- Court: Oregon Court of Appeals
- Area(s) of Law: Administrative Law
- Date Filed: 09-30-2015
- Case #: A148351
- Judge(s)/Court Below: Nakamoto, J. for the Court; Armstrong, P.J.; & Tookey, J.
In the first phase of this case, the Court reversed and remanded an order of the Employment Appeals Board (EAB) that determined Petitioner was disqualified from receiving regular unemployment insurance benefits. After that decision, Petitioner received notice from the Employment Department (the Department) that she may be eligible for extended benefits; Petitioner made the claim. The Department denied her claim for extended benefits as untimely. On appeal, Petitioner argued the Department lacked legal authority to deny her application for extended benefits as untimely because the extended benefit statutes, ORS 657.321 – 657.329, do not apply to bar her receipt of extended benefits after the EAB determined the was qualified to receive regular benefits (upon remand), and also argued she applied for extended as soon as was practicable considering the Department has already denied her application for regular benefits prior to this Court’s determination, thereby making Petitioner ineligible for extended benefits during the time period the Department said she should have applied for extended benefits. The statutes covering extended benefits do no specify a time period to make a claim for a claimant who has won an appeal of disqualification of regular benefits. Applying the time limitation for regular benefits to the application for extended benefits could yield an inconsistent result, and the Department must make a determination whether applying the claims filing requirement for regular benefits to Petitioner’s claim for extended benefits would result in an inconsistent application of the statutes for regular and extended benefits, especially considering the Department’s erroneous disqualification of Petitioner from receiving regular and extended benefits. Reversed and remanded.