Thanks for your message. While I can’t give you legal advice about your situation, based on what you describe it is probably unlikely the employer would challenge your unemployment or that you would be denied benefits. If an employee is laid off or fired, the employee is usually entitled to unemployment benefits, unless the employer challenges that the termination was for misconduct (or if there is some less common type of challenge to the benefits available to be made), and is successful with that challenge. Here, it appears the employer is not claiming that you committed misconduct- at least not to you. If you are denied after the phone interview (which again would surprise me), it’s certainly a situation you could appeal and/or talk to an attorney about if you wish.

Best of luck.

Mike

Thanks for your comment. Your situation would require legal advice, and more detailed discussion with an attorney. If you are in Wisconsin, you could (1) contact my firm at 920-831-0300 to discuss your matter (please note we would charge legal fees at some point); or (2) if you can’t afford any legal fees, you could contact the Marquette Law School’s unemployment assistance program, via the program’s representative Rebecca Salawdeh, rebecca@salawdehlaw.com, (414) 455-0117.

If you are dealing with unemployment in a State other than Wisconsin, you will need to talk to an attorney licensed in that State’s law. You can conduct a by-State search for employee rights attorneys at this website: http://www.nela.org.

I wish you the best.

Mike

My appeal is next week; but my situation seems impossible. I was getting benefits – and then returned to school, about 4-5 hours a day in the morning. I call the unemployment offices and explain to them that I’ve been in school, now they are stating that because I was in school, I wasn’t available for full-time work and now they request I pay my benefits back. I’ve done school and full-time before, so I thought it was ok. What should I do?

Thanks for reading the blog, and for your comment. From your message, it isn’t clear to me what level of appeal you are at (i.e. appeal to DWD with a hearing yet to occur, or appeal to LIRC after the first hearing, etc.). The type of appeal, as well as your location in Wisconsin, determine the specific contact and phone number you can best get information from.

I recommend you get the latest document you received from the State for your unemployment matters, and call the main phone number listed on that letterhead. Someone should be able to direct you to the best party/phone number to answer questions about your particular appeal. If the first call doesn’t work, be persistent and try all the numbers you can find. It should not take many tries to get routed to someone who understands your situation and what you can do.

Sorry I can’t be of more help.

Mike

Thanks for writing. I appreciate feedback about the blog post and your hearing.

Regarding your questions, as always, I cannot provide legal advice as to your specific situation. In general, I can say that most UC hearing decisions are upheld at LIRC, so the statistics are in your favor, but of course each case is decided on its own merits. Also, if a party (your employer in this instance) tries to raise new evidence with LIRC (e.g. new reasons for termination not mentioned at hearing), LIRC is not supposed to consider that evidence, and they are pretty vigilent in excluding such new evidence in my observation. So, all things considered, hopefully things will go well for your matter.

Best of luck.

Mike

In Wisconsin, I am not aware of any law one way or the other that says an employer cannot contest unemployment if they go out of business. As a practical matter, if the employer is out of business, that increases the chances they will not participate in further unemployment proceedings (e.g. will not show up at a hearing, if you have one), and an employer’s failure to contest unemployment could increase the employee-claimant’s odds of winning. Some cases are tough for an employee to win no matter what.

You may want to give your local unemployment office a call and ask your question, because your scenario is something the unemployment office is more likely to encounter more than an attorney would.