Unemployment – Appealing A Hearing Officer Decision
A claimant or an employer may appeal a hearing officer’s unemployment ruling. The next step in an appeal is to file written arguments to the Industrial Claim Appeals Office (ICAO). Here is law you should know, before writing an appeal of a hearing officer decision, or arguing against an appeal. The law favors the hearing officer’s decsion. That is why it is so important that you present your best case, and all your testimony and documents, to the hearing officer. The ICAO appeal is not a do-over.
If the hearing officer’s factual findings are not “contrary to the weight of the evidence” in the record of the hearing, the Industrial Claims Appeals Panel assigned to review the hearing officer decision will not make its own decision. This standard establishes a baseline assumption that the hearing officer’s findings of evidentiary fact are accurate. In situations in which the evidence could equally support alternative findings, the hearing officer’s finding may not be set aside. The standard consequently places the “weight of the evidence” showing on the party challenging the hearing officer’s findings, rather than on the party seeking to uphold those findings. Accordingly, although this standard gives the agency’s reviewing body discretion to weigh the evidence independently, it forbids the reviewing body from substituting its determination for that of the hearing officer.
An unfavorable ruling does not establish that the hearing officer was biased. The appeals panel will only interfere with a hearing officer’s determination what evidence or documents are credible where there is hard, certain evidence, essentially undeniable evidence to the contrary. I have never encountered a case where “he said, she said” creates hard evidence which can only be interpreted one way. The hearing officer has broad discretion in deciding whether evidence is repetitive or relevant. The appeals panel will not interfere with a hearing officer’s ruling on evidence absent an “abuse of discretion”. The panel may order a new hearing if it finds that the hearing officer’s conduct of the hearing denied a party “fundamental fairness” by not apprising the party what evidence has been submitted, not allowing a fair opportunity to inspect documents, to cross-examine witnesses, or to offer rebuttal evidence. The appeals panel will presume that the hearing officer considered submitted testimony and documents.