Supreme Court of Iowa Decision
This opinion is presented AS IS. The opinion is subject to change; there is also the possibility of introduction of error in the posting process. This database is not yet complete. Reliance on this opinion should be tempered by sound legal advice from licensed counsel.

Case Title: JOHN WHITE, Appellee, vs. EMPLOYMENT APPEAL BOARD and JENSEN TRANSPORT, INC., Appellants.
Date: 07/22/92
Bound Citation:
Summary: No. 219 / 91-1404
Decision: Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Buchanan
County, William G. Klotzbach, Judge.

Appellants challenge the district court's reversal of
an employment appeal board decision denying appellee
unemployment compensation benefits. REVERSED AND REMANDED.

James F. Kalkhoff of Mosier, Thomas, Beatty, Dutton,
Braun & Staack, Waterloo, for appellant Jensen Transport.
William C. Whitten, for appellant Employment Appeal Board.

Linnea M. Nelson of Legal Services Corporation of Iowa,
Waterloo, for appellee.

Considered by McGiverin, C.J., and Carter, Lavorato,
Neuman, and Snell, JJ.

SNELL, J.
The appellant, Jensen Transport, Inc., challenges the
district court's reversal of an employment appeal board
decision that denied John White, the appellee, unemployment
compensation benefits. Jensen Transport contends that the
district court erroneously concluded that White left his
employment with Jensen Transport "involuntarily and for
good cause attributable to [Jensen]." Stated differently,
Jensen maintains that because White voluntarily quit his
job with Jensen without good cause attributable to them,
White is disqualified from receiving unemployment benefits
pursuant to Iowa Code section 96.5(1) (1991). We reverse
and remand for further proceedings by the employment appeal board.
I. Background Facts.
White began his employment as an over-the-road truck
driver for Jensen Transport on May 8, 1980. In October
1989, White suffered a heart attack while out of town on a
work assignment and was unable to return to work until
January 2, 1990. On February 1, 1990, White suffered a
second heart attack, and, pursuant to his doctors orders,
did not return to work until August 1990. In August, White
returned to Jensen Transport, but consistent with his
cardiologist's instructions, he indicated that he would be
unable to do any driving.
White's cardiologist, Dr. A. Ersin Atay, indicated in a
letter that White had received an automatic cardioverter
defibrillator and that driving would be contraindicated.
Atay's recommendation apparently arises from the potential
for a brief period of unconsciousness prior to the
defibrillator's delivery of a reviving current to White's
heart should it ever stop beating.
As a consequence of White's inability to operate a
truck, a representative of Jensen Transport told White that
there was no available work for him with the company.
Thereafter, on September 7, 1990, White filed a claim for
unemployment benefits with the division of job service.
After a fact-finding interview on September 21, 1990,
White's request for benefits was denied by a job service
representative. White appealed the job service
representative's decision by requesting an in-person
hearing, which was held on November 28, 1990. After
receiving testimony from White and Jensen Transport's
president, Jerry Jensen, the presiding administrative law
judge reversed the job service representative's decision,
thus allowing White to receive unemployment benefits.
On December 19, 1990, Jensen Transport appealed the
administrative law judge's decision to the employment
appeal board. The employment appeal board concluded that
because White's separation from employment was a "voluntary
quit" that was "without good cause attributable to
[White's] employer," he was disqualified from receiving
unemployment benefits pursuant to Iowa Code section
96.5(1). Iowa Code section 96.5(1) (1991) provides in
pertinent part as follows:

96.5 Causes for disqualification.

An individual shall be disqualified for
benefits:

1. Voluntary quitting. If the individual
has left work voluntarily without good cause
attributable to the individual's employer, if so
found by the division of job service. But the
individual shall not be disqualified if the
division finds that:
. . . .
d. The individual left employment because of
illness, injury or pregnancy upon the advice of a
licensed and practicing physician, and upon
knowledge of the necessity for absence immediately
notified the employer, or the employer consented
to the absence, and after recovering from the
illness, injury or pregnancy, when recovery was
certified by a licensed and practicing physician,
the individual returned to the employer and
offered to perform services and the individual's
regular work or comparable suitable work was not
available, if so found by the division, provided
the individual is otherwise eligible.

