Unemployment Compensation — Voluntary termination of employment — Refusal of transfer to new job — Evidence — Inferences — Credibility of claimant — Findings of board.
1. In an unemployment compensation case, in which it appeared that claimant had worked as a cashier in a hotel cocktail lounge; and that, when operation of the lounge was discontinued claimant was offered a job as food checker in the kitchen, a position which she had filled while the cocktail lounge had been closed for the summer the year before, but she refused the transfer on the ground that it was too hot in the kitchen; it was Held that the evidence sustained the findings of the board that claimant had not met the burden upon her of establishing cause of a necessitous and compelling nature in refusing the transfer and voluntarily terminating her employment.
2. In unemployment compensation cases, the credibility of the claimant and the reasonable inferences to be drawn from his testimony are for the board.
Argued December 9, 1958.
OPINION BY HIRT, J., March 18, 1959:
Claimant has appealed from the order of the board denying Unemployment Compensation benefits. For 2 1/2 years she had worked as cashier in the "Persian Room", a cocktail lounge, in the Penn-Sherwood Hotel in Philadelphia. Operation of the lounge was discontinued and the Persian Room was closed on February 15, 1958. Claimant then was offered a job as food checker in the kitchen, a position which she had filled while the cocktail lounge was closed for the summer season of 1957. She refused the transfer on the ground that "it was too hot in the kitchen".
The board concluded that claimant, who admittedly terminated her employment voluntarily, had not met the burden upon her of establishing good cause, i.e., cause of a necessitous and compelling nature, in refusing the transfer from the position of cashier in a cocktail lounge to that of food checker in her employer's kitchen. Kaminski Unempl. Compensation Case, 174 Pa. Super. 242, 161 A.2d 132.
The credibility of the claimant and the reasonable inferences to be drawn from her testimony were for the board. Ristis Unempl. Compensation Case, 178 Pa. Super. 400, 116 A.2d 271. The board was not obliged to agree with her that the heat of the kitchen in the winter of 1958, would be deleterious to her health. Under settled law, therefore, the validity of the decision of the board is not open to question. Claimant was disqualified under § 402(b) of the Unemployment Compensation Law, 43 P. S. § 802(b); she did not establish valid cause in law for voluntarily terminating her employment. Johnson Unempl. Compensation Case, 182 Pa. Super. 138, 125 A.2d 458; Allen Unempl. Compensation Case, 174 Pa. Super. 514, 102 A.2d 195; Wescoe Unemployment Comp. Case, 166 Pa. Super. 355, 71 A.2d 837.
Decision affirmed.