Section 402.6 [of the Law] does not depend upon the claimant‘s availability for work, but upon the meaning of the term incarceration, which it found to be ‘starkly different’ from home confinement.” Id., slip op. at 3. We concluded that although the claimant was only incarcerated during the weekend, there was no question that he was “incarcerated” for the purposes of Section 402.6 of the Law, and, therefore, the claimant was ineligible for benefits.
Claimant contends that Gonzalez is distinguishable from the instant matter, because the only question in Gonzalez was whether the pro se claimant was “incarcerated” for the purposes of Section 402.6 of the Law. Here, in contrast, Claimant concedes that he was incarcerated but argues that he is nevertheless eligible for benefits, because his weekend incarceration does not satisfy the “durational requirement” of Section 402.6 of the Law. We are not persuaded that this argument necessitates a different result from that in Gonzalez. The principles developed in Chamberlain, as we explained in Gonzalez, demonstrate that the applicability of Section 402.6 of the Law depends upon whether a claimant is incarcerated within the meaning of the Law. Claimant here concedes that he was
Claimant next argues that the Board‘s interpretation of Section 402.6 of the Law is overly punitive and contravenes the remedial purpose of the Law. Specifically, Claimant maintains that the Law must be liberally construed so as to provide the broadest possible benefits. Claimant explains that the Board‘s interpretation of Section 402.6 of the Law would unjustly prevent Claimant from receiving benefits for seven and a half months even though the term of his sentence was only two months.
Section 3 of the Law,7 relating to declaration of public policy, provides that “[e]conomic insecurity due to unemployment is a serious menace to the health, morals, and welfare of the people of the Commonwealth.” As such, it is well-settled that “[t]he purpose of the Law is to be remedial and broadly construed so that employees who become unemployed through no fault of their own are provided with some semblance of economic security.” Darby Twp. v. Unemployment Comp. Bd. of Rev., 59 Pa. Cmwlth. 284, 429 A.2d 1223, 1227 (1981). “Conversely, disqualification provisions ... should be narrowly construed and a claimant must not be denied compensation unless he is unequivocally excluded by the plain language of these provisions.” Penflex, Inc. v. Bryson, 506 Pa. 274, 485 A.2d 359, 365 (1984). As noted above, the applicability of Section 402.6 of the Law is dependent upon whether a claimant is incarcerated. The extent of a claimant‘s confinement is, at best, only relevant to a determination of whether a claimant is incarcerated within the meaning of Section 402.6 of the Law. See Chamberlain; Gonzalez. Claimant concedes that he was incarcerated, and, consequently, when interpreted in light of the discussions above he is excluded from receiving unemployment compensation benefits under Section 402.6 of the Law. Accordingly, we reject Claimant‘s argument that the Board‘s interpretation of Section 402.6 of the Law is overly punitive and contravenes the remedial purpose of the Law.8
Claimant‘s argument concerning consistency involves provisions of the Law that relate to a claimant‘s eligibility for benefits. See Section 401 of the Law (listing qualifications required for claimant to receive benefits); Section 4(g.1) of the Law10 (establishing credit week as every week in which claimant earned sixteen times the minimum wage). Thus, if a claimant has only limited availability for work or only earns part-time wages, he or she may still be eligible for benefits. See, e.g., Rohde v. Unemployment Comp. Bd. of Rev., 28 A.3d 237 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2011) (holding that claimant‘s limited availability did not remove him from labor market and claimant was thus able and available for work). Section 402.6 of the Law, however, is a provision which expressly relates to a claimant‘s ineligibility for benefits. Instead of providing the criteria with which a claimant must comply in order to be eligible for benefits, Section 402.6 of the Law was enacted for the purpose of precluding incarcerated claimants from receiving benefits. It is not inconsistent, therefore, for the Board to interpret Section 402.6 of the Law as prohibiting a claimant from receiving benefits if the claimant has been incarcerated for part of the week. Rather, the Board‘s interpretation is consistent, because the provisions concerning eligibility permit the Board to find a claimant eligible for benefits when the claimant is only partially available for work, and the provisions concerning ineligibility permit the Board to find a claimant ineligible for benefits when the claimant is incarcerated for only part of the week.
