Opinion
November 14, 1963.
December 12, 1963.
Unemployment Compensation — Voluntary termination of employment — Cause of necessitous and compelling nature — Failure to notify employer of reason for absence or to request leave of absence — Employe suffering from acute depression.
In an unemployment compensation case, in which it appeared that claimant, a bus boy in a hotel, did not return to work after a specified date because he suffered from acute depression; and that no leave of absence was ever requested, and claimant's employer was never notified of his reason for his absence until he reported back for work about six months later, at which time claimant was informed that no work was available for him; it was Held that the board properly denied benefits on the ground that claimant had voluntarily left his employment without cause of a necessitous and compelling nature.
Before RHODES, P.J., ERVIN, WRIGHT, WOODSIDE, WATKINS, MONTGOMERY, and FLOOD, JJ.
Appeal, No. 228, April T., 1963, by claimant, from decision of Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, No. B-78515, in re claim of Pantagiotis A. Pantagiotou. Decision affirmed.
Stephen J. Harris, with him Litman Litman, for appellant.
Sydney Reuben, Assistant Attorney General, with him Walter E. Alessandroni, Attorney General, for Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, appellee.
Argued November 14, 1963.
The claimant had been employed for over six years as a bus boy for the Carlton Hotel Corporation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He did not return to work after January 25, 1962, because he suffered from acute depression. No leave of absence was ever requested and the board found, upon sufficient evidence, that his employer was never notified of the reason for his absence until he reported back for work on August 1, 1962, and was informed that none was available for him. He sought benefits only for the period following August 21, 1962. The board held him disqualified because he had left his employment voluntarily and "without cause of a necessitous and compelling nature."
Since there is evidence to support the conclusion of the referee and the board that the claimant failed to maintain the employment relationship by not giving the employer notice subsequent to January 25, 1962, as to the reason for his absence, or requesting a leave of absence due to illness during the six months' period thereafter, we must affirm this conclusion. His incapacity was not such as to relieve him from notifying or having his wife notify his employer during this relatively long period of time. Drummond Unemployment Compensation Case, 193 Pa. Super. 115, 164 A.2d 111 (1960).
Decision affirmed.