Sign Nevada Terms of Use Agreement Later

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all right welcome to this presentation of unemployment benefit eligibility in nevada my name is ray gertkin and i'm the directing attorney of the reno office of nevada legal services i am joined by david olshan with our las vegas office hello david sorry i didn't mean to step on your toes this is david yay all right but we will go ahead and get started with the presentation on unemployment benefits so just as a disclaimer um just remember that the information contained in the presentation is provided for educational and informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal advice or as an offer to perform legal services on any subject matter all right but as far as an outline for this presentation we will be going over eligibility for unemployment benefits grounds for disqualification of benefits the claims process and briefly touch on hearings and appeals and all of the resources will be linked in the description box below i don't think i got them there i apologize before we started but i will have them linked after the presentation all right so first we're going to talk about eligibility for benefits so the first thing is who is unemployed so a person is unemployed for any week during which that person performs no services and receives no pay so we get a lot of questions from people well my employer says i'm still employed with them but i haven't been on the schedule in two weeks and i haven't received a paycheck you are unemployed your employer cannot frustrate the unemployment benefits system just by saying that you're still employed but not scheduling you and not paying you for work okay but that also means then you can be eligible for partial unemployment so if you're working less than full time say your employer um quote had to shut down but is letting everybody work but it's for severely reduced circumstances we're going to talk about good cause to quit but you can also be eligible for partial unemployment benefits so if you're working less than full time and the wages are less than the person's weekly benefit amount you can apply for unemployment benefits and potentially be eligible to receive the benefits plus the 600 in the puc but one thing to remember and i will address this again you are not unemployed if you're paid disability or rehab payments you receive a vacation payout your pa you're being paid sick leave or any other type of leave benefit or you receive a severance package and so if your employer is paying you out vacation or sick leave or other paid leave you are not considered unemployed and your employer can choose to do this you can't refuse to accept the money essentially if your employer is paying you the benefits and then generally under normal circumstances you're not eligible for benefits if you're self-employed or otherwise not an employee for example you work as an independent contractor you receive a 1099 but you are now eligible for pandemic unemployment assistance as we learned last week pandemic unemployment assistance is now available at employeenv.gov and we're going to call it pua but pua is a new unemployment benefit program to cover individuals that have not traditionally been eligible for unemployment benefits but can now potentially receive benefits due to the economic toll of covet 19. so who is now eligible for pua you're eligible if you are unemployed or partially unemployed as a self-employed worker a 1099 contract or gig worker an employee whose wages were not reported for unemployment benefit purposes such as religious workers were generally not or traditionally considered covered employment employees who have not earned enough to be covered or individuals who are unable to start a job because of covid19 so all of these individuals will not normally be eligible for state unemployment benefits under the regular unemployment benefit process but are now eligible for this additional benefit called pandemic unemployment assistance one of one of the things i i should mention is that when people first apply they're going to get an earnings history they're going to get information supplied by their employer so if any of this earning earnings information is wrong you should correct it sometimes it might help you if it's inaccurate but you shouldn't maintain that inaccuracy because like with pua it's much better if you don't have an earnings history than getting like a regular unemployment that's um not enough to to help you at this point right so as we learned last week um at the employeenv.gov site it is a completely separate system then the ui nv.gov site that you will apply for normal benefits now when you apply for state unemployment benefits what a lot of people i believe have been getting back is a zero a monetary determination that lists your work history is zero now if that's wrong if you work say for a casino or something obviously you want to challenge that with the unemployment office but if you were a gig worker 1099 or self-employed that's actually correct because you didn't work under what's called covered employment and so your employer who may have been yourself essentially didn't report to the unemployment system and that's when p the pua process comes in and um i think we hit on this a little bit but i'll just address it now just in case essentially you have to have proof of your earnings though still so yes if you get a monetary determination and you believe you're eligible for traditional unemployment benefits you have the opportunity to appeal that monetary determination to correct any errors in your wage history if though you were a gig worker and you received that zero monitored monetary determination that means that you should just go ahead and apply for pua now at the employeenv.gov site but have your 2019 tax return ready because that your net income from your 2019 taxes is what is going to qualify you for benefits