In further support of this reasoning, we note that although a claimant may be eligible for unemployment compensation benefits under Section 401 of the Law, as amended,
Finally, we harmonize our construction of Section 402.6 of the Law with the underlying statutory policy, as reflected in Section 3 of the Law, that being to provide benefits to “persons unemployed through no fault of their own.” Section 3 of the Law is aspirational and provides a resource for construing or interpreting the Law. Section 3, however, cannot supersede an express provision of the Law that precludes certain claimants from collecting benefits. Section 402.6 of the Law, in essence, bars incarcerated individuals from receiving benefits, regardless of whether the incarceration led to the claimant‘s unemployment. In this case, as noted above, the circumstances of Claimant‘s separation from Employer is not before us. Even if we assume, however, that Claimant‘s separation and resulting unemployment was not his fault, it is indisputable that Claimant‘s conduct led to his conviction and incarceration, the latter of which rendered him ineligible under Section 402.6 of the Law. As reasonably interpreted by the agency charged with enforcing it, Section 402.6 of the Law essentially creates a collateral civil consequence to incarceration. We see no conflict between a statutory provision that renders a claimant ineligible for benefits due to his own conduct and Section 3 of the Law.13
In short, the Board‘s interpretation of Section 402.6 of the Law is not clearly erroneous, and it is entitled to deference. Claimant‘s arguments in support of an alternative construction that would render an incarcerated individual ineligible for unemployment benefits only is he is incarcerated throughout the duration of the week (i.e., 24 hours/7 days per week) are not sufficiently compelling to override the deference afforded to the Board. We, therefore, affirm the Board‘s order.
Judge Wojcik dissents.
ORDER
AND NOW, this 7th day of June, 2017, the order of the Unemployment Compen
DISSENTING OPINION BY PRESIDENT JUDGE LEAVITT
The majority has carefully parsed the words of Section 402.6 of the Unemployment Compensation Law (Law)1 and concluded that its directive on the eligibility of incarcerated persons for unemployment compensation is ambiguous. I agree with that conclusion. I part company with the majority in its decision to resolve the ambiguity against Daniel Harmon (Claimant), who is subject only to partial confinement and available to work Monday through Friday. Because the Law is remedial in nature, ambiguities therein should be resolved in favor of coverage. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
The majority acknowledges, correctly, the remedial nature of the Law. It quotes, with approval, this Court‘s recitation that the “purpose of the Law is to be remedial and broadly construed so that employees who become unemployed through no fault of their own are provided with some semblance of economic security.” Darby Township v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 59 Pa. Cmwlth. 284, 429 A.2d 1223, 1227 (1981). The majority also acknowledges that statutory disqualification provisions “should be narrowly construed and a claimant must not be denied compensation unless he is unequivocally excluded by the plain language of these provisions.” Penflex, Inc. v. Bryson, 506 Pa. 274, 485 A.2d 359, 365 (1984). Our task is to apply these principles to Section 402.6 of the Law, which states as follows:
An employe shall not be eligible for payment of unemployment compensation benefits for any weeks of unemployment during which the employe is incarcerated after a conviction.
Prior to the 1996 enactment of Section 402.6, incarcerated inmates on work release were able to collect unemployment compensation. See Greer v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 38 Pa. Cmwlth. 310, 392 A.2d 918 (1978). In Chamberlain v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 631 Pa. 489, 114 A.3d 385, 396 (2015), our Supreme Court observed “that Section 402.6 was enacted to change the law originally established by the Commonwealth Court‘s decision in Greer by precluding unemployment compensation benefits to those claimants who are incarcerated in prison and eligible for work release.”2 The question here is the meaning of the phrase “any weeks of unemployment during which the employe is incarcerated....”
The word “during” is defined two ways. It means (1) “throughout the duration of,” and (2) “at a point in the course of.” MERRIAM-WEBSTER‘S COLLEGIATE DICTIONARY 360 (10th ed. 1997). Because “during” has two reasonable meanings, Section 402.6 is ambiguous. The majority chooses the second dictionary definition of “during,” but I would choose the first definition. This broader definition is more appropriate given our duty to give a broad construction to the Law‘s remedial program and a narrow construction to a disqualification from that program.
The sentencing court ordered Claimant to serve his 60-day sentence on weekends so that he could keep his job. Under the first dictionary definition of “during,” Claimant is not incarcerated “throughout the duration of” the week. He is not, therefore, automatically disqualified. Indeed, he is able to work Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., a typical work week. To deny him compensation because he spends weekends in prison is punitive and not consistent with the remedial purpose of the Law.
