UIA v. JDM & Associates v Yordy
Digest No. 13.28
Cite as: JDM & Assoc v Yordy, Muskegon County Circuit Court, issued August 30, 2005 (Docket No. 05-43773-AE).
Appeal pending: No
Claimant: Sara B. Yordy
Employer: JDM & Associates
Docket no.: 176914W
Date of decision: August 30, 2005
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HOLDING: The Board’s decision to grant Yordy unemployment benefits was contrary to law. Yordy was not eligible for unemployment benefits because she failed without good cause to accept alternative suitable work offered to her by JDM.
FACTS: JDM & Associates had placed Yordy as an employee doing industrial work at Hillite International from August 2002 to June 2003. When that job ended, JDM offered her other full-time employment doing industrial work at Whitehall Products on July 15, 2003. Yordy refused this offer because she wanted to work the second shift and the job was for the first shift. JDM gave her several other job offers which she also declined because of her desire to work second shift.
DECISION: The circuit court reversed the Board’s decision, which had found the claimant was not disqualified from receiving unemployment benefits under Section 29(1)(e).
RATIONALE: The purpose of the Act is to provide benefits to workers who are involuntarily unemployed. If the Board’s decision that Yordy was eligible for benefits were to stand, it would allow employees who were offered suitable work to turn it down and still receive benefits. Alternatively, the Board would have to preemptively decide what constitutes suitable work each time an employer offered a substitute job, which the legislature could not have intended.
Digest Author: Alisa Hand, Michigan Law, Class of 2017
Digest Updated: 3/1/2016