Home Front; Unemployment Docket: David v. Goliath
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The maintenance worker had been denied unemployment insurance benefits because his employer said he had failed to show up for work three days in a row without calling in sick. That meant he had voluntarily quit and was not entitled to benefits. But the worker contended that he had been dismissed, and Joel Leichter, who represented him at a hearing earlier this year to resolve the dispute, was prepared to prove that the man was being truthful. First Mr. Leichter ostentatiously asked the employer to recite his telephone numbers. Then he pulled out his trump card - the maintenance worker’s telephone bill. About a dozen calls had been placed to the employer on the days he missed work. The benefits were granted. For an administrative proceeding, it was a moment of high drama. ”This,” said Mr. Leichter, savoring the triumph, ”was something right out of Perry Mason.” Mr. Leichter is not a lawyer, but since 1994 he has represented about 2,000 people who were denied unemployment insurance by the State Department of Labor and who then sought a reversal from an administrative law judge. More : query.nytimes.com |