The General Assembly has directed that when the words of a statute “are not explicit,” we may ascertain legislative intent by considering a number of factors.
In explaining its holding, the Board stated as follows:
Section 402.6 of the Law states that a claimant is disqualified for any weeks in which he is incarcerated after conviction. The record is clear that the claimant spent a portion of each of the weeks at issue confined to the Philadelphia County prison system. Although he was able to work part of those weeks in a work release program, this does not change the fact that he was incarcerated during those weeks; and the Section 402.6 disqualification still applied. See Kroh v. UCBR, 711 A.2d 1093 (Pa. Cmwlth. 1998)(affirming the Board‘s denial of benefits to a claimant under Section 402.6 during weeks that he was eligible for work release). The Kroh holding was unaffected by the recent opinion of Chamberlain v. UCBR, 83 A.3d [283] 282 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2014), so denial of benefits is required for an incarcerated claimant who is able and available for work release.
Board Adjudication, 4/15/2015, at 1 (emphasis added). The Board did not address the meaning of the word “during.” Rather, it focused solely on the word “incarcerated.” Because the Board did not address the ambiguity in Section 402.6, it is impossible to give its holding any deference.
The other problem with the Board‘s rationale is that it rests upon the erroneous supposition that Claimant was in a “work release” program. He was not. Claimant was serving a sentence of partial confinement, which is imposed “[w]here the court determines the rehabilitative needs are high and the risk to the public posed by the offender ... is sufficiently low.” Commonwealth v. Patton, 409 Pa. Super. 304, 597 A.2d 1216, 1218 (1991). From Sunday afternoon at 3:00 p.m. until Friday evening at 5:00 p.m., Claimant is at liberty and able to work. He is not under the confines of any penal institution.
The Statutory Construction Act directs that where the words of the statute are not explicit, we may look, inter alia, at the “occasion and necessity for the statute,” and the “former law, if any, including other statutes upon the same or similar objects.”
The majority cites a memorandum opinion, Gonzalez v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 2015 WL 5511031 (Pa. Cmwlth., No. 1825 C.D. 2014, filed August 18, 2015), and suggests that there is no need for a “different result” here. But there is. Gonzalez neither acknowledged nor addressed the ambiguity of the word “during” in Section 402.6 of the Law. Rather, Gonzalez focused on the plain meaning of the word “incarcerated” and did not mention the word “during.”
The Board argues that incarceration at any point in the week, whether for two days or one hour, renders an employee ineligible for unemployment compensation. Under this view, a person arrested for disorderly conduct on Friday night, who spends one night in jail, pleads guilty and gets a sentence for time served, is ineligible for unemployment compensation for the entire week. This outcome is not consistent with the principle that a disqualification provision should be narrowly construed. Penflex, 485 A.2d at 365. Notably, “a legislative measure will be considered penal where ... the effect of the statute is so harsh that ‘as a matter of degree’ it constitutes punishment.” Evans v. Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole, 820 A.2d 904, 912 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2003) (emphasis added). A penal provision “shall be strictly construed.”
Unlike the incarcerated inmate on work release, Claimant does not live at taxpayer expense. Other than his weekend meals from the government, he bears the burden of maintaining a place to live, securing
Section 3 of the Law, entitled “Declaration of Public Policy,” states, in relevant part, as follows:
Economic insecurity due to unemployment is a serious menace to the health, morals, and welfare of the people of the Commonwealth. Involuntary unemployment and its resulting burden of indigency falls with crushing force upon the unemployed worker, and ultimately upon the Commonwealth and its political subdivisions in the form of poor relief assistance. Security against unemployment and the spread of indigency can best be provided by the systematic setting aside of financial reserves to be used as compensation for loss of wages by employes during periods when they become unemployed through no fault of their own.
I construe the “weeks of unemployment during which the employe is incarcerated” to mean that an employee is automatically disqualified only where he is incarcerated “throughout the duration of” the week. MERRIAM-WEBSTER‘S COLLEGIATE DICTIONARY 360 (10th ed. 1997). He may still be disqualified if his lesser term of incarceration adversely affects the Law‘s requirement that he be “able to work and available for suitable work.” Section 401(d)(1) of the Law,
Judge Wojcik and Judge Cosgrove join in this dissenting opinion.