we'll get into that in a second just a side note this pua and regular unemployment should be seamless there shouldn't be two online systems so the big question is if esd is so busy why do they ask people to clog their system twice with two separate applications but that's an unanswerable question right there are two systems um i understand that people were able to apply over the weekend i understand that the whole system didn't crash but i believe it took a couple of tries essentially some people got kicked out and logged off but i i understand that people have been successful in applying online at the employeenv.gov site so it is it is working but it is two separate systems all right also though like regular unemployment benefits employers who apply under the pua system still must self-certify that you are able and available to work okay so when you apply either for regular unemployment benefits or for pua you have to certify that you are able and available to work generally able means that you're physically and mentally able to accept employment at the time you file your claim for benefits this means that an illness or physical condition will disqualify you for benefits as long as you have the illness and you'll need medical certification that you can return to work available means that you cannot have factors that would prevent you from actively seeking and accepting a full-time job in you know traditional unemployment benefits you have to have child care you have to have adequate transportation you can't be in school and are unwilling to change a school schedule to accommodate work basically generally anything that prevents you from accepting suitable work and the work days and hours required for the job unless you are unable or unavailable to work due to specific covid19 reasons essentially the pandemic the pua creates a new eligibility group and essentially deems individuals unemployed who are unable to work or unavailable for work due to covet 19. remember you cannot apply for unemployment benefits if you are receiving sick leave or other leave or paid benefits including where your employer chooses to pay out vacation or other leave benefits so if it doesn't if you're receiving some sort of sick leave due to coronavirus or the ffcra benefits you are not unemployed even under pua but these are the specific um factors that go into whether or not you are unable or unavailable to work due to specific covet 19 reasons and these our are from everything we've understood these are going to be strictly applied so you have to have been diagnosed with coven 19 you have to have been quarantined or told to quarantine because of covet 19 you are providing care for someone diagnosed with covid19 you are providing care for a child or other household member who can't attend school or work because it is closed due to coven 19. okay these are specific factors that will be strictly applied as they're as they're laid out now the one thing that we're going to talk about also later um is good cost to quit good cause to quit is a reason for disqualification from unemployment benefits in this list is a factor that you had to quit your job as a direct result of covid19 the department of labor has come out and basically said a direct result of covid19 is if you were if you were sick with covid19 and due to that illness developed other physical mental or illness conditions that make it so that you are unable or unavailable to go back to work this is not going to allow you to quit just for fear of contracting covet 19 based on the guidance that we've received from the department of labor and from the state unemployment office well i mean in their press release the employment security division uh basically eviscerated that category and said you have to have had covet 19. so well that's what the department of labor regulations essentially said is that you had coven 19 but developed other health factors as a direct result of that illness so we'll we'll talk more about what good cause to quit is but this specific provision does not allow you to quit just because a direct result of coven 19 is a direct result of having and contracting the illness david did you want to add anything else no i look it what it signifies overall is that they're not taking into consideration the protection of the worker the protection of the workers family um there's a lot of situations there's a there's broad leeway here so if you're working let's say at a restaurant that doesn't allow for social distancing doesn't have face masks for you as an employee you know that's not going to be included in this situation but we're going to talk more about it right right we'll go on and we'll get to that have another conversation about that right so one of the things that comes with being available to work is that you must generally be actively engaged in efforts to seek and secure employment in your customary occupation so you have to look for jobs you have to continue to look for jobs we look at you at least three jobs a week i think five would be ideal but basically that you are applying in a cut in the customary manner applications are taken um for employment in your customary occupation you have to keep written records of all of your efforts to seek work these are called work search records when you apply for unemployment benefits normally the esd would ask you to provide them written work search records but with covet 19 that requirement is currently suspended so you do still have to certify that you are able and available to work unless you have one of the factors that we talked about in the last slide but you don't actually have to provide any work search records now as the economy continues to open this is going to change right now the work search requirement has been suspended but in the future it is likely it's not going to last much longer so everybody should be as the you know economy opens starting to look for work again and