CUB 68174

GUY GOULARD, Umpire

The claimant filed a claim for benefits which was established effective May 18, 2003. The Commission was later informed that during her benefit period, that is from April 5 to April 23, 2004, the claimant had been out of Canada. The Commission determined that the claimant was not entitled to benefits for the period she was out of the country. The Commission further determined that the claimant was not available for work from April 26 to April 30, 2004 because she was away from her home area. The Commission imposed a disentitlement for that period.

The claimant appealed the Commission's decisions to a Board of Referees which dismissed the appeal. She appealed the Board's decision. This appeal was heard in Terrace, British Columbia on April 23, 2007. The claimant was present.

At the start of the hearing, counsel for the Commission advised that the Commission was conceding that the claimant should be entitled to sickness benefits from April 26 to April 30, 2004 and that she should also be entitled to regular benefits for the first 7 days of her absence out of Canada pursuant to subsection 55(d) of the Employment Insurance Regulations as she was visiting her father who was seriously ill and died on April 9, 2004.

The only period that remains in issue is the period from April 13 to April 25, 2004.

The claimant submitted that she should be entitled to her benefits for the remaining period in dispute based on compassionate reasons. She stated that following her father's death, it took some time to make funeral arrangements and she returned to Canada on April 23^rd, 2004, the day after her father's funeral.

Paragraphs 55(1)(b) and (d) of the Employment Insurance Regulations provide as follows:

55(1) Subject to section 18 of the Act, a claimant is not disentitled from receiving benefits for the reason that the claimant is outside Canada

b) for a period of not more than seven consecutive days to attend the funeral of a member of the claimant's immediate family or of one of the following persons, namely,
...
d) for a period of not more than seven consecutive days to visit a member of the claimant's immediate family who is seriously ill or injured;

The claimant travelled out of Canada to visit her father who was terminally ill. She would therefore be entitled to the 7-day exception to disentitlement provided in paragraph 55(1)(d) of the Regulations. She then extended her stay for the purpose of assisting with the arrangements for and attending the funeral. She would therefore have been entitled to a further period of 7 days pursuant to paragraph 55(1)(b) of the Regulations.

At the hearing, I raised the issue of whether a claimant could benefit from two exceptions to disentitlement pursuant to subsection 55(1) of the Regulations. It is clear that, had the claimant returned to Canada shortly after her father's death, she would have been entitled to return for his funeral thereby becoming entitled to the second exception to disentitlement. I therefore concluded that, given the circumstances, the claimant is entitled to benefits from the exceptions in both of these paragraphs of subsection 55(1) of the Regulations. There will remain a few days of disentitlement which will need to be calculated by the Commission.

Accordingly, the appeal is allowed to the extent that during her absence from Canada, the claimant was entitled to her employment insurance benefits for 14 days for the reasons stated above. She was also entitled to sickness benefits from April 26 to April 30, 2004, as conceded by the Commission. The file will be returned to the Commission for a calculation of the days of disentitlement to benefits in accordance with this decision.

Guy Goulard

UMPIRE

OTTAWA, Ontario
May 11, 2007