Legal Question in Employment Law in Pennsylvania

In nov 2012 I filed for unemployment when i left my former employer. The fought me and coded me as "job abandonment". The State of Pa disagreed when presented all the facts and awarded me my unemployment compensation in Jan. 2013. Now, my former employer is pursuing me for education reimbursement that I was given because they state that I "job abandoned". The policy of my former company is that you only have to pay back education reimbursement if you quit voluntarily, which I showed I did not do to the State, hence me receiving my unemployment. Do they have to abide by the state decision that I did not job abandon or can they ignore the states determination and still code me how they want to?


Asked on 1/07/14, 2:30 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Terence Sean McGraw Warren & McGraw, LLC

"Res judicata" is the fancy latin term for being bound by a prior ruling. Whether or not a UC decision is binding in a later proceeding is a question that has generated different answers in different contexts. Your argument that the prior ruling should bind your former employer will be stronger if you both attended a hearing before a referee and you won a contested, litigated decision. Without conducting exhaustive research, my recollection is that this question of law has not yet been answered definitively in PA.

For further information, generally, see http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/40862352?uid=3739864&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21103307554573

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Answered on 1/07/14, 2:59 pm


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