Burden Of Proof In A Voluntary Quit Case
Posted on December 12, 2007
If an employee voluntarily quits his or her job and is seeking to gain unemployment compensation from the Division of Unemployment Assistance (DUA), they have a burden of proof to the Division of Unemployment Assistance in order to demonstrate that their voluntary quitting wasn’t without good cause attributable to the employing unit or its agent.
The burden of proof is on the employee and not the employer. Pursuant to Massachusetts General Laws c. 25 § (e)(1) the disqualifications for unemployment assistance. A person will not become disqualified from unemployment benefits if they voluntarily quit if they, can establish to the satisfaction of the commissioner that the reason that they left work due to sexual, racial or any other unreasonable harassment where the employer, its supervisory personnel or agents knew of such or should have known of such harassment.
Under Massachusetts General Laws, sexual harassment is defined as; sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, or other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature when; submission to or rejection of such advances, requests or conduct is made either explicitly or implicitly a term or condition of employment or as a basis for employment decisions. Also if such advances or conduct have the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual’s work performance, and lastly, such advances, requests or conduct have the purpose of effect of creating intimidating, hostile, humiliating, or sexually offensive work environment.
A person will also not be disqualified for voluntarily quitting if they establish to the satisfaction of the commissioner that the reason for the individual’s leaving work was due to domestic violence including; the individual’s reasonable fear of future domestic violence at or on route to or from the individuals place of employment, the individuals need to relocate to another geographic area in order to avoid future domestic violence, the individuals need to address the physical, psychological and legal effects of domestic violence, the individuals need to leave employment as a condition of receiving services or shelter from an agency which provides support services or shelter to victims of domestic violence and lastly, any other respect in which domestic violence causes the individual to reasonably believe that termination of employment is necessary for the future safety of the individual or their family. M.G.L. c. 151 § 25.
If an individual voluntarily quits their job unless they can prove to the commissioner that they quit because of harassment or due to a domestic violence situation, they are going to have a big burden of proof to show the commissioner to even be considered for unemployment benefits.
The forgoing article was written by Ashley Grudon for the Law Office of Goldstein and Clegg, a Massachusetts employment law firm.
Tags: employment law, quit, termination, unemployment, unemployment compensation
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