additionally with extended benefits comes heightened work search requirements so even if work searches are not required under traditional or current circumstances once the extended benefits kick in that is going to probably require work search records it's just important to keep in mind that yes you want to get unemployment benefits but unemployment benefits are really insurance while you're unemployed so the whole idea without being too you know paternalistic is that you're just getting these benefits temporarily typically what is it 26 weeks you're going to get them you'll get 13 extra weeks plus you may get some extra time under the cares act but the point is there should be some idea of going back to work because unemployment benefits even though there's an extra 600 now it's not going to last forever and the benefits are usually about half of what your normal pay is correct and by the way i'm not getting any comments so if if you're watching or or making a comment or asking a question i hope we can answer it or something yeah just if you have anything please put it in the live chat and we will try to answer as we go um or at the very least at the end of the presentation so feel free to chat and we will address issues that come up but essentially workers who are not eligible for pandemic unemployment assistance include those who are if you're eligible for rather regular state unemployment benefits you are not going to be eligible for pua so apply for regular benefits first if there's a question and then you can apply for pua unfortunately as david indicated there are two separate systems you would have to apply twice if you do apply for pua and you're eligible for unemployment benefits under the regular program i believe that they will direct you to apply for regular benefits first workers are not eligible if you can telework with full pay or again receive paid sick days or paid leave but if you can work part time in telework again you could be eligible for partial unemployment benefits so keep in mind if you're making less than you traditionally make you can still apply for benefits and see if you qualify because again even if you qualify for 16 a week you still get that 600 extra until the end of july um unfortunately workers must be authorized to work to be eligible for pua so undocument undocumented workers do not qualify so the amount of pua if you're eligible you'll receive 39 weeks and the program does expire on december 31st but it is applicable you can back date allegedly as of january 27th but at least as of march 15th pua benefits are calculated the same way as they are for the federal disaster unemployment assistance program which requires basically a tax return your income is calculated based on the net income reported on your 2019 tax return there's a minimum excuse me a minimum benefit amount that's equal to one half the average weekly unemployment benefits which is a ballpark about 190 per week um if you don't have proof of wages then you'll get the minimum benefit amount but you can ask for redu determination to substantiate earnings or or like if you file taxes now essentially because the deadline was extended to july i would not wait if you're going to apply for pua get your taxes in but you are eligible then for the additional 600 a week i just want to make a point here that let's say you go back to work you're working now you're not unemployed if you were let go if you were laid off on march 15th and just went back to work you still would be eligible for pua and you'd get a lump sum so people who are back to work should also apply yes because the you and the governor explicitly said that you can back date your application so do apply even if you've returned to work to get that benefit for that time period where you were unemployed even if you don't want the money donate it to charity because this is esd's fault they were way too slow and you should get that money that you're entitled to we do have a question um can you use bank statements to show cash deposits for cash work i don't know the answer to that question i would say it would be better if you had a tax form so a w-2 a 1099 um obviously you're probably not gonna have to be two unless you're unless you didn't work enough my guess would be yeah they're going to look at the tax form before the bank deposits because next form there's a penalty of perjury whereas bank deposits yeah and if you have a cash deposi how are you going to substantiate that that's from employment you're going to need more than that potentially and you really do need to file taxes i mean the tax return is specifically required now would they let you substantiate with other forms if it's like a 1099 i mean maybe but it really does require a tax return to to get more than the weekly benefit amount the minimum benefit amount i just i do not think bank statements are going to be enough especially if it's just cash deposits right i would agree with that okay under normal um regular state on unemployment benefits uh the weekly benefit amount is based on your income so there's a calculation it's 100 125th of your total wages but no less than 16 per week and then the maximum weekly benefit amount is 469 dollars a week if you work while you're getting benefits again that's fine you can get partial unemployment benefits but your weekly benefit amount will be reduced based on the um amount that you're getting again you're also eligible for puc which is the six extra 600 a week and that does end july 31st and then that puc is not income for purposes of eligibility for either medicaid or chip and some subsidized housing all right um now we're going to move on to the basis for disqualification for unemployment benefits after you've applied for benefits generally as we've said unemployment benefits are available to unemployed workers who are out of work due to no fault of their own this means that otherwise eligible unemployed workers may be