Challenging a lost appeal.
“I thought it was over, but we reversed the denial in a Board Appeal.”
Losing an appeal hearing can be deeply discouraging. However, you have one more administrative avenue to explore that is worthwhile to discuss with your attorney.
Our firm filed an appeal with the Appeals Board to challenge the judge’s decision. Our argument was that since the employer bears the burden of proof, it must provide stronger evidence to establish our client engaged in an act of misconduct. Further, we argued that our client’s sworn testimony outweighs the employer’s evidence, which made them unable to meet their burden of proof. The Appeals Board held in its decision: “except as otherwise provided by law, the burden of proof requries proof by preponderance of the evidence (Evidence Code section 115). The preponderance of the evidence simply requires that a matter in question is more likely to be true than not true. If weaker less satisfactory evidence is offered when it was within the power of the party to produce stronger more satisfactory information, the evidence offered should be viewed with distrust.”
The Result
Ultimately, the Appeals Board sided with our position and reversed the judge’s denial. “In this case, the employer failed to meet its burden of proving it discharged the claimant for misconduct connected with his most recent work.”