The employment appeal board further concluded that White
could not avail himself of the subparagraph (d) exception
to the voluntary quit disqualification since subparagraph
(d) requires that the employee be capable of performing
"the individual's regular work," which the board found
White was unable to do.
White then sought judicial review of this final agency
determination in the district court. The court determined
that the decision of the employment appeal board was "in
violation of an agency rule and was an error of law"
insofar as the board determined that White left his
position with Jensen Transport "voluntarily without good
cause attributable to [Jensen]." Accordingly, the decision
of the employment appeal board was reversed.
The issue presently before us is thus whether White's
cardiac-arrest induced departure from Jensen Transport is
to be deemed a "voluntary quit" that was "without good
cause attributable to [Jensen Transport]" and, if so,
whether the subparagraph (d) exception to the subsection
one disqualification provision is applicable.
II. Standard of Review.
When reviewing a district court decision regarding the
validity of agency action,
we apply the standards of Iowa Code section
17A.19(8) to the agency action to determine
whether our conclusions are the same as those of
the district court. If our conclusions are the
same, we must affirm; if not, we reverse.

Rooney v. Employment Appeal Bd., 448 N.W.2d 313, 315 (Iowa
1989). We give weight to an agency's construction of the
statutes that it administers, but, nevertheless, we must
make an independent determination of their meaning. Id. at
315. We review the agency action to determine if there is
substantial evidence in the record made before the agency
to support its decision. Iowa Code Sec. 17A.19(8)(f).
III. Was White's Departure "Without Good Cause
Attributable to [Jensen Transport]?"
Section 96.5(1) disqualifies an unemployed individual
from receiving benefits under chapter 96 to the extent that
the individual quits "voluntarily without good cause
attributable to the individual's employer." We have said
that to the extent an employee is absent involuntarily from
work, "the words 'attributable to the employer' simply have
no application." Ames v. Employment Appeal Bd., 439 N.W.2d
669, 674 (Iowa 1989). Thus, for an individual to be
disqualified from unemployment benefits under section
96.5(1), it must be demonstrated that the individual left
work voluntarily and without good cause attributable to the
individual's employer. The district court relied on this
conclusion from Ames in reversing the agency's denial of
benefits. Because it believed that White left his
employment because of physical disability, the court
concluded that this leaving was not voluntary. Although we
find considerable logic in the district court's extension
of the Ames decision, we conclude that unemployment due to
illness raises policy considerations which call for a
continuation of the rules laid down in our cases on illness
terminations antedating Ames and Rooney, decided the same
year. Under these rules, if White's disability was not
work related, the agency properly imposed a
disqualification. If, however, the cause of White's
disability was work related, the disqualification was improper.
We have held that an illness-induced quit is
attributable to one's employer only under two
circumstances. First, when the illness is either "caused
or aggravated by circumstances associated with the
employment," regardless of the employee's predisposition to
succumb to the illness, the separation will be deemed to be
with "good cause attributable to the individual's
employer." Shontz v. Iowa Employment Sec. Comm'n, 248
N.W.2d 88, 91 (Iowa 1976); Rooney, 448 N.W.2d at 315-16
(noting that a recovering alcoholic who terminates
employment with bar and liquor store may do so without
disqualifying himself for unemployment benefits to the
extent that the employment is found to have "aggravated"
his condition). Second, when the employer effects a change
in the employee's work environment such that the employee
would suffer aggravation of an existing condition if she
were to continue working, the resulting separation has been
held to be with good cause attributable to the employer.
Ellis v. Iowa Dep't of Job Serv., 285 N.W.2d 153, 156-57
(Iowa 1979) (claimant's showing that recently installed
Christmas tree would aggravate her allergies was sufficient
to constitute a "quit" that was attributable to her employer).
The foregoing "attribution rules" strike a proper
balance between the underlying policy of the Iowa
Employment Security Law, which is to provide benefits for
"persons unemployed through no fault of their own," Iowa
Code Sec. 96.2, and fundamental fairness to the employer, who
must ultimately shoulder the financial burden of any
benefits paid. See Iowa Code Sec. 96.7. More specifically,