found ineligible for other reasons as we discussed the guidance from the department of labor still requires that a worker separation be involuntary to qualify for unemployment benefits including pua so common reasons for disqualification include severance and vacation pay we talked about that if you're receiving benefits from your employer you're not going to be eligible for those weeks that you receive the benefits again we also talked about being able and available so we're now going to direct uh our discussion to suitable work voluntarily quitting without good cause misconduct and misrepresentation all right we have a pua question before we get to suitable work david uh so the question is uh the job ended due to covid um and the person applied for regular benefits the case is still pending resolution and um they want to know whether or not they should apply for pua while they're still on furlough um again if you're eligible for regular state unemployment benefits you have to apply and go through that process first if there's a question about that eligibility based on the parameters we discussed in terms of pua then yes if if you believe that your application for regular benefits is going to be denied because you are not eligible for unemployment benefits i would say go ahead and apply for pua but if you're eligible for benefits you have to go through that process first right no but you are kind of exploiting the problem that they have two separate application systems why not if they're not giving you any money governor siselek promised pua would be available this saturday so i would say go for it it's certainly not any problem because you as a claimant don't really know whether you qualify and if you're not getting the benefits what's the conclusion you don't qualify that is true yeah i mean it's certainly not going to hurt you i don't think applying is going to make you ineligible they're going to tell you what what you're eligible for essentially well that's my understanding of how the poa system is supposed to work they're if they believe you're eligible for regular benefits they're going to tell you to apply under the regular system okay so the first disqualification reason we're going to discuss is suitable work so um this is again this is assuming you've applied and your claim has initially been approved these are um suitable work is an ongoing sort of issue in terms of that able and available requirement right you have to under normal circumstances apply for work and submit work search records so what jobs though are you applying for and what offers are you required to accept so you have to apply for available suitable work and accept an offer of suitable work so refusing suitable work is a cause cause for disqualification whether workers suitable depends on the degree of risk involved to your health safety and morals physical fitness and prior training experience and prior earnings again these are things that you know your customary occupation but it's not just limited to your customary occupation because the longer you're unemployed the more you're going to be required to look outside your your prospects in your customary occupation and accept things that are not necessarily 100 wage replacement you cannot simply say if it's not 100 wage replacement it's not suitable work that is not the definition suitable work is not the same employment it's just similar wages terms and conditions not the same but similar and the actual language that's used is substantially less favorable so suitable work is a job where the wages terms and conditions of employment are not substantially less favorable than those for similar employment what does that mean you know we don't know essentially i mean there is an indication that suitable work is 80 wage replacement but i would argue that i mean i would be careful in the sense that i think they would argue the length of unemployment is going to inform what's suitable and what's not you can also see how this is totally favoring uh deflation and decreasing of wages because if you fire a worker and they have you know they have to accept a lower paying job it just puts more pressure on salaries and income if employers can do this right that's a larger issue but i mean it's related to unemployment benefits and how it is really pro-employer right okay so um going back to the main reasons that you can be denied based on your prior employment so we're going to start with good cause to quit you cannot voluntarily leave employment and become eligible for unemployment benefits unless you've had good cause to quit good cause is not really defined it's generally sort of defined by esd as a compelling reason to quit and that you have no other reasonable alternatives but to quit leaving a job which is not suitable can be good cause we just talked about the suitable work requirement but this talks about leaving a job not applying and accepting suitable work but essentially we're looking at wages are not less than 80 percent but this requires that you're going into an approved training program so it's not a blanket you can leave a job that's not suitable if they reduce your wages you have to then go into approved training in order to be eligible under this section but it does sort of inform the suitability argument and in terms of when you have good cause to quit but remember you can receive partial unemployment benefits so if your wages have been reduced if your hours have been reduced then you can continue to work and apply for benefits and potentially get benefits based on that part-time employment but it does require that you attempt to resolve the problem with your employer so you have to make reasonable attempts to keep your job essentially you got you have to go up the chain of command you have to address whatever is at issue with the employment or working conditions you know going to hr complaining to a supervisor putting all of this in writing because