I'm looking for advice/experience from others who have filed for NC Unemployment and have had to go through the appeal process.

I got fired from my job a month ago, and filed for unemployment b/c I thought their reasoning behind firing me was BS. The Unemployment office agreed with me, and ruled in my favor.

They received an appeal from my former employer and now according to their letter, there will be a hearing and I will have to go give sworn testimony.

Can anyone here who's been through this process tell me what it's like and what I can expect? Do I need to get a lawyer or is this something I can handle on my own?

4/29/2011 5:32:46 PM

It depends. These hearings are very dependent on what type of evidence and witnesses each party brings to the table. A lawyer can't do much if you have nothing to show, and hopefully, you have more than just a testimony. And obviously, be careful what type of witnesses you bring because there is no formality to this, so your witness can be used against you.

Anyway, give us more info so we can help you prepare.

4/29/2011 5:42:51 PM

My sister was appealed and she won. Basically her employer didn't bother to send anyone to the appeal hearing so my sister automatically won. Depending on the size of your former employer, you might get lucky too

[Edited on April 29, 2011 at 5:54 PM. Reason : R]

4/29/2011 5:53:26 PM

I was let go for inappropriate use of the company email, and for having a "negative attitude" about my coworkers.

A friend of mine and I were discussing an inappropriate relationship between my manager and a subordinate. The manager in question is married, and the subordinate was clearly getting favorable treatment and benefit due to the relationship that was developing. The conversation between my friend and I started as a discussing about what we were seeing that was raising our suspicions, and what we were doing to bring this to upper management. As we continued to work our way up the chain of command, and inaction was the only response we were receiving, our frustrations grew and came out in some of the emails we were sending back and forth.

One day we were pulled into our bosses office, they set a stack of emails down in front of us, and said we were fired. No warning, no discussion, no opportunity to explain ourselves. Didn't specifically say a reason, didn't let us take the emails, just fired us and escorted us out of the building.

In the year I had been there, I never had any discipline problems. I consistently hit all my performance metrics. For Q1, my performance was at the top of the office, and I was fired on the day I hit my quarterly goal. I got let go a week from receiving about $3000 in bonuses.

Furthermore, the two of us weren't the only people participating in the email discussion about the inappropriate relationship. Two other employees were also involved, but they didn't get talked to, or lose their jobs.

Finally, my email account wasn't secure. They required us to share our passwords with multiple people in the office, including my manager, so that they could access our email when we weren't around. They can't prove I sent every email.

I can think of a few ways I can argue all this in my favor. The flip side is I can also think of a few ways they can argue this in their favor. I've tried to talk to a couple old coworkers about speaking on my behalf, but they're afraid of losing their jobs for it.

4/30/2011 11:05:29 AM

Quote :

"They required us to share our passwords with multiple people in the office"

4/30/2011 11:14:39 AM

sounds like horrible management

good luck to you!

4/30/2011 12:23:55 PM

you need to get out your employee handbook and see what it says about company email

if i was arguing this i would say it was appropriate IF you are substantively talking about the problem that this relationship was causing at work and what you were going to do about it and not just gossip HIGHLIGHT HIGHLIGHT AND HIGHLIGHT, subpoena for every email you can think of and NOTE if there are ones you are positive are missing (since they didn't let you take them, you could also subpoena the other fired worker to testify to that effect)

i NEVER would have won my case if i couldnt have obtained all the work emails I had and i recommend everyone back up your work emails to your personal email just in case

as for the attitude, again it sounds warranted if your discussions were civil and based on the problems it was causing you and not just gossip between coworkers

4/30/2011 1:00:20 PM

Sounds like maybe whistle blower protection law would be what you need to research.

4/30/2011 2:05:17 PM

Quote :

"Didn't specifically say a reason, didn't let us take the emails, just fired us and escorted us out of the building."

Well that's not good. You need those emails, otherwise your boss is going to cherry-pick the wrong ones to screw you over.

4/30/2011 2:13:09 PM

when i put in my 2 weeks notice, they tried to escort me out, the security guy got pissed when i went to get my box of stuff out of the office

i basically dared him to touch me, grabbed the box, and walked out the door

5/1/2011 8:05:39 AM

I think you will win, pretty much every company appeals and loses unless they have multiple copies of write ups for legitimate issues.

People get let go at my company all the time for not getting their sales quotas and end up getting benefits because even though you get written up for not getting your sales quotas that does not qualify as "cause" for termination in the eyes of the ESC.

5/1/2011 10:53:12 AM

So after the first 26 weeks...how hard is it to get it extended?

5/1/2011 1:15:56 PM

Find out your boss's personal address and tell his wife that he's having an affair.

5/1/2011 5:58:43 PM

discussing this sort of thing in an email account to which you know others have routine access seems like an bad idea

5/1/2011 6:21:40 PM

^

5/1/2011 6:26:04 PM

^^

And, find a jarb...

5/1/2011 8:14:16 PM

Shouldn't be a problem. ESC can be pretty retarded about siding with employees. We fired an employee after catching him stealing gas red-handed. He appealed and won because we didn't have a policy in place against theft (in effect).

