Michigan law provides for unemployment benefits for employees that are laid off from work if they meet certain requirements, including having received a certain amount of wages before being laid off. However, even if an employee meets the requirements to receive unemployment benefits, they can still be disqualified from receiving those benefits for a variety of reasons. One of the events that will disqualify an employee from receiving benefits is if the employee “voluntarily left” work, unless he/she voluntarily left work for a permanent full time position.
Allowing an employee to still receive unemployment benefits if they voluntarily leave work for a permanent full time position and are subsequently laid off seems to be in line with the purpose of the statute and encouraging people to seek permanent full time jobs. For example, if a person is working part time for a temp agency and is offered full time employment, the statute should encourage the person to take that full time employment without fear of losing any unemployment benefits if they are later laid off without having met the wage requirements from their new position to qualify for unemployment benefits. But what if the employee leaves a temp agency or other part time employment for a permanent part time job? Will they still be entitled to unemployment benefits if they are then laid off?
The Michigan Court of Appeals recently answered this question in the negative, finding that an employee that left part time work from a temp agency for permanent part time work for the temp agency’s client was not entitled to unemployment benefits because she “voluntarily left” work.
The employee in Manpower v. Logan had worked for Manpower for over 5 years before leaving Manpower to work directly for one of Manpower’s clients, Pennfield, on a part time basis. Shortly after beginning work directly for Pennfield, the employee was laid off and sought unemployment benefits. Although the Court doesn’t mention it, it is likely that the employee did not seek unemployment benefits from being laid off by Pennfield because she did not meet the wage requirements to apply for unemployment benefits. Instead, the employee’s only chance of receiving unemployment benefits was to piggyback her time at Pennfield with her time at Manpower.
The Court rejected the employee’s arguments that she did not “voluntarily leave” work because Pennfield and Manpower should be considered “joint employers,” or that she never left work because she continued to be employed and doing the same job (despite that it was for two different employers). Instead, the Court found that the employee did “voluntarily leave” work for one employer to take permanent part time employment for another which disqualified her from receiving unemployment benefits when she was later laid off.
The full opinion of the Court may be accessed at the link below:
http://publicdocs.courts.mi.gov:81/opinions/final/coa/20140313_c311167_44_311167.opn.pdf
If you own a business and have any questions regarding your employees’ right to unemployment benefits or any other questions regarding your business, please contact the attorneys at Demorest Law firm.
