Appeal for Employment Insurance Benefits Dismissed Due to Voluntary Quitting

Citation: VP  v  Canada Employment Insurance Commission , 2026  SST  100 Social Security Tribunal of Canada General Division – Employment Insurance Section Decision Appellant: [redacted] Respondent: [redacted] Decision under appeal: Canada Employment Insurance Commission reconsideration decision (749622) dated December 1, 2025 (issued by Service Canada) Tribunal member: [NAME] of hearing: Videoconference Hearing date: January 16, 2026 Hearing participant: Appellant Decision date: January 26, 2026 File number: GE-25-3588 On this page Decision Overview Issue Analysis Conclusion Decision [ 1 ] The appeal is dismissed. The General Division disagrees with the Appellant. [ 2 ] The Appellant hasn’t shown [NAME] (in other words, a reason the law accepts) for leaving [NAME] when she did. The Appellant didn’t have [NAME] because she had reasonable alternatives to leaving. This means she is disqualified from receiving Employment Insurance ( [NAME] ) benefits. Overview [ 3 ] The Appellant left [NAME] as a program assistant on June 27, 2025, and she applied for [NAME]. The Canada Employment Insurance Commission (Commission) looked at the Appellant’s reasons for leaving. It decided that she voluntarily left (or chose to quit) [NAME] without [NAME], so it wasn’t able to pay her benefits. [ 4 ] I must decide whether the Appellant has proven that she had no reasonable alternative to leaving [NAME]. [ 5 ] The Commission says the Appellant could have asked her employer to accommodate her so she could keep [NAME], or she could have stayed at [NAME] while looking for another one closer to her mother’s home. It also says she could have looked for a more suitable living arrangement closer to [NAME]. [ 6 ] The Appellant says the acute stress response and psychological shock caused by an attack by a [NAME]’s cat impaired her ability to engage in complex problem-solving at the time, and she quit [NAME]. She says her only safe housing option was far from where [NAME] was. Issue [ 7 ] Is the Appellant disqualified from receiving benefits because she voluntarily left [NAME] without [NAME]? [ 8 ] To answer this, I must first address the Appellant’s voluntary leaving. I then have to decide whether the Appellant had [NAME] for leaving. Analysis The parties don’t agree that the Appellant left voluntarily [ 9 ] The Commission has to show that the Appellant voluntarily left [NAME]. Footnote 1 To determine if the Appellant voluntarily left [NAME], I have to decide if she had a choice to stay or leave. Footnote 2 [ 10 ] In her application for benefits, the Appellant said she quit [NAME] on June 27, 2025. She gave reasons for doing so in the application. When she spoke to the Commission, the Appellant again said she quit [NAME] and explained why, related to issues with a [NAME]’s cat. [ 11 ] The Appellant’s former employer issued a record of employment that said the Appellant quit [NAME] on June 27, 2025. The Commission spoke to the Appellant’s former employer who confirmed that the Appellant quit [NAME]. The employer sent the Commission a copy of the Appellant’s email resignation. [ 12 ] At the hearing, the Appellant testified that she didn’t voluntarily quit [NAME]. She said leaving [NAME] was necessary to remove her from a dangerous environment that threatened her health and safety. She asked that her case be viewed through a trauma-informed lens. [ 13 ] The Appellant submitted a letter from a registered psychotherapist who has treated her for Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD). Footnote 3 In his opinion, the Appellant resigned “while she was in a state of acute psychological distress, attempting to regain a sense of safety rather than making a reasoned employment decision”. He added that her resignation “should be understood as a reactive, trauma-mediated action, not a voluntary or calculated employment decision made with full cognitive clarity”. [ 14 ] The Appellant’s psychotherapist recommends that the decision to deny the Appellant [NAME] be reconsidered. He bases this recommendation on “the acute psychological state she was in during the events of June 13, 2025”. [ 15 ] The Appellant also submitted a letter from a doctor dated December 2025. Footnote 4 The doctor states that “the traumatic events that occurred resulted in the patient, not being in the right state of mind to mak [ sic ] proper decisions, and unfortunately, in that moment of distress she quit [NAME]”. [ 16 ] The Appellant testified that at the time of the incident with [NAME]’s cat, her “higher cognitive functioning” was temporarily shut down. She said this shows her resignation wasn’t voluntary; it was an action taken to remove herself from an environment that threatened her health and safety. [ 17 ] Based on the professional opinions of the individuals noted above, I have no reason to doubt that the Appellant was traumatized by what happened to her on June 13, 2025, and a result made a quick, reactive, in-the-moment decision to resign from [NAME]. [ 18 ] Despite the above, the Appellant