5/1/2011 8:49:19 PM

regardless if you think the esc is being "retarded," the law is written to favor employees

5/1/2011 8:54:40 PM

^ you're right, I shouldn't have said retarded. Obviously they are being completely fair and following the law which says you have a right to take whatever you want from your employer unless said employer has a policy in in writing specifically against taking that property to do with as you please.

Seriously, we're talking an ADMITTED action witnessed by 3 people that could have landed him in jail. The only fitting description for him winning his appeal is retardation. The law didn't help him. The ESC did.

5/1/2011 9:57:29 PM

i'm not saying what he did wasn't wrong.

EMPLOYMENT law is written in favor for EMPLOYEES. filing a criminal charge against the theft is one thing...but in the EMPLOYMENT aspect, considering how the law is written, it's going to favor the employee.

5/1/2011 10:05:45 PM

Thanks everyone for the comments.

I got notice of the appeal hearing, which is scheduled for next Friday over the phone. Also the letters from lawyers started pouring in.

After talking with a couple briefly, I'm going to request the hearing be in person (which will push it back at least a few weeks), and also get a lawyer involved. Does anyone have experience with or would refer me to a good lawyer in regards to unemployment appeals?

5/2/2011 3:44:32 PM

i've been involved in this from the employer side, i brought my lawyer

good idea consulting one, you may not need it but it won't hurt to help. have you spoken with the DOL investigator at all yet?

5/2/2011 3:52:11 PM

Does the acceptance of a time-limited position in and of itself exclude you from receiving unemployment benefits when your per-determined employment term is finished (and if not, where would I find this officially)?

[Edited on May 13, 2013 at 11:02 AM. Reason : ]

5/13/2013 11:01:31 AM

Me and my Girlfriend appealed our Unemployment denial and won, but it was a lengthy process. It was about 3 months before we started receiving benefits, but they also cut a big check for the months we missed due to the process.

We had the same deal, phone hearing. I am not sure if you qualify based on your income/savings, but we got a lawyer through Legal Aid for free. He requested an in-person hearing as well. During the course of waiting for the hearing, the lawyers went back and forth trying to reach a settlement. In the end, the employer settled rather than going through with the hearing. We had to take a slight reduction in the benefits as a penalty, but started collecting immediately.

So my advice, is definitely get a lawyer involved. If you qualify, go with Legal Aid. They actually care about the little guy.

You can read the entire story from beginning to end here:
http://www.thewolfweb.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=542088
The legal stuff starts toward the bottom of page 15

[Edited on May 13, 2013 at 11:16 AM. Reason : a]

5/13/2013 11:09:21 AM

Is there any legal help from the university for being an NCSU student? I know UNC has something like this.

5/13/2013 12:01:17 PM

^ yes
http://ncsu.edu/student_affairs/legal_services/

5/13/2013 12:10:42 PM

^^ NCSU student legal will not litigate against the state or university. They'll refer you to a 3rd party in those cases.

5/13/2013 1:13:47 PM

I don't think this would classify as as litigation against the state, since the employer denied the unemployment claim. But then again, the ESC does make the final decision, so maybe it would classify. It would be worth a call for sure, I would be curious to know the answer to that.

It says on the website that they help with Job Termination. With NC being an at-will employment state, I can't think of what area of termination they could help with outside of Unemployment benefits.

[Edited on May 13, 2013 at 1:22 PM. Reason : a]

5/13/2013 1:19:06 PM

i want to know how this went for Sayer

5/13/2013 1:48:43 PM

I am assuming that if he requested a face-to-face appeal, it hasn't happened yet.

5/13/2013 1:51:57 PM

Quote :

"Find out your boss's personal address and tell his wife that he's having an affair."

This.

5/13/2013 2:11:13 PM

It's been over 2 yrs since the OP, I'd sure as hell hope he had it by now

[Edited on May 13, 2013 at 2:13 PM. Reason : ^^]

5/13/2013 2:12:35 PM

lol yeah, this was all 2 years ago

5/13/2013 2:31:57 PM

Lol, guess I should have looked at the year in the time stamp.

5/13/2013 3:11:19 PM

NC Republicans ban unemployment appeals, say it contributes to takers not makers.

5/13/2013 3:13:45 PM

Quote :

"discussing this sort of thing in an email account to which you know others have routine access seems like an bad idea"

I'm Krallum and I approved this message.

5/13/2013 3:36:47 PM

Quote :

"lol yeah, this was all 2 years ago"

WELL?

5/13/2013 3:40:20 PM

^^^^

so what happened?

Also, the whole email password sharing requirement... was that company publicly traded? if so that's a clear violation of Sarbanes-Oxley

[Edited on May 13, 2013 at 3:43 PM. Reason : .]

5/13/2013 3:43:02 PM

Just to reiterate the question for why I bumped the thread- Does the acceptance of a time-limited position in and of itself exclude you from receiving unemployment benefits when your per-determined employment term is finished (and if not, where would I find this officially)? Thanks for any insight!

5/13/2013 3:50:25 PM

File anyway. Worst case the company appeals, a lot of companies do not bother to appeal.

5/13/2013 3:59:00 PM