Wisconsin Labor and Industry Review Commission --
Summary of Wisconsin Court Decision relating to Unemployment Insurance


Subject: Timothy Bauhs v. LIRC and G.J.'s Supervalu, Case 02-CV-00175 (Wis. Cir. Ct., Kenosha Co., November 15, 2003)

Digest Codes: VL 1039.09 

Claimant maintained a temporary residence in Minneapolis where he worked at 2 part-time jobs, each of which provided at most only about 15 hours of work per week. His hours began to decline at both jobs, and there were weeks in which the combined total of his hours was less than 20/week. Because of the fact that he was not getting enough hours per week to support himself he quit his jobs and moved back to his parents' home in Kenosha, which he considered his permanent residence. The department's determination held that his quitting of his job with this employer (G.J.'s Supervalu) was not within any exception, and denied benefits. The Appeal Tribunal affirmed, holding that the provisions of Wis. Stat. § 108.04(7)(g) (quit to return to permanent residence when work available is reduced to less than 20 hours per week) were not applicable because the employee had not maintained a permanent residence in Kenosha while he was in Minneapolis, since it was his parents' home and he incurred no financial obligations to maintain it. LIRC affirmed the result but relied instead on the rationale that § 108.04(7)(g) was not applicable because the employee's hours with this employer had not been "reduced to less than 20 hours per week" since they had never been over 20 hours per week in the first place.

The employee appealed, arguing that LIRC had improperly substituted a new rationale, that the decision was in various respects not supported by the record, that the employee's two jobs should be considered together to support a finding that he had worked more than 20 hours per week, and that in any event the employee had good cause to quit.

In an initial decision the Circuit Court rejected all of the employee's arguments except for the argument about combining the hours of the two jobs for purposes of analysis. Noting that this theory had not been addressed by LIRC in its decision (it had not been raised to LIRC, because the ALJ had pursued a different approach not involving the number of hours), the Court decided to set aside LIRC's decision and remand the matter to have LIRC issue another decision addressing that issue.

On remand, LIRC issued another decision which addressed the employee's theory about combining hours and that concluded that this was not possible and that § 108.04(7)(g) required looking solely at the hours of the quit job, not the hours of other jobs the employee might also have held. The employee again appealed the commission's decision to court.

Held: Affirmed. LIRC's interpretation of § 108.04(7)(g), to the effect that it required looking solely at the hours of the quit job and not the hours of other jobs the employee might also have held, was reasonable. Under the UI Act an "employing unit" is a single entity, and the reference in § 108.04(7)(a) regarding the quit disqualification is to "employing unit", not to a series of employers or employing units. The Court agrees that § 108.04(7)(g) cannot be found to apply if an employee never worked more than 20 hours for an employer to begin with.


Please note that this is a summary prepared by staff of the commission, not a verbatim reproduction of the court decision.

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uploaded 2003/11/24