the burden is on you to offer the basis that constitutes good cause that you had a compelling reason to quit and tried to work things out with your employer before um you applied for unemployment benefits i mean like the scenario basically pre-covered was you're having a dispute with a particular worker so you want a you know a different schedule uh you have uh child care problems and you want to come in a half hour later and work a half hour in the afternoon uh these are some of the things that people will point to when they quit and you know what exactly does constitute good cause well in these situations it does require you to work with your manager or your boss and to try to get a flexible schedule and to document those efforts and to prove to the employment security division that you did try to work this out and you just didn't go straight to the quit option so in terms of the covid 19 era a big question we we've been getting is and we've kind of addressed this or hinted at it earlier can you quit if you're afraid of getting coronavirus probably not um again i think you know using the scheme for good cause compelling reason reasonable alternatives it's going to depend on your individual circumstances and what is going on with the employment we've also received a lot of complaints from employers not following the osha guidance on social distancing and um if that's the case i mean osha is taking complaints and investigating complaints um i you know okay i doubt that they're investigating every single complaint that comes in i i believe it's in the thousands which obviously shows a lack of employers willing to abide by social distancing and ppe requirements but essentially you have to document you know what steps you've taken to try to address the failures of the employer to abide by regulations and it's got to be compelling so i don't know if you're not old you don't have any health factors you're probably not going to be eligible for benefits if you quit in fear of getting coronavirus maybe it changes if you do have a compromised immune system again i think it's gonna depend on everybody's individual circumstances i mean but the the aspect here is it's involuntary so it's a little bit more than compelling it's involuntary and you know we talk about germaphobes like howard hughes or howie mandel or you know people who do have uh disabilities based on the intense fear of getting sick or getting coveted um generally speaking um they would have a reason just a generalized fear and the mental disability of of this illness that's uh surrounding us it's it hangs in the air for long periods of time i don't want to get too dark but you know some people with mental disabilities this covid crisis hits them at a very sort of delicate spot so you know i would think that's involuntary and i would think they would have good cause for quitting it's convincing asd and all the guidance exactly right everyone right but i do think that you know people with significant health factors there there is an argument to be made right we have enough people in our society with diabetes and diabetes is one of the risk factors it's it's involuntary and it could if your employer is not taking any efforts to protect you then that probably is good cause uh to quit um you still have to try to you know document your efforts to force them to comply though that i would say is still a requirement so definitely you need to be taking steps and calling osha getting other employees that are similarly situated or you know potentially um uh does that go too far yeah no i mean you know in terms of you know making sure that you're not acting reasonably right calling um and having osha do do something are two separate things we know that osha won't do anything if the employer shows good faith in trying to comply with these covet protocols and um yeah the aspect of calling and documenting that or emailing is even better because you can print that out that is useful if you're going to show a good cause for for leaving right other laws are still in effect we've talked about osha and if you are disabled you could um still request a reasonable accommodation based on your disability um that could impact your employer outside of you know this good cost is quit scheme and potentially force them to allow you to do things like telework or have flexible work schedule something that would require them to take actions to accommodate your disability and then um as far as whether or not your workplace is an imminent danger under osha regulations you do have to show that the danger such a danger exists which could reasonably be expected to cause death or serious physical harm before such danger can be eliminated through the enforcement procedures of osha so again as david was saying you know if the employer is taking steps you have to show that what they're doing isn't going to protect your life essentially that's a very hard standard to me what i'd also encourage people to look at is governor siselek's protocols which have so much detail uh like 50 capacity in restaurants grocery stores things like that so when i go to a grocery store my local one i don't see them with a counter counting people and if you're working there and it's crowded all the time that could be a basis or one of the factors for for quitting is if there's more than 50 capacity right again can't stress enough individual circumstances each employer is going to be reacting differently but you still need to take the steps to address the issue before quitting exactly all right um if there are any questions about good cause we will come back to this issue i know it's probably the biggest one that we get questions about but we'll go ahead and move on to another reason you can't be disqualified when you apply which is if you were terminated from previous employment because of misconduct connected with your work um misconduct has been defined in case law uh it is sort of a