5 Ways To Win Your Colorado Unemployment Appeal
1. FILE YOUR APPEAL ON TIME.
An appeal to a hearing officer must be filed within 20 days of the mailing date of the deputy’s determination or ruling on eligibility for benefits. The mailing date is on the notice of determination or ruling. If you are near the deadline, hand deliver the appeal or fax it in.
Good Cause for Late Appeals
If you file your appeal AFTER the deadline, you must have good cause for failing to file within the time limit. Good cause generally means you were prevented from making the deadline by circumstances beyond your control and which could not have been reasonably anticipated. Excuses such as: you forgot do not constitute legal good cause. Proof that your mailing address change would be good cause. If you leave town, have someone look at your mail. Hearing officers have in the past denied late filing where someone left town for a funeral, because the hearing officer thought the person should have known important mail could be arriving.
2. IF THE OTHER SIDE FILED THE APPEAL, PREPARE YOUR CASE ANYWAY.
Your opponent has given a statement to the Division of Unemployment and the Division issued a determination favorable to you. What more, you ask yourself, can the other side say? You may be astonished to hear what the other side has to say when they get before a hearing officer. Approach preparation of the case as if it were your own appeal, you will be better prepared to meet whatever contentions the other side raises.
3. UNDERSTAND WHAT IS IMPORTANT TO THE CASE.
Parties to appeals often assume they know the crucial issues. The claimant who has been disqualified for quitting without good cause wastes time and energy producing such things as favorable performance reports to prove he or she was a good worker or, in a case of a discharge for alleged misconduct, comes to the hearing with a long list of complaints about the employing company and job conditions. Similarly, employers often go to great lengths to prove the employee who allegedly quit without good cause was an undesirable worker anyway. If you wish to win the appeal you should concentrate your efforts on the legal issues which control eligibility. If you are in doubt you should consult an attorney.
4. IF YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THE DATE OF THE HEARING, PROMPTLY REQUEST A NEW DATE. A hearing officer may continue a hearing to another time or place on his or her own motion or, upon a showing of good cause, on the application of a party. In Colorado, the clerks who manage hearing settings will usually give a party a new hearing date if the lawyer is unavailable, if the party of a crucial witness cannot appear at the hearing in person or by phone, or if the party needs time to find a lawyer.
5. KEEP FILING YOUR CLAIM WHILE THE APPEAL IS PENDING. Do not stop filing because the deputy denied eligibility. Do not stop filing because an appeal of your eligibility is pending. If you stop filing the Division of Unemployment will suspend your claim and you will have to get it reopened.