Section 29(5)
LEAVING TO ACCEPT, Performs Services
CITE AS: MESC v ClarkMESC v ClarkMESC v Clark, No. 82-23903 AE, Washtenaw Circuit Court (April 20, 1983).
Appeal pending: No
Claimant: George Clark
Employer: Ypsilanti Regional Psychiatric Hospital
Docket No: B81 04322 78627
CIRCUIT COURT HOLDING: "The broad interpretation of the phrase 'performs services' is both appropriate and just. To determine that the services performed were not adequate simply because the claimant was not directly compensated for them would basically conflict with the purpose of the Act."
FACTS: Claimant had informed his employer's personnel office that he had accepted full time employment with the Federal Government at the beginning of February, 1981. He asked that his resignation request be delayed because he knew that there was a federal hiring freeze in effect. However, since he had been told to report to work on February 9, he submitted his resignation and worked his last shift for the employer on February 8, 1981. When he reported to the VA he was told that there would be a delay in the start of his employment. He returned to the employer and asked to continue his part-time employment. He was told that the state had also imposed a hiring freeze and that since he had submitted his resignation he would not be rehired.
DECISION: The leaving to accept provisions of the Act, Section 29(5) apply to the claimant's separation.
RATIONALE: Section 29(5) provides an exemption from the disqualification provisions found in Section 29(1) of the Employment Security Act. Two criteria must be satisfied for this exemption to apply: There must be permanent full-time work, and the individual must perform services for that employer. The Court adopted the language contained in the Board of Review decision:
"While the VA Hospital employer was prevented from assigning the claimant to the new position, there is no question that the claimant fully complied with the employer's recruitment procedures. His performance was clearly a service in behalf of the staffing needs of that employer. The claimant did, indeed, carry out acts under the direction of his new employer, although the specific tasks to which he was appointed could not be performed at that time because of the recruitment freeze."
Actions taken by the claimant must be reviewed in the context of the real world. This type of analysis mode allows factual situations like this to be covered by an exception clearly intended by the legislature to do this.
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