Employment Insurance (EI)

Decision

[1] Leave (permission) to appeal is refused. The appeal will not be going ahead.

Overview

[2] The Applicant, R. P. (Claimant), is seeking leave to appeal the General Division decision. The General Division dismissed the Claimant’s appeal.

[3] The General Division found that the Claimant had not shown that he had just cause for leaving his job when he did. In other words, it found that he did not have a reason that the law accepts. The General Division found that the Claimant had reasonable alternatives to leaving his job. This meant he was disqualified from receiving Employment Insurance benefits.

[4] The Claimant denies that he had any reasonable alternatives to leaving his job. He says he voiced his concerns over safety, but his employer did not respond and give him proper training after he moved to a new position. He says the General Division overlooked this evidence and failed to consider it when deciding whether he had any reasonable alternative. He suggests that, given his safety concerns, it was unreasonable for him to have tried to stay at his job, while looking for other work.

[5] Before the Claimant can move ahead with his appeal, I have to decide whether the appeal has a reasonable chance of success. In other words, there has to be an arguable case.^{Footnote 1} If the appeal does not have a reasonable chance of success, this ends the matter.^{Footnote 2}

[6] I am not satisfied that the appeal has a reasonable chance of success. Therefore, I am not giving permission to the Claimant to move ahead with his appeal.

Issue

[7] Is there an arguable case that the General Division overlooked some of the evidence about whether the Claimant had any reasonable alternatives to leaving his job?

I am not giving the Claimant permission to appeal

[8] Leave to appeal is refused if the Appeal Division is satisfied that the appeal has no reasonable chance of success. A reasonable chance of success exists if the General Division may have made a jurisdictional, procedural, legal, or a certain type of factual error.^{Footnote 3}

[9] For factual errors, the General Division had to have based its decision on an error that it made in a perverse or capricious manner, or without regard for the evidence before it.^{Footnote 4}

The Claimant does not have an arguable case that the General Division overlooked some of the evidence

[10] The Claimant does not have an arguable case that the General Division overlooked some of the evidence about whether he had any reasonable alternatives to leaving his job. The General Division acknowledged and addressed the Claimant’s evidence that he did not know what he was doing and that his employer did not respond to his safety concerns over getting proper training.

[11] The evidence regarding the Claimant’s assertions regarding training is as follows:

• In his application for benefits, the Claimant wrote, “Being extremely humiliated and pointed out in front of everyone by the owner. In front of all my coworkers over being untrained properly to do my job correctly.”^{Footnote 5} However, he did not discuss his situation with his boss (the owner) because he had been humiliated.^{Footnote 6}

• At the hearing before the General Division, the Claimant testified that he spoke with the owner’s son, who served as the plant manager and oversaw day-to-day operations. The Claimant told the son that he did not know what he was doing. He explained that the person who trained him had not shown him how to properly do things. He was confused because the trainer showed him different way of doing things each time. He says that he almost ended up blowing himself up. The Claimant says the son did not seem very concerned. According to the Claimant, the son responded, “That’s just the way he operates. It was kind of like you better pick it up or that’s it, right?”^{Footnote 7}

  The Claimant also spoke with the owner on the day that he left his job. He testified that the owner said, “It’s not rocket science. [You’d] better] pick it up.”^{Footnote 8}

• When he spoke with the Respondent, the Canada Employment Insurance Commission, the Claimant did not mention any issues over training.^{Footnote 9} The only concern that the Claimant raised was over the lack of personal protective equipment.
• The Claimant’s employer confirmed that the Claimant had not raised any concerns with it.^{Footnote 10} The employer professed that it did not understand why the Claimant left his job. The employer states that the Claimant quit without providing any reasons. The employer was surprised when the Claimant quit.^{Footnote 11}

[12] The General Division found that the evidence did not show how the training that the Claimant received was inadequate to address any dangers to health and safety. The member wrote:

I acknowledge the [Claimant] feels he wasn’t trained to do his new job properly. But I find he hasn’t provided enough evidence to show how this meant his working conditions were a danger to his health and safety. He didn’t elaborate on why he felt someone who was semi-retired wasn’t capable of training him properly or provide any examples of how they trained him wrong. He also didn’t elaborate on why he felt that not being able to hear the trainer sometimes meant that they were training him wrong.^{Footnote 12}

[13] The General Division determined that the evidence did not show how the training impacted safety or the working conditions. In other words, it did not agree that the lack of or inadequate training that he received made his working conditions so unsafe that the Claimant could not continue working while looking for other employment. Therefore, the General Division found that the Claimant had reasonable alternatives to leaving his job when he did. He could have stayed and continued to work, even if he felt that he had not been adequately trained.

[14] The General Division also determined that the Claimant had other alternatives, even if safety was an issue. The Claimant could have asked to return to his old position. Although the employer had hired someone for his old position, the General Division queried whether there was enough work for the Claimant. Possibly that new hire could have switched positions with the Claimant.

[15] Essentially, the Claimant is asking for a reassessment on the same evidence, and seeking a different outcome. However, that is not the role of the Appeal Division in an application for leave to appeal, even if it might have come to a different set of findings than the General Division had.

[16] In summary, the General Division considered the evidence before it. The Claimant is seeking a reassessment. As the grounds of appeal do not include reassessing the evidence, I am not satisfied that the appeal has a reasonable chance of success that the General Division overlooked some of the evidence.

[17] As a footnote, the Claimant also testified that he had been “willing to stick it out until I found a new job. Like I mean, I didn’t want to quit my job, you know. Like, you know, bear through it all until I found something else but after all this, what’s the point. Like after getting yelled at, you know.”^{Footnote 13}

[18] The General Division did not address this evidence. It could also have examined whether the humiliating experience was the real factor that drove the Claimant to leave his employment, rather than any safety or other concerns. Had that been the case, it is unlikely that the General Division would have determined that the Claimant had just cause for leaving his employment.

Conclusion

[19] The appeal does not have a reasonable chance of success. Permission to appeal is refused. This means that the appeal will not proceed.