insofar as the Employment Security Law is not designed to
provide health and disability insurance, only those
employees who experience illness-induced separations that
can fairly be attributed to the employer are properly
eligible for unemployment benefits. See Butts v. Iowa
Dep't of Job Serv., 328 N.W.2d 515, 517 (Iowa 1983) ("[T]he
legislature has merely determined not to provide maternity
leaves" under chapter 96.); see also Iowa Code Sec. 96.4(3)
(individual must be "able to work," "available for work"
and "earnestly and actively seeking work" to qualify for
unemployment benefits); Kuna v. Commonwealth Unemploy.
Comp. Bd. of Review, 512 A.2d 772, 776 (Pa. Cmwlth. 1986)
("It is axiomatic that unemployment compensation is not
health insurance and does not cover physically or mentally
ill persons during periods [that] they are
unemployable."). It should be noted, however, that an
illness or disability "may correctly be said to be . . .
attributable to the employer even though the employer [is]
free from all negligence or wrongdoing in connection
therewith." Raffety v. Iowa Employment Sec. Comm'n, 247
Iowa 896, 900, 76 N.W.2d 787, 789 (1956) (citations omitted).
The decision of the employment appeal board cited
section 96.5(1)(d) in concluding that White was
disqualified from benefits. It stated that White was
unable to obtain a department of transportation license and
without it could not perform the work of a truck driver.
In these circumstances, it was held that White's quit was
without good cause attributable to his employer, a disqualifying effect.
Subparagraph (d) of Iowa Code section 96.5(1) excepts
certain individuals who have left as a result of "illness,
injury, or pregnancy" from the application of the
subsection one disqualification. However, subparagraph (d)
requires, among other things, that the individual "has
returned to the employer and offered to perform services
and the individual's regular work or comparable suitable
work was not available." Iowa Code Sec. 96.5(1)(d).
Both the job service representative and the employment
appeal board concluded that White was unable to satisfy
this last requirement on the ground that he was "unable to
perform the work of an over-the-road truck driver." The
subparagraph (d) exception is applicable only "where a
claimant is fully recovered and his former position was not
held open upon his return." Hedges v. Iowa Dep't of Job
Serv., 368 N.W.2d 862, 867 (Iowa App. 1985); see also
Shontz, 248 N.W.2d at 91 (noting that an automobile body
repairman who suffers a cardiac arrest and then returns to
work and offers his services "on the condition the job be
sedentary and involve little walking or effort . . .
obvious[ly] did not come within the exception in
Sec. 96.5(1)(d)"). White clearly did not satisfy this
standard. By his own admission, and pursuant to his
cardiologist's instructions, he is unable to drive a truck
as a result of his defibrillator implant and the potential
for lapses of consciousness. Consequently, the
subparagraph (d) exception to the subsection one
disqualification is not applicable to White's situation.
Regarding the disqualification provisions of section
96.5(1), Jensen Transport argues that White is ineligible
because his heart trouble is not work related. On this
point, reference is made to a question by the
administrative law judge of White, who was unrepresented by
counsel, as follows:

ALJ: Now, I don't find anything in the file
indicating that you are claiming that the heart
condition was brought on by the employment?

WHITE: No sir.

Apart from the inconclusiveness of the answer, the
record also shows that White stated that his heart problem
was diagnosed as "ventricular ticardia which is pretty well
deemed to be stress related." In testimony by Jerry
Jensen, president of Jensen Transport, he was asked and
answered as follows:

Q: Now, you were aware I gather that he was
receiving treatment for this heart condition?

EMPLOYER: Oh, yes, because he was on the road
when this happened.

The decision of the employment appeal board contains no
findings as to whether White's heart condition is job
related. In Shontz, we stated: "It is well established
that a heart injury may be caused by employment activity."
248 N.W.2d at 92. We remanded in Shontz because evidence
was not developed on the issue of whether the disability
was caused or aggravated by factors and circumstances
associated with employment. The case at bar is similar in
that there is no finding on this issue nor a substantial
basis to support one. See Rooney, 448 N.W.2d at 313. A
finding on this issue is the province of the board.
Additional evidence should be taken by the board on remand
regarding this issue.
Accordingly, we reverse and remand to the board for
further proceedings consistent herewith.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.