convoluted definition there's essentially three parts so you have to have a deliberate violation or disregard of the standards of behavior which your employer has the right to expect or carelessness or negligence of such a degree to show substantial disregard of the employer's interests or your duties and obligations to the employer and ordinary negligence in isolated instances or good faith errors in judgment or discretion are not misconduct the employer has the initial burden of proof you know of showing you committed misconduct but you then can after that um justify essentially justify your circumstances by showing that you did not engage in disqualifying misconduct because your actions were reasonable and justified under the circumstances and were not wrongful and one thing to emphasize here and every employee who is terminated for misconduct there's a whole story behind it you have to understand that when you go to a hearing when you deal with this issue with the employment security division they only have a tenth of it or even less of what's going on in the history behind you know your your relationship with other workers or the boss or whatever so you know you may be feeling like you were wronged or you have you know a perfect reason for doing what you did you should try to forget about that and concentrate on the information that the referee has or the adjudicator has because that's going to be the record that's going to be the history that the employment security division looks at not you know the 20 years you worked for the company but the last 10 minutes let's say and again as far as misconduct we're not saying that every violation of a rule or policy is misconduct employers will often say that but it really does have to be you know an important you did something really wrong not you know and typically it's when your mistake causes uh monetary harm for for the employment exactly and that's really unfortunately one of the things that the employers often highlight is if you cause monetary harm then you're gonna have a really big hill to climb all right finally in terms of disqualification we want to talk about misrepresentation because you do not want to lie when applying for benefits if you make a false statement knowing it to be false or knowingly fail to disclose a material fact in order to obtain or increase your benefit you will be disqualified for benefits now remember when you apply for unemployment benefits esd turns around and reaches out to your employer and they have a chance to submit a statement then esd is going to call you and investigate your claim unless the employer's information matches yours so it's really important that you not lie when you apply for benefits if you were not laid off do not put that you were laid off even if your employer says i will not contest your unemployment b nefit claim we hear this all of the time it doesn't matter if your employer believes you're lying they might decide well we didn't do that we're going to say that what really happened so make sure you do not lie because you could be disqualified for up to a year um from getting unemployment benefits in the future and you'll obviously have to pay back any benefits you received but also realize you don't commit fraud if you just click on the wrong box or miss some drop down or whatever and and when you go to the application online application there's these fraud warnings all over uh i i we're not going to say disregard them but fraud is usually when you intend to deceive not when you make a mistake right you have to it has to be knowing you have to be making a knowing false statement so just making a mistake is not misrepresentation that we're talking about all right so the claims process we've we have kind of addressed this but this is not um sorry this is you know you file a claim you give your reason why you're separated again we just talked about this this is an issue for misrepresentation you then get a you'll set up a phone call i know that the phone has been an issue um [Music] you know recently but essentially eventually you should get an interview with the claims adjudicator if there's any issues with your application you will be able to talk to somebody try to figure things out hopefully the call centers are getting it and processing the claims but be aware that when you have that interview um you uh the adjudicator will put them in writing and it does become part of your claims file so those notes will you know potentially could be an issue at a hearing um the decision that is issued by the claims adjudicator after the interview which you can appeal within 11 days the appeal must be in writing and signed include and include your social security number and then once you appeal you'll get a hearing scheduled before an appeals referee and then you know depending on the jurisdiction and in this day and age i think the hearing is going to take a while to get scheduled but you would be essentially able to have a hearing before an appeals referee ray can you go back for a second yeah that first or the second uh point is is really a good one because a lot of people they don't want to say they quit uh they they wanna be proud or whatever if if if your hours were reduced if you had uh your boss suspended you whatever you should describe the correct circumstances upon leaving and if you just are embarrassed by the word quit don't be embarrassed because that could be like if you say uh you were laid off when you actually quit that could be a reason to for the for esd to charge you with fraud right and so just to clarify um you're not you're not necessarily going to get a phone call from a claims adjudicator if all of the information that's submitted supports the claim they might have to call you if there's a mistake in the application but i think it just depends on what what ends up happening with your claim i don't necessarily believe every claim is going to require a phone