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264 Ark. 472

572 S.W.2d 409

Parker v. Ramada Inn

Supreme Court of Arkansas

Decided October 30, 1978

Supreme Court of Arkansas · decided 1978-10-30

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“a disregard of standards of behavior which the employer has a right to expect,”

quoted by 2 later decisions, including Jeffreys v. Everett, Paxton v. Union National Bank

“Arkansas Code Annotated section 11-10-514. Disqualification — Discharge for misconduct. (a)(1) If so found by the Director of the Arkansas Employment Security Department, an individual shall be disqualified for benefits if he is discharged from his last work for misconduct in connection with the work. (2) In all cases of discharge for absenteeism, the individual’s attendance record for the twelve-month period immediately preceding the discharge and the reasons for the absenteeism shall be taken into consideration for purposes of determining whether the absenteeism constitutes misconduct. (Italics added.)”

quoted by 1 later decision, including Yarbrough v. Director, Employment Security Department & Conway Transportation Services

Relies on Harris v. Daniels · Claim of Watts v. Employment Security Agency · Powell v. Commonwealth

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1978-10-30

How this case has been cited

Cited by 32 later decisions — most recently August 2023 · most notably Paxton v. Union National Bank (1982), 1 Ark. App. 114 - Nibco, Inc. v. Metcalf (1981)

2 federal appellate · 26 state decisions

280197819801990200020102020decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Conley Byrd, Justice.

¶1 Appellant Theodore Parker, following his discharge as cook for the Ramada Inn, North Little Rock, applied for unemployment compensation benefits. He candidly admits that he was employed as a cook by the Ramada Inn for the 2:00 p.m. to the 10:30 p.m. shift and that after working seven consecutive days he overslept on the 8th day until 6:30 or 7:00 p.m. He did not contact his employer until the next day when he reported for work at which time he learned that the employer had employed another cook and that the employer considered him discharged. The Employment Security Division denied appellant benefits under Section 5(b)(1) [Ark. Stat. Ann. § 81-1106(b)(1) (Repl. 1976)], which provides:

“For all claims filed on and after July 1, 1973, if so found by the Director an individual shall be disqualified for benefits:
(a) . . .
(b) DISCHARGED FOR MISCONDUCT. (1) If he is discharged from his last work for misconduct in connection with the work ... .”

¶2 The denial of benefits to appellant was affirmed by the Appeals Tribunal, the Board of Review and the Circuit Court. For reversal appellant contends that the finding of the Board of Review is not supported by substantial evidence and that the employer defaulted by failing to respond to Employment Security Dvision inquiries and by failing to appear at the Appeals Tribunal hearing. We find no merit to either contention.

¶3 With respect to procedure, the Employment Security Act, Ark. Stat. Ann. § 81-1107(d)(4) (Repl. 1976) provides:

“(4) Procedure. The Board of Review, appeal tribunals and special examiners shall not be bound by common law or statutory rules of evidence or by technical rules of procedure, but any hearing or appeal before such tribunals shall be conducted in such manner as to ascertain the substantial rights of the parties. . . .”

¶4 Consequently, it áppears that appellant’s counsel in contending that appellant should win by default has failed to read the Employment Security Act in its entirety before proceeding with appellant’s ¡claim.

¶5 Likewise thfe Employment Security Act, Ark. Stat. Ann. § 81-1107 (d) (7) (Repl. 1976), provides that the findings of the Board of Review are conclusive on appeal if they are supported by substantial evidence. Consequently, appellant’s contention is actually reduced to a legal argument that a single incident of missing work due to oversleeping is not misconduct within the meaning of the Employment Security Act. A single incident of missing work has ordinarily been considered misconduct within the meaning of Employment Security laws when the failure to report and appear for work involves a disregard of. standards of behavior which the employer has a right to expect. See Watts v. Employment Security Agency, 80 Idaho 529, 335 P. 2d 533 (1959), involving a log scaler and Powell v. Com., Unemployment Comp. Bd., 31 Pa. Comwlth. 512, 377 A. 2d 206 (1977), involving a security guard. Consequently, we cannot say that appellant’s conduct did not, as a matter of law, involve a violation of a standard of behavior that a restaurant operator had a right to expect. As noted in the recent case of Harris v. Daniels, et al, 263 Ark. 897, 567 S.W. 2d 954 (1978), judicial review is limited to a determination as to whether the Board reached a reasonable conclusion based on the evidence before it. To say the least, a question of fact was presented to the Board of Review on which it could have found either way.

¶6 Appellant acknowledges that his presence might be vital to the employer’s operations but contends that there is not a scintilla of evidence to support such a finding. We find no merit to this contention. It is common knowledge that a cook is essential to the operation of a restaurant and while the record does not show that appellant was the only cook, the record does show that appellant’s position was important enough to his employer that a replacement was promptly employed.

¶7 Affirmed.

We agree: Harris, C.J., and Fogleman and Hickman, JJ.
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