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

Subject: Rae A. Enders v. LIRC and Bank One Wisconsin, Case 03 CV 630 (Wis. Cir. Ct., Waukesha Co., July 18, 2003)

Digest Codes: VL 1007.20  VL 1054.15 

On May 1, the employee announced in a meeting at work that she would be quitting her job effective May 31. She repeated that statement in a meeting with her supervisor the next day. The supervisor requested that she provide a written confirmation of her resignation. The employee did not do so. Over the following weeks the supervisor repeated her request that the employee confirm her resignation in writing but the employee did not comply. Eventually the supervisor submitted a resignation letter for the employee. The employee was also requested to sign and did sign a confidentiality agreement indicating she was resigning. Reversing a determination allowing benefits, an Appeal Tribunal found a voluntary quitting, and LIRC affirmed. On appeal to court, the employee argued that she never stated that she would resign on May 31, but only indicated an intention to resign at some point in the future when she found another job. Thus, she argued, her separation on May 31 was not a quitting but was forced on her by the employer.

Held: Affirmed. Cases relied on by the employee to support her argument are distinguishable, in that they involve situations in which the idea of the separation originated with the employer, or where the employer imposed the separation date on an employee who had announced an intention to leave at an indefinite time. Here, it was not disputed that it was the employee who announced that she had decided to quit, and the employee had expressly and unequivocally indicated May 31 as the date on which she would quit. The supervisor's request that she provide a written confirmation of her expressed intent to quit on May 31 was reasonable, and the employee's decision not to comply with this request is inconsequential. Such a refusal might evince a number of sentiments or intents, but the record makes it clear that the employee had a continuous intention from May 1 to May 31 to resign her position on May 31. Her refusal to comply with the request that she provide a written stating confirming her intent does not demonstrate that the separation was involuntary.

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