COA affirms denial of additional unemployment benefits

A woman whose unemployment benefits stopped after 26 weeks was not improperly denied an extension because she continued to work a part-time job of about four to eight hours a week, the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled.

In Debbie Mitchell v. Review Board of the Indiana Department of Workforce Development, and Midwest Mobile Care, Inc., 93A02-1310-EX-856, the court affirmed the Review Board because Mitchell received benefits when she lost her primary full-time job. When she kept the other job, it became her “normal and customary hours,” so she no longer qualified to receive benefits when she sought an extension.

Mitchell argued that the ruling punished her for continuing with a part-time, on-call position after she lost her primary means of employment, but the panel was not persuaded.

“If she had not maintained part-time employment, she would meet the definition of totally unemployed but would have exhausted her benefits. Having maintained part-time employment, she is neither totally nor partially unemployed and is not entitled to additional benefits,” Judge Margret Robb wrote for the panel. “Mitchell has not been disqualified from receiving benefits due to her part-time work, she is just not entitled to additional benefits because of it. She has been placed in no worse position than a less industrious person.”