Section 32a
PROCEDURE, Good cause, Late protest, Agency advice
CITE AS: Pinecrest Custom Homes v Meines, Kent Circuit Court, No. 02-03823-AE (October 8, 2002).
Appeal pending: No
Claimant: Janis Meines
Employer: Pinecrest Custom Homes
Docket No. B2001-14696-RM1-161795
CIRCUIT COURT HOLDING: Detrimental reliance on incorrect advice from a representative of the Agency constitutes “good cause” for filing a late protest.
FACTS: Claimant quit her job due to abusive conduct by the husband of the owner. Claimant filed for benefits. A determination held her disqualified for benefits under Section 29(1)(a). Claimant telephoned the claims examiner who issued the determination to ask what would be required to reverse the determination. Claimant testified the claims examiner told her (incorrectly) she would have to “prove with medical records or police reports that she had been ‘physically injured.’” Claimant did not file a timely protest of the determination because she did not have such evidence. A few weeks later, claimant met the person who had replaced her. That person also quit due to abusive conduct from employer’s husband and was seeking benefits. She told claimant other employees had quit for the same reason and had received benefits. Claimant then filed an untimely protest.
DECISION: The claimant established good cause for her late protest.
RATIONALE: “What justifies considering the late filing of a new, additional or reopened claim seems intuitively to justify considering the late protest of the initial determination of a claim.” That definition of “good cause” is “a justifiable reason, determined in accordance with the standard of conduct expected of an individual acting as a reasonable person in light of all the circumstances, that prevented a timely filing or reporting to file....” The statement of a “representative of the Unemployment Agency that a protest could succeed only with evidence that one does not have compels the conclusion that there is no point to a protest; reasonable people do not do the futile. [I]t is not reasonable to expect lay-people to ignore whom the government holds out to be an expert.” Claimant “had good cause for not protesting until she learned that she had been misled.”
11/04