41 Pa. Commw. 546 | Pa. Commw. Ct. | 1979
Opinion by
Martha B. Mihelic has appealed from an order of the Unemployment Compensation Board of Review which affirmed a referee’s decision denying Ms. Mihelic’s claim for benefits because she failed to file a timely appeal of the decision of the Bureau of Employment Security. We affirm the order of the Board.
Ms. Mihelic was discharged from her employment as a salesperson for Lord and Taylor on August 7, 1975. On August 10, 1975 she applied for unemployment compensation benefits. On August 19, 1975 the Bureau of Employment Security found Ms. Mihelic to be ineligible for benefits because she was discharged
Unless the claimant or last employer or base-year employer of the claimant files an appeal with the board, from the determination contained in any notice required to be furnished by the department under section five hundred and one (a), (c) and (d), within ten (10) calendar days after such notice was delivered to him personally, or was mailed to his last known post office address, and applies for a hearing, such determination of the department, with respect to the particular facts set forth in such notice, shall be final and compensation shall be paid or denied in accordance therewith.1
The Board of Review affirmed the referee’s decision and Ms. Mihelic appealed to this Court. On September 14, 1977, upon representations by counsel for the Board that the record was incomplete, we remanded the record to the Board for additional testimony and a new decision. The Board appointed a hearing officer, who conducted a second hearing at which Ms.
The issue on the facts was whether notice of the Bureau’s denial of benefits was mailed to Ms. Mihelic on August 19, 1975. Where notice is mailed to a claimant’s last known address and not returned by the postal authorities as undeliverable, the claimant is presumed to have received it and is barred from attempting to appeal after the expiration of the appeal period provided in Section 501(e) of the Law. DeVito Unemployment Compensation Case, 199 Pa. Superior Ct. 606, 186 A.2d 639 (1962). Ms. Mihelic argues that ■ there is not substantial evidence that notice was mailed on August 19, 1975 or indeed that a determination was made by the Bureau on that or any other date. Her case is based on the facts that a copy of the Bureau’s notice of determination required to be sent to her was not in the Bureau’s files and that in her case, apparently unusually, a notice of financial eligibility was received at the local Bureau office after rather than before the determination of claim eligibility was made. These circumstances she says demonstrate such administrative fecklessness as to compel the inference that no notice of determination was sent to her. Her argument based on the Bureau’s lack of a copy of her notice is somewhat disingenuous; the evidence was that at that time the Bureau kept no such copy. We are at a loss to understand how the late receipt by the local office of the notice of financial eligibility requires a finding that a notice of determination of claim eligibility was not sent.
Order
And Now, this 9th day of April, 1979, the order of the Unemployment Compensation Board of Review is affirmed.
Section 501(c) was amended by the Act of April 14, 1976, P.L. 113, §1 to provide a fifteen day appeal period effective the date of the act.