Justices grant transfer to 1, deny 28 other cases

Indiana Supreme Court justices granted transfer to only one case among 28 others, agreeing to hear a dispute involving a traveling actor’s attempts to receive CARES Act benefits in Indiana.

Justices unanimously agreed to hear M.B. v. Review Board, 22S-EX-223, a case in which the Court of Appeals of Indiana held that a self-employed traveling actor from New York shouldn’t have received pandemic unemployment assistance in Indiana via the CARES Act because she didn’t meet any of the Act’s 11 relevant criteria.

M.B. worked in multiple states, including Indiana, with various theatrical productions but was unable to find work after her contract with a New York company ended and she was denied unemployment benefits in that state.

After M.B. filed an unemployment claim in Indiana, the Indiana Department of Workforce Development determined she had insufficient wages to qualify. However, M.B. successfully filed a claim for pandemic unemployment assistance in Indiana and received some funds.

M.B. was later informed that she was ineligible for pandemic unemployment assistance benefits because she “[was] not considered unemployed, partially unemployed, or unable or unavailable to work for one of the qualifying reasons” under the CARES Act, and that she “should file [her unemployment benefits claim] in New York because that is where [she was] working when [she] became unemployed.”

The COA found M.B. did not present any evidence to an administrative law judge that she was unemployed or unable to work “as a direct result of COVID-19.” It noted that although M.B. was seeing a doctor for contact dermatitis and that cleaning agents used by many businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic agitated the condition, “she testified that she had not been ordered by a doctor to quarantine and that she had not ‘been exposed to COVID or anything like that.’”

In reviewing the remaining cases on its petition to transfer list, the high court declined to hear the 28 cases left before it, but not without disagreement.

Justices split on whether they should consider a case involving an unruly defendant in Latuwan Anthony Partee v. State of Indiana, 21A-CR-1529. Specifically, the high court disagreed on whether trial courts are required to inform disruptive individuals who have been removed from the courtroom that they can reclaim their right to be present if they behave.

Justices Mark Massa, Geoffrey Slaughter and Christopher Goff voted to deny transfer. However, Justice Steven David dissented in a separate opinion and voted to hear the case, joined by Chief Justice Loretta Rush.

In his dissent, David disagreed with the COA’s conclusion that Illinois v. Allen, 397 U.S. 227, 228, 90 S. Ct. 1057 (1970), doesn’t require trial courts to inform disruptive defendants who have been removed from the courtroom that they can reclaim their right to be present.

Additionally, Justice Christopher Goff was the lone justice who voted to grant transfer to the case of Adam Kristopher Baumholser v. State of Indiana, 21A-PC-2138. There, the lower appellate court partially reversed Adam Baumholser’s child molesting convictions after concluding he received ineffective assistance of counsel at trial and was therefore entitled to post conviction relief.

The list of full transfer decisions is available online.