## Facts

- Barry Pesce worked for A.C.S. Medicar (ACS) as a medicar driver transporting patients between hospitals and nursing homes.
- Pesce’s employment lasted about three and a half months.
- During that period, Pesce was involved in four accidents, each occurring while he was backing the medicar into a stationary object; the damage was described as minor.
- ACS treated the accidents as violations of its accident-related rules and imposed progressive discipline after earlier incidents (including suspensions and requiring Pesce to pay for damage).
- After the fourth accident, ACS terminated Pesce pursuant to its rules regarding accidents.
- Pesce applied to the Illinois Department of Employment Security for unemployment-insurance benefits.
- A claims adjudicator denied benefits on the ground that Pesce had been discharged for “misconduct” connected with work under the Illinois Unemployment Insurance Act.
- A referee upheld the denial, and the Department’s Board of Review (Board) affirmed.
- Pesce sought administrative review in the Circuit Court of Cook County, which reversed the Board and found Pesce eligible for benefits.
- The Board appealed the circuit court’s reversal to the Illinois Appellate Court, First District.

## Issues

1. Whether Pesce’s repeated minor backing accidents constituted “misconduct” under § 602A of the Illinois Unemployment Insurance Act, disqualifying him from unemployment benefits.
2. Whether the Board’s conclusion that these accidents amounted to statutory “misconduct” was an erroneous legal determination subject to reversal on judicial review.

## Decision

- The appellate court affirmed the circuit court’s judgment reversing the Board’s denial of benefits.
- Although ACS could discharge Pesce based on repeated accidents, the record did not show willful or wanton disregard of the employer’s interests, deliberate rule-breaking, or negligence so extreme as to show wrongful intent.
- The court treated the ultimate classification of Pesce’s conduct as “misconduct” under the Act as a legal question; on this record, the Board’s legal conclusion could not stand.

## Legal Principles

- Under § 602A of the Illinois Unemployment Insurance Act, an employee is disqualified from benefits only if discharged for “misconduct” connected with work.
- “Misconduct” requires more than ordinary negligence, poor performance, inability, or inadvertent mistakes; it generally involves willful or wanton disregard of the employer’s interests or negligence of such degree or recurrence as to show wrongful intent or evil design.
- A discharge that is justified under workplace rules does not automatically equal statutory “misconduct” for unemployment purposes; the unemployment standard is narrower than “cause” for termination.
- Repeated negligent acts may support a finding of misconduct when the recurrence and surrounding circumstances show a conscious disregard of duties or the employer’s interests, but repetition alone is not enough without proof of heightened fault.
- On administrative review, factual findings supported by the record receive deference, but whether established facts meet the statutory definition of “misconduct” is a legal question for the reviewing court.

## Conclusion

Pesce v. Board of Review holds that four minor backing accidents over a short period—while sufficient grounds for ACS to terminate Pesce under its rules—did not, without evidence of willful disregard or comparably serious culpability, constitute “misconduct” under § 602A; therefore, Pesce was not disqualified from receiving Illinois unemployment-insurance benefits.


Pesce v. Board of Review, 515 N.E.2d 849 (1987)