Opinion
March 9, 1959.
April 16, 1959.
Unemployment Compensation — Refusal to accept suitable work — Distance to place of employment — Evidence — Unemployment Compensation Law.
1. In an unemployment compensation case, in which it appeared that claimant, after being unemployed for more than five months, refused a job offer because he did not want to travel approximately fifteen miles from his home to the employer's place of business, although transportation was available, it was Held that the board properly refused benefits because claimant had failed to accept suitable work, under § 402(a) of the Unemployment Compensation Law.
2. Further contentions by claimant at a second hearing that he was not qualified for the job because of his lack of ability to read blueprints and that there was no mention of the wages to be paid to him, were Held, in the circumstances, to be without merit.
Before RHODES, P.J., HIRT, GUNTHER, WRIGHT, WOODSIDE, ERVIN, and WATKINS, JJ.
Appeal, No. 38, March T., 1959, by claimant, from decision of Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, No. B-47493, in re claim of Vincenzo J. Sciacca. Decision affirmed.
Vincenzo J. Sciacca, appellant, in propria persona, submitted a brief.
Sydney Reuben, Assistant Attorney General, with him Anne X. Alpern, Attorney General, for appellee.
Argued March 9, 1959.
In this unemployment compensation case the board refused appellant's claim for compensation because he failed to accept suitable work under § 402(a) of the Unemployment Compensation Law, 43 P. S. § 802(a).
The only issue in this appeal is whether claimant had good cause for refusing the job offered to him by the bureau at the Hughesville Machine and Tool Co. The record reveals that the claimant, after being unemployed for 5 months and 12 days, refused a job offer because he did not want to travel the approximate 15 miles from his home to the referral employer's place of business. The claimant had private transportation and additional transportation in a car pool could have been arranged had he so desired. Under these circumstances, claimant's attitude was indicative of a want of good faith and his failure to accept suitable work thereby renders him ineligible for unemployment compensation benefits: Weiland Unemployment Compensation Case, 167 Pa. Super. 554, 76 A.2d 457.
Although the claimant at the second hearing attempted to establish that he was not qualified for the job because of his lack of ability to read blueprints, the record reveals that the employer would have been willing to accept him with this limitation and would have assisted him in learning how to read blueprints. The claimant also testified that there was no mention of the wages to be paid to him. The employer testified that he told him he would be able to start around $1.70 an hour and "depending on how well he would do, he would be raised up to $2.00 per hour if he were satisfactory." He was also told by the employer that the foreman of the sheet metal department was not well and eventually it would mean moving into that position if the claimant's work proved satisfactory.
Decision affirmed.