DISSENTING OPINION BY JUDGE COSGROVE
I join the thoughtful dissent of President Judge Leavitt in its entirety. I write separately to emphasize several additional points.
In fulfilling our duty to discern the intent of the General Assembly whenever statutory interpretation is part of our decision making, we are not limited to examination of the particular provision before us but must instead view the entire body of legislation as an organic whole. We, indeed, are compelled to do so. President Judge Leavitt carefully outlines how the Majority mistakenly limits the interpretation of Section 402.6 of the Unemployment Compensation Law (Law).1 In doing so, the Majority contradicts the Law‘s “remedial and humanitarian [ ] purpose ... [thus] frustrat[ing its objectives] by slavish adherence to technical and artificial rules.”
Although this case is before us in the unemployment benefit context, what is really at its core is the sentencing decision of a trial judge. While criminal law and its processes do not neatly fit into this Court‘s wheelhouse, we cannot ignore the profound experience a judge has in sentencing another. In fact, in no other area of the law is a judge‘s decision more consequential and impactful to the party before him or her. “If the hundreds of American judges who sit on criminal cases were polled as to what was the most trying facet of their jobs, the vast majority would almost certainly answer ‘Sentencing.’ In no other judicial function is the judge more alone; no other act of his [or hers] carries greater potentialities for good or evil than the determination of how society will treat its transgressors.” See Judge Irving R. Kaufman, Sentencing: The Judge‘s Problem, Atlantic Monthly, January 1960, available at http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/flashbks/death/kaufman.htm, (last viewed May 19, 2017).
The General Assembly guides the sentencing decision and directs the judge to consider, among other things, “the rehabilitative needs of the defendant.”
Whatever the motivation behind the enactment of Section 402.6,3 it would be the epitome of illogic for the General Assembly to construct a mechanism for courts to fashion a rehabilitative remedy for transgressors with one statute, only to have that remedy eviscerated through exercise of another statute, particularly when the latter has only a “humane” and “remedial” purpose.
For these reasons, as well as those articulated by the President Judge, I am compelled to dissent.
President Judge Leavitt and Judge Wojcik join in this dissent.
Notes
Id. (citing 1996 Pa. Legis. J., House, p. 835 (May 13, 1996)) (emphasis added). Act of December 5, 1936, Second Ex. Sess., P.L. (1937) 2897, as amended,Mr. Speaker, this amendment would put into the Unemployment Compensation Law a prohibition which is similar to one which we inserted into the workers’ compensation law in 1993. Specifically, this amendment says that someone who is incarcerated after a conviction does not receive unemployment benefits.
I learned to my surprise a month or so ago from a business in my district that it is possible now, if you are convicted and you are in prison and you qualify for work release and your employer does not want you back, you then get unemployment compensation. This businessman in my district and the other employees in that company do not think that is right; I do not think that is right either, and I think we ought to change the law.
When the words of the statute are not explicit, the intention of the General Assembly may be ascertained by considering, among other matters:
(1) The occasion and necessity for the statute.
(2) The circumstances under which it was enacted.
(3) The mischief to be remedied.
(4) The object to be attained.
(5) The former law, if any, including other statutes upon the same or similar subjects.
(6) The consequences of a particular interpretation.
(7) The contemporaneous legislative history.
(8) Legislative and administrative interpretations of such statute.
DeMoss, 454 A.2d at 1147. The language in Section 402.6 of the Law is different in two respects: (1) it includes the plural “weeks” instead of the singular—“week” when referring to the period of ineligibility, and (2) it includes the word “during.” We do not perceive either difference as compelling us, from a statutory construction perspective, to apply Section 402.6 of the Law in a way that conflicts with our holding in DeMoss. The availability requirement is not absolute. The Law does not require the claimant to “be available for full-time work, for permanent work, for his most recent work, or for his customary job, so long as the claimant is ready, willing and able to accept some suitable work.” Rohde v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 28 A.3d 237, 243 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2011).The resolution of this case hinges upon the initial words of Section 402: “An employe shall be ineligible for compensation for any week, ....” We believe that the use of the words “any week” denotes a legislative intent that an unemployed worker show eligibility for benefits during the entire period from Sunday through Saturday, and that disqualifying conduct during any portion of a week would result in loss of benefits for the entire week.