Ward v. Commonwealth
Ward v. Commonwealth
Opinion of the Court
Opinion by
The claimant in this unemployment compensation case appeals from an order of the Board of Review affirming a referee’s decision that she was ineligible for benefits because she left her work without cause of a necessitous and compelling nature. We affirm.
The claimant was employed as a “secretary/office manager.” On her last day of work, a dispute arose between one of the persons she was charged with supervising and an employee supervised by the warehouse foreman concerning the playing of a radio. After attempting to settle the dispute alone and then with the warehouse foreman who, as the referee found, promised to take corrective action, the claimant took the matter to her employer. The claimant testified that her employer responded to her request for help by telling her to, “handle it or leave.” It is unquestioned that the claimant left her work after talking with her employer. The employer denied telling the claimant to “handle it or leave” or anything similar and the referee found the facts to be as the employer testified.
Moreover, we question whether the direction to an employee to perform a duty of her employment or leave the job, standing alone as it does here, provides compelling and necessitous cause for quitting.
The claimant also says that there is no evidence in the record to support the referee’s finding that the claimant left her work before corrective action could be taken. We disagree. An employer’s witness testified that the warehouse foreman on the day of the incident in fact took corrective action concerning the offending radio as he promised the claimant he would.'
Order
And Now, this 3rd day of March, 1982, the order of the Unemployment Compensation Board of Review in the above-captioned case is affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.