interview it just depends on um you know if you make a mistake if the employer submits information that contradicts what you said or for pua if you you know if there's an issue with substantiating your wages or um you know you clicked a button wrong there might be a reason for an interview but that doesn't mean that every single application is going to have an interview it just depends on what information is submitted and what information the employment security division needs to double check now if something comes up during your claim even after you've filed and received benefits there could be intervening reasons why your claim might have problems in the future and they could call to interview you at any time one final point is when you get your hearing with the referee it's going to be by phone they're probably going to send you a notice 48 hours before the hearing to confirm your telephone number respond to that it's very important even though you've given your phone number probably two or three times you have to do it again because if you miss that hearing you're going to lose and david we have a question about getting through on the phone lines and whether sending an email is going to work it's my understanding that there is no way to email regarding applications at the moment i believe there is an email address set up if you have problems like accessing the online systems but i am not aware of any email for actually submitting and or addressing issues with the claim that is still required to be done by phone right right no that's probably fraud or phishing or whatever the application is online or by phone and when you get notice of the hearing that's by email but only because you gave your email in the application so yeah there shouldn't be any exchange of information by email as far as as far as i know yeah i'm not aware that they've allowed that at this point i mean i think they're still requiring fax documents as well there's warnings all over the application uh website you know avoid um employment security fraud we will not contact you and things like that so maybe some fraudulent party trying to get information all right so once you um request the hearing an appeals referee presides over the initial adventure hearing and this is your only evidence you're hearing it is the only time you will have the ability to submit evidence okay so we just talked about not emailing you i believe are still required to fax documents csd for the hearing i don't even think the online system has the opportunity for people to like upload documents which would be the next like i don't know why you can't upload things but um essentially you have to make sure that you get all of your evidence submitted before the hearing and have witnesses if you want to call witnesses you need to have them available for that hearing you can't you know you can't say oh well my witness wasn't available and try to get that in on appeal once you have your hearing it's basically over at that point the only grounds you would have to contest it is through the appeals process you will though in your online system be able to access the hearing packet before the hearing so do check your your um portal before the hearing and then review that file so you can supplement it if there are if you notice anything that's missing or you have documents that your employer has not provided but you do testify under oath the appeals referee will swear all of the witnesses in once you have that hearing again i can't stress enough it is the only opportunity you have to submit evidence but if you lose you can appeal the hearing to the board of review the board of review is just a three-member panel there's a representative for labor a representative for the public and a representative for the division now that three-member panel is not necessarily required to have a hearing so just be aware of that they're only required to hear the cases if the referee overturned the original determination if the if the decisions were the same both times the board of review is likely just to to deny review so to get the hearing before the board of review again you have to file the appeal within 11 days the appeal has to be in writing has to be signed has to include your social security number and this time you do have to provide reasons for the appeal because again the board of review does not necessarily have to have a hearing so if you have a good reason for your appeal you want to lay that out at the time you appeal the decision and then if you lose again at the board of review which honestly is going to be really likely you'll have 22 days from the board of review decision to file a petition for judicial review in district court that has jurisdiction over your place of employment so you do have the ability to get in front of a judge in district court if you've lost your hearings prior to that point and that does require you to file a petition it's called the petition for judiciary review but you file that in court and then you have to serve esd it's it's you can't emphasize it enough some people think that they've got great cases they go to the hearing they go to the board of review and they may even file their petition in district court and then they come to our office that's way too late in the process if you are denied unemployment and before your hearing you should contact us because you do have months potentially between when you request a hearing and you get your hearing so we at nevada legal services can investigate get the file look at whether there's things that you can do to qualify for unemployment benefits and certainly you can go on your own if you want and you can just take our advice but we can represent you during this process and at the end we will have comfort contact information for our offices but you can also get that information on our website it's nlslaw.net which you can also link through to from our youtube page but that does it