State must pay benefits to fired worker who left country

An appeals court has ordered the state to pay Jose Robles the unemployment benefits he should have gotten after losing his job when he tried to use a workplace allowance to get an injured friend a pair of shoes.

In its ruling Tuesday, the state’s First District Court of Appeal said the Employment Development Department should have consulted a July 2012 story in The Chronicle about the case before sending notices to Robles at an outdated address in Alameda, and then penalizing him for failing to respond promptly. The newspaper’s story said he had returned to the Philippines to live with his 95-year-old father.

State lawyers said the department had to subject all applicants to the same procedural requirements, including deadlines, in its computerized system and couldn’t make individual exceptions. But the courts had already ruled Robles eligible for benefits, and “automation is not an excuse for incompetence,” Justice Timothy Reardon said in the 3-0 ruling.

Robles, a naturalized U.S. citizen with two children, worked for four years as a service technician for Liquid Environmental Solutions in Hayward, removing grease and other hazardous wastes from restaurants. In January 2010, he took an injured friend who was not an employee of the company to a store in San Leandro where company employees bought work shoes with a $150 annual allowance. He told the clerk he already had safety shoes and asked if she would measure his friend’s feet for a new pair. The clerk refused and the store contacted Robles’ employer, which promptly fired him for violating company policy.

The Employment Development Department then denied Robles jobless benefits, saying he had committed serious misconduct. The appeals court reversed that decision in June 2012, saying Robles “at most ... was guilty of a good-faith error in judgment.” The court published its ruling as a precedent for future cases two weeks later at the request of lawyers, whose filings included a Chronicle news story as evidence of the case’s importance and public interest.

Ordered to pay retroactive benefits, the department sent Robles $12,240 for his first 26 weeks of unemployment but declined to pay an additional 73 weeks of federally mandated benefits, despite court orders that found him eligible. The department said Robles had failed to respond to notices sent to his Alameda address, starting in October 2012, telling him to submit forms promptly to verify his continued eligibility.

In Tuesday’s ruling, however, the court said the department had ignored information in The Chronicle story — which the state’s lawyer had acknowledged reading — saying Robles, then 64, had run out of money and was back in the Philippines. The department also cut off communications with Robles’ lawyer, who was trying to work out a payment plan, the court said.

The justices ordered the department to pay the benefits Robles had earned before leaving the country, plus interest — $45,560 — in addition to a $1,000 fine to the courts.

The ruling, which was also published as a precedent, should benefit others “whose already perilous financial condition is exacerbated by EDD’s arbitrary conduct,” said Robles’ lawyer, Gary Garfinkle.

Attorney General Kamala Harris’ office did not respond to a request for comment. The state could appeal to the California Supreme Court.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko