Melinda DeHoop, Relator v. Minnesota Department of Public Safety, Department of Employment and Economic Development ( 2014 )

This opinion will be unpublished and
may not be cited except as provided by
Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2012).
STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A14-0606
Melinda DeHoop,
Relator,
vs.
Minnesota Department of Public Safety,
Respondent,
Department of Employment and Economic Development,
Respondent.
Filed December 1, 2014
Affirmed
Ross, Judge
Department of Employment and Economic Development
File No. 32109231-3
Melinda DeHoop, White Bear Lake, Minnesota (pro se relator)
Minnesota Department of Public Safety, St. Paul, Minnesota (respondent employer)
Lee B. Nelson, St. Paul, Minnesota (for respondent department)
Considered and decided by Chutich, Presiding Judge; Ross, Judge; and
Stoneburner, Judge.

Retired judge of the Minnesota Court of Appeals, serving by appointment pursuant to
Minn. Const. art. VI, § 10.
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
ROSS, Judge
Melinda DeHoop quit her job at the department of public safety to interview for
jobs in Hawaii, but she received no offers. DeHoop applied to the department of
employment and economic development for unemployment benefits. The department
refused to grant her benefits and an unemployment law judge found her ineligible
because DeHoop quit her employment. Because DeHoop identifies no exception to the
statutory voluntary-quit disqualification provision, we affirm.
FACTS
The Minnesota Department of Public Safety employed Melinda DeHoop as a full-
time payroll coordinator from March 2009 to August 2013. DeHoop began applying for
work in Hawaii in late 2012. Receiving no offers, DeHoop took the advice of a “job
hunter,” who she says urged her to move to Hawaii and “guaranteed” DeHoop would be
hired for one of the open positions she sought. DeHoop quit her Minnesota employment
and moved to Hawaii. She participated in five interviews in Hawaii but never received a
job offer. DeHoop moved back to Minnesota after several weeks, unemployed.
DeHoop applied to the department of employment and economic development for
unemployment benefits. The department deemed her ineligible. An unemployment law
judge (ULJ) found that DeHoop voluntarily quit her job and did not meet the
requirements of any ineligibility exception listed under Minnesota Statutes section
268.095, subdivision 1 (2012). DeHoop appeals the ULJ’s decision by certiorari.
2
DECISION
DeHoop asks us to reverse the ULJ’s decision that she is ineligible for
unemployment benefits. We review a ULJ’s decision to determine whether it includes a
legal error or is unsupported by the record as a whole. Minn. Stat. § 268.105, subd. 7(d)
(2012). The parties do not dispute the facts. The only issue is whether DeHoop’s
circumstances qualified her for unemployment benefits, which is a question of law that
we review de novo. See Grunow v. Walser Auto. Grp. LLC, 779 N.W.2d 577, 579 (Minn.
App. 2010).
An employee who voluntarily quits her job is not eligible for unemployment
benefits unless her circumstances fall within one of ten statutory ineligibility exceptions.
Minn. Stat. § 268.095, subd. 1. Under the only plausibly relevant exception, an applicant
for benefits who quits employment is eligible for unemployment benefits only if
the applicant quit the employment to accept other covered
employment that provided substantially better terms and
conditions of employment, but the applicant did not work
long enough at the second employment to have sufficient
subsequent earnings to satisfy the period of ineligibility that
would otherwise be imposed . . . for quitting the first
employment.
Minn. Stat. § 268.095, subd. 1(2) (emphasis added). DeHoop did not quit her job “to
accept other . . . employment.” Instead, she quit her job to seek other employment. The
exception therefore does not apply. Our decision in Hackenmiller v. Ye Olde Butcher
Shoppe confirms this plain-language conclusion. 415 N.W.2d 432 (Minn. App. 1987). In
Hackenmiller, the applicant for unemployment benefits had quit her employment
intending to accept a job offer for other employment. Id. at 433. But she never accepted
3
the offer. Id. We therefore held that she was ineligible for benefits. Id. at 434. Although
the Hackenmiller court was applying an older version of the statute that provided an
exception to disqualification if “[t]he individual voluntarily discontinued his employment
to accept work offering substantially better conditions of work or substantially higher
wages or both,” see Minn. Stat. § 268.09, subd. 1(2)(a) (1984), the operable language is
substantially the same as the statute we apply today.
We are not persuaded to reach a different conclusion by DeHoop’s assertion that
she quit her job in reliance on the job hunter’s supposed “guarantee” that she would be
offered one of the positions she sought. Nothing in the record suggests that the job hunter
had any actual or apparent authority to bind any prospective employer or to offer DeHoop
a job.
Affirmed.
4