um here is the contact information for the offices please feel free to give us a call as david said we do represent claimants who are denied unemployment benefits and we can possibly help you at the hearing so give us a call and we can determine if you are eligible for our services but again if you have any questions or anything that you would like us to address please go ahead and include that in the chat below we'll stay online for just a little bit longer to field any remaining questions um but just you know i understand that there's a lot going on right now with the economy opening up and people being afraid to go back to work um we understand but as david mentioned you know things are are pretty strictly construed against employees right now so just be aware of that i'll also mention which really isn't a matter of broad public knowledge when you do apply for unemployment benefits the employment security division will also be matching that information with the department of welfare to see if you're eligible for any other benefits that could help you during this covitt crisis and i do believe we have one other question so we'll stay on to see if there are any additional questions just for another few minutes um but i do definitely um you know if you have if you're if you're denied you want to make sure you keep track of your online portal for sure and anything that looks like you're ineligible give us a call if it's just taking a long time to process the application i have to be honest i don't know that there's too much we can do about that um but if you have a determination of ineligibility or you're officially denied please feel free to give us a call yes we've talked to so many people who just say it's just nice to talk to a human being it's like have you seen me uh but um no it's a frustrating and long process so you got a lot of uh you need a lot of patience to get through it yeah so we do have one final question david and i unfortunately don't know the answer to this um i assume it's something to do with misconduct but i i know we had a discussion about um the ppp program but the question is the pua claim asks if you've been convicted of a crime there's an option to answer prefer not to answer but why do they ask whether or not um if if you engaged in criminal activity at work you're not eligible so i think that's the reason they're asking and that's what i thought criminal activity is a separate category for misconduct i apologize i tend to loop it in with misconduct but there is a criminal activity qualification customer yeah it's miscon i'm sorry i don't want to be flipping but yeah no i do apologize that is something that we don't generally address and i i guess i forget about it sometimes but you yes if you commit a crime um uh in your previous employment you are um ineligible for benefits it's so pro you know it's so easy like if you you do injure or harm a customer that you know we never i don't think i i've ever seen one of those cases so we don't talk about it but yes if you if you committed a crime at work that that's misconduct and i i get i don't want to make assumptions honestly but i assume if you choose the prefer not to answer option you might have to get a call and talk to um uh claims adjudicator at that point they might follow up with that question right right is that the natural question was it at work or was it somewhere else right you could get into that murphy sort of evans analysis too whether you were not available for work because you were incarcerated right and then um [Music] we have another question somebody appealed a determination that they were ineligible when applying for regular benefits but they're an independent writer um and a regular gig was postponed i would apply for pua exactly so i would i would not i mean i think you're fine appealing the other determination but i would go ahead and apply for pua um i know that claims are getting processed right now and that does seem to me to be a situation um where pua would be more uh appropriate i guess is the answer for you to apply for pua and then um if you're approved for pua then you can abandon your other claim exactly and yeah again i understand like we were concerned initially or at least i was i don't know how you felt david but when they had the original system and they kept saying you know wait pua wait wait for us to come up with this system for accepting pua applications and people had applied through the original process and you know they're getting denied there's ineligibility determinations and i was worried about telling people to appeal because i feel like having two avenues would be a problem but at this point in time based on what i understand of the poa system apply for pua do not worry that you have a separate application process um because it is esd's requirement to tell you what you qualify for essentially so go ahead and apply for both i would not worry about that at this point i would call them two bites at the apple and uh you should take it if if you you have the ability and this rider has the ability to do that i agree i think at this point just you know apply for whatever benefits and and it should be their requirement to tell you what you what you apply for what you qualify for excuse me okay but that looks like those are all the questions for now again like i said if you feel more comfortable giving one of our offices a call please do so we'd be more than happy to at least give you advice um or and essentially make a determination whether or not we can assist you further but thank you so much for attending we really appreciate it and if there's anything that we can do to help you out in the future please let us know but thank you for joining us david thank you and that will do it for our unemployment benefit live presentation today thank you so much everyone have a good rest of your um day and week and good luck with applying for pua yes our direct laugh right