Employment Insurance (EI)

Decision

[1] Leave (permission) to appeal is refused. The appeal will not proceed.

Overview

[2] The Applicant, R. G. (Claimant), is seeking leave to appeal the General Division decision. The General Division found that the Claimant had voluntarily left his employment (quit) without just cause. It found that he had reasonable alternatives to leaving his employment. As a result, he was disqualified from receiving Employment Insurance benefits.

[3] The Claimant argues that the General Division made an important factual error. In particular, he says that the General Division made a mistake when it found that he should have asked for a leave of absence from his employer. He says that his employer had already given him a leave of absence and that he returned to work once he was able to work. The Claimant says that if the General Division had not made this error, it would have found that he did not have reasonable alternatives to leaving his employment.

[4] Before the Claimant can move ahead with the 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}

[5] 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 the appeal.

Issue

[6] Is there an arguable case that the General Division made a mistaken when it found that the Claimant had reasonable alternatives to leaving his employment?

I am not giving the Claimant permission to appeal

[7] 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}

[8] For these types of factual error, 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 based its decision on an erroneous finding of fact

[9] The Claimant does not have an arguable case that the General Division based its decision on an error that it made in a perverse or capricious manner or without regard for the evidence before it. The General Division’s findings were consistent with the evidence before it.

[10] The Claimant argues that the General Division based its decision on an error that it made in a perverse or capricious manner. He says that the evidence clearly shows that his employer offered him a leave of absence, but that he was unable to accept it. He did not know when he would be able to work. He returned to work when he was able to do so.

[11] Indeed, the General Division noted and accepted this evidence. It wrote:

After the Appellant sent his letter of resignation, his employer reached out to see if the situation regarding the lack of the required internet connection was temporary. It said it was willing to discuss options to avoid having the appellant resign. [Citation omitted]

The Appellant simply wrote back to say that he didn’t know when he would be able to secure the required internet connection [citation omitted]. He didn’t attempt to make any arrangements with his employer to avoid having to resign, despite having been invited to do so.^{Footnote 5}

[12] The evidence in the hearing file supports the General Division’s findings. The evidence showed that the Claimant resigned his position. He resigned because he did not anticipate being able to meet his employer’s condition of working remotely via a secure internet condition. The evidence is as follows:

• Exchange of email in August 2023, between the Claimant and his employer. On August 9, 2023, the Claimant submitted his resignation.^{Footnote 6} The employer responded, “If you have an idea of when you could resume working again, we could review any options to avoid a resignation.”^{Footnote 7} The Claimant responded the following day that he would not be able to accept his employer’s offer because of his personal circumstances.^{Footnote 8}
• The employer said in the Record of Employment that the Claimant quit.^{Footnote 9}
• In his Notice of Appeal, the Claimant stated that his claim for benefits was denied “because [he] should have asked for a leave of absence until [he] could find a place [with secure internet]. [He] did not [ask for a leave of absence] because [he] had no place for the foreseeable future.”^{Footnote 10}
• The Claimant’s employer told the Respondent, the Canada Employment Insurance Commission (Commission), that it offered the Claimant accommodations to avoid the resignation. The Claimant did not accept the offer as he would be unavailable for quite some time. The employer told the Commission, “We for sure would of [sic] worked with him, given him some personal leave, or set up something that he could continue to work. We have him on the hire back list if he ever wants to come back.”^{Footnote 11} The employer subsequently confirmed this advice.^{Footnote 12}
• The Claimant reported to the Commission that he assumed that his employer would not give him an indefinite leave of absence, so he thought he did not have any options but to quit his employment. However, he had not called his employer to actually discuss the offer of a leave of absence.^{Footnote 13}

[13] The Claimant’s employer offered him the opportunity to take a leave of absence rather than quit his employment, but the Claimant did not accept this offer.

[14] There was no discussion between the Claimant and his employer about how long he might have been able to take a leave of absence. The Claimant could have discussed this with his employer, instead of making assumptions that the leave was for only a short period. Until then, it cannot be said that he had exhausted all reasonable alternatives.

[15] All in all, the evidence suggests that the Claimant could have accepted his employer’s offer of a leave of absence, however long it might have been, instead of quitting.

[16] Finally, I note that there is conflicting evidence in the hearing file. For instance, the Claimant initially told the Commission that his employer dismissed him and that his employer did not give him any options to stay.^{Footnote 14} The General Division did not address this conflicting evidence. However, this evidence is undercut by the Claimant’s own evidence and the Claimant is no longer suggesting that his employer dismissed him or that his employer did not give him any options to stay.

[17] The Claimant does not have an arguable case that the General Division based its decision on an erroneous finding of fact. The evidence supported the General Division’s findings that the Claimant could have pursued the option of a leave of absence, rather than quitting.

Conclusion

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