STATE OF WISCONSIN
LABOR AND INDUSTRY REVIEW COMMISSION
P O BOX 8126, MADISON, WI 53708-8126 (608/266-9850)


LAWRENCE R MATHE, Employee

AUTOMATIC HANDLING INC, Employer

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE DECISION
Hearing No. 00402661AP


An administrative law judge (ALJ) for the Division of Unemployment Insurance of the Department of Workforce Development issued a decision in this matter. A timely petition for review was filed.

The commission has considered the petition and the positions of the parties, and it has reviewed the evidence submitted to the ALJ. Based on its review, the commission agrees with the decision of the ALJ, and it adopts the findings and conclusion in that decision as its own.

DECISION

The decision of the administrative law judge is affirmed. Accordingly, the employee's request for hearing on the merits is dismissed. The determination shall remain in effect.

Dated and mailed October 27, 2000
mathela.usd : 105 : 1  PC 711 AA 283

/s/ David B. Falstad, Chairman

/s/ Pamela I. Anderson, Commissioner

James A. Rutkowski, Commissioner


MEMORANDUM OPINION

The statutory standard for late appeals, reason beyond control, is a strict one and the employee's circumstances do not meet it. First, the commission and the Department of Workforce Development have long required that parties who will be away from their addresses of record with the department, make some kind of arrangement for timely response to time-sensitive matters from the department. The employee did not do so. Second, even were the employee's absence not considered, it remains the case that he had received the initial determination by August 10. By operation of Wis. Admin. Code § DWD 140.01(2), a party who receives a determination after the end of the statutory appeal period still has only 14 days (which is the standard appeal period for initial determinations) to perfect an appeal. The employee did not even meet this standard and, again, the fact that he had just returned from a trip out of the country is not a reason beyond his control for not dealing with the appeal for the next two weeks.

There also is the matter of the merits. The denial of eligibility to the employee was not due to his not being at home to await a telephone call from his employer, should the employer have decided to return him to work during the layoff. Rather, a general requirement of all claimants, for unemployment insurance eligibility, is that they be generally available for work in their labor market areas. It should be obvious that a claimant on an extended trip to Africa will not be available generally for work in his labor market in Wisconsin.

For these reasons, and those stated in the appeal tribunal decision, the commission has affirmed that decision.


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