In re Bull
Opinion of the Court
Appeal from a decision of the Unemployment Insurance Appeal Board, filed September 25, 2012, which ruled that claimant was disqualified from receiving unemployment insurance benefits because her employment was terminated due to misconduct.
Claimant worked as an accounts receivable assistant for approximately 15 years. She was out of work on an authorized medical leave, but was cleared to return to work on July 26, 2011 without any restrictions other than that she was not to lift heavy objects for a period of two weeks. More than two weeks after she returned to work, she refused to do any filing. She claimed that, due to her surgery, she was unable to physically lift the heavy files and put them into the filing cabinet. The employer attempted to accommodate her by having the files moved closer to the filing cabinet and allowing her to separate the files, but she still refused to perform filing. Claimant was terminated as a result. Her application for unemployment insurance benefits was denied on the ground that she was terminated due to misconduct. Following a hearing, an Administrative Law Judge sustained the determination and the Unemployment Insurance Appeal Board affirmed. Claimant now appeals.
We affirm. “An employee’s failure to comply with an employer’s reasonable request may constitute insubordination rising to the level of disqualifying misconduct” (Matter of Guagliardo [Commissioner of Labor], 27 AD3d 866, 867 [2006] [citations omitted]; see Matter of Smith [Rochester Inst. of Tech. — Com
Peters, EJ., McCarthy, Garry and Rose, JJ., concur. Ordered that the decision is affirmed, without costs.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.