She quit citing anxiety, turned down three full-time offers, then went unreachable for weeks
An HR generalist who stopped answering her employer and skipped her own benefits hearing lost her claim for unemployment pay in Pennsylvania.
On August 24, 2026, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania affirmed a ruling that a former human resources generalist was not entitled to unemployment compensation. The dispute came down to two things: what counts as job abandonment, and what happens when a worker misses the hearing.
The worker joined Black Knight Security in July 2024 and resigned that September, telling the company she felt anxious performing her daily duties, according to the decision. Because the employer could not fill her role, it offered her a part-time, on-call spot in recruiting. She could set her own hours around the company's needs and keep job hunting. The employer testified it offered her full-time recruiting work three times, and she turned it down each time.
In early 2025, the arrangement ended. The company reached out with work on January 17, but she declined because her husband had COVID. After that, the decision says, she was unreachable until March 3, when she called to ask about on-call work. By then the employer said there was nothing left - no outstanding projects in any department.
She applied for benefits in March. The state Department of Labor and Industry first found her eligible, seeing no willful misconduct in her separation. The employer appealed, a referee held a hearing, and the referee reversed. The worker did not attend. An employer witness testified that she had stopped communicating after January 17. The referee found that her "abandonment of her position and failure to inform Employer of her plans" was willful misconduct - the standard that disqualifies a worker from benefits under state law. The Board agreed.
On appeal, the worker argued that missing the hearing denied her a fair chance to present evidence, that the abandonment finding was wrong because there was no work for her, and that she had good reason to quit in the first place. The court did not reach the substance of most of these points. It held that her good-cause-to-quit argument was waived because she could have raised it at the referee hearing but did not attend, and that her remaining arguments were waived because she had not raised them before the Board. The court affirmed the denial of benefits.
The worker had handled HR herself. She still missed the referee hearing and left the employer's account of her silence unchallenged.
