Irving unemployment state Supreme Court case petition denied

The Iowa Supreme Court denied a petition for rehearing filed by the Employment Appeal Board (EAB) to reconsider a ruling in Irving vs. Employment Appeal Board that will have a detrimental effect on unemployment benefits and administration of those benefits, as well as potentially impact employer taxes. Although one small change was made to the ruling by the Court in response to the EAB petition, the bulk of the ruling stands.

 EAB’s petition was an attempt to try and narrow the ruling to affect people similarly situated to the plaintiff, Irving, where a claimant who is disqualified for misconduct from supplemental/concurrent employment may still draw on wage credits from other base period employers. The failure to limit the ruling to part-time/concurrent work will impair the administration of unemployment benefits in Iowa and undermine the purpose of Iowa unemployment law. For specific examples of the effects created by this ruling, see the EAB’s petition for rehearing.

The Court also ruled in the case, that incarceration is not a voluntary quit for purposes of unemployment benefit eligibility, and that each case where an employee is incarcerated must be evaluated individually.

ABI will be considering next steps to address the problems created by the case ruling.