How to Appeal an Unemployment Denial
(for CA Community College Part-Time Faculty)
The most common reason that EDD denies you UI benefits is because it says that you have "reasonable assurance" of being re-hired. As a contingent faculty member, you most definitely do not have a reasonable assurance of employment, even if you have been given a future assignment, and even if you have accepted the assignment. If you are denied for this reason:
- Immediately contact your local union for assistance. (If you are not a member of the faculty union, understand that they may decide not to commit resources to help you, as their resources are only made possible by the support of dues-paying members.)
- Respond to the notice, before the deadline, and let the EDD know you disagree with their decision and that you will appeal. You will then be given a date for your appeal hearing before an administrative law judge. (Currently these hearings are being conducted by telephone.)
Set up an online myAppeal account
Once you have filed an appeal with the EDD, the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board (CUIAB) will send an "Appeal Acknowledgement and Welcome Letter," which notifies parties that the CUIAB has received the appeal and provides information necessary (a case number) to create and register for a "myAppeal" account. Note that a myAppeal account is in addition to, and separate from, your online account with the EDD that you use to file for unemployment.
(Note that the ability to use the online CUIAB website has not yet been rolled out in all areas of California. If your appeals court is not yet using the CUIAB site, you will need to submit documents to the court via fax (yes, fax) or postal mail, although if you ask they might allow you to submit documents via email.)
See How to Register and Create a CUIAB myAppeal Account and set up your account as soon as possible. When you create your account, you will also be able to designate an official representative, such as someone from your union (or an attorney), who can assist you in the appeals process. To do this, you will need their name, email address, phone number, and street address. Your representative will then receive an email letting them know how to log in to your case.
You should also be able to add a representative later if you do not have their information when you set up your account.
Once you have a myAppeal account, you — and your representative — will be able to easily see all relevant documents, including case status, important dates and deadlines, documents submitted by the district (or the district's representative), documents submitted by you, notes from phone interviews, audio recordings of previous appeals hearings (if any), all correspondence relating to your case, and the exact reasons for the denial. In other words, you and your rep will now see everything that the judge will see when conducting the hearing. And your rep will be able to join you in your telephone hearing.
You and your representative will now be able to upload documents directly, which eliminates the need for you to fax them or postal mail them to the court!
After your account is created you can log in at:
https://cuiab.ca.gov/myappeal/
Documents that you should submit to the court
Here are the documents that you should submit to the court in advance of the hearing, by uploding them to the CUIAB site:
- Your letter stating why you disagree with their finding. Here is a sample letter (in Word format) that you can edit to fit your situation.
- An excerpt from the current contract between your union and your district showing the definition of adjunct faculty as part-time, temporary employees and that adjunct teaching assignments are made on a tentative basis and subject to being cancelled for a variety of reasons.
- Text of California Unemployment Insurance Code 1253.3 (PDF).
- Text of the Cervisi Decision (Cervisi v. Unemployment Ins. Appeals Bd. (1989) 208 Cal.App.3d 635 , 256 Cal.Rptr. 142) (PDF).
- If you have an assignment offer letter, and if it states that the job offer is not guaranteed and subject to being cancelled for a variety of reasons, be sure to include it.
What to expect at your hearing
At the time of the hearing, you (and your representative, if you have one) will be asked to call in to the court 15 minutes before the scheduled time. The hearing will essentially be a phone conference call.
It's helpful to be logged in to the case at CUIAB website, as the judge will start by listing each document related to the case that has been uploaded to the site, and will ask you to confirm that these are the complete set of documents.
The judge may ask you to speak first, or ask your representative (if you have one) to speak first, or may ask which you prefer. At any point the judge may ask general or specific questions.
You may be asked when your last day of work was. This may be confusing, as by the time of your hearing you may be working again. Don't let this fluster you; simply explain that although you are working again your current assignment was not assured and could well have been cancelled.
When asked for your statement, keep it focused and brief. These are your main talking points:
- You are a part-time, temporary adjunct community college instructor, not a K-12 teacher. As such, you were laid off when your part-time teaching assignment ended; you were not on a break, and you were not in a recess period.
- Even though you may have been given a future assignment, the job offer was contingent on funding, enrollment, district needs, and other factors. Therefore, your assignment could have been withdrawn at any time, and you had no reasonable assurance of employment.
- Your situation is covered by the Cervisi Decision. (If you are not that familiar with the Cervisi decision and you have someone from your union there who understands Cervisi, you might wish to leave it to your representative to explain why Cervisi applies to your case.)
The hearing itself will probably last 15-30 minutes or so. You will be notified later of the decision, usually within a few weeks. (Shortly after your hearing, the audio recording of the hearing will be accessible through the CUIAB site.)
You will probably win and have their denial reversed, but if for some reason you do not win, immediately contact your local union for further assistance. You may decide to file a second appeal.
For the most current version of this document, see:
https://contingentworld.com/unemployment/appeal.php