gave notice to her employer that she would leave on June 27, 2025. And I find that up to that point, two weeks after the traumatic event of June 13, she had the choice to stay or leave the job. I find that this means that she voluntarily left [NAME]. The parties don’t agree that the Appellant had [NAME] [ 19 ] The parties don’t agree that the Appellant had [NAME] for voluntarily leaving [NAME] when she did. [ 20 ] The law says that you are disqualified from receiving benefits if you left your job voluntarily and you didn’t have [NAME]. Footnote 5 Having a good reason for leaving a job isn’t enough to prove [NAME]. [ 21 ] The law explains what it means by “[NAME].” The law says that you have [NAME] to leave if you had no reasonable alternative to quitting your job when you did. It says that you have to consider all the circumstances. Footnote 6 [ 22 ] It is up to the Appellant to prove that she had [NAME]. Footnote 7 She has to prove this on a balance of probabilities. This means that she has to show that it is more likely than not that her only reasonable option was to quit. When I decide whether the Appellant had [NAME], I have to look at all of the circumstances that existed when the Appellant quit. [ 23 ] The Appellant says a [NAME]’s cat attacked her at the residence where she was staying making it unsafe to live there. She says the only safe housing for her was some distance from her workplace. So she could not continue working at [NAME] in-person. She said under the extreme and unusual circumstances, including the acute stress response and psychological shock caused by the attack, her ability to engage in complex problem solving was impaired, and she had no reasonable alternative to leave [NAME]. [ 24 ] The Commission says the Appellant didn’t have [NAME], because she had reasonable alternatives to leaving when she did. Specifically, it says the Appellant could have asked her employer to accommodate her, she could have stayed at [NAME] until she found another job in the city where she felt safe or another residence in the city where [NAME] was, or she could have consulted a doctor about taking medical leave or quitting [NAME]. [ 25 ] I find that the Appellant had reasonable alternatives to leaving [NAME]. I find that she could have asked her employer either to take a leave of absence or to continue working remotely. I find that by doing this, she could have looked for a new home close to [NAME], or she could have looked for another job closer to her mother’s home. [ 26 ] The Appellant applied for [NAME] on July 2, 2025. In her application, she said she quit [NAME] after she was attacked by a [NAME]’s cat in a residence she had just moved into. She said her employer would not let her work from home to keep [NAME] while she tried to find a new place to live, so she quit [NAME]. The Appellant said the employer let her work from home in her two-week notice period. [ 27 ] The Appellant spoke to the Commission on July 15, 2025. She said she had to move to her mother’s house due to an issue she had with [NAME]’s cat. The Appellant said she was looking for work and applying for jobs. But the Commission told her it was denying her application for benefits because she didn’t try to secure alternative employment and she didn’t aske her employer for a leave of absence before quitting. [ 28 ] The Appellant asked the Commission to reconsider its decision. She said she didn’t know that she could ask the employer for a leave of absence. She said if she had known, she would have chosen this option. She added that she would have used [NAME] to pay rent in a safer environment and taken the time to find a new place to live. [ 29 ] The employer told the Commission that the Appellant had taken leave and had been able to work from home for a short period. The employer said these options were still available to the Appellant, although they could not continue indefinitely. [ 30 ] The Appellant testified that she first moved into the new residence on May 30. She said she left the next morning because the cat was already being aggressive. She asked to work remotely for the first week of June. The Appellant said she went to her mother’s house because she also has a cat and needed to take it there. She returned to the city where she worked on June 9, worked in the office from June 10 to 12, and stayed with a friend until June 12. [ 31 ] The Appellant testified that the attack happened at about 8:30 a.m. on June 13, and she sent her resignation email to her employer at 11:14 a.m. [ 32 ] I asked the Appellant if she asked her employer to extend the period she could work remotely. She replied that she thinks her actions up to June 13 when the incident happened show that she was acting reasonably to “preserve” her housing and [NAME] because of living with a cat that was showing aggression. The Appellant said that after the cat attack, her psychological state changed abruptly. She said she resigned while still in shock and acting under duress. [ 33 ] As already noted, the Appellant continued to work for the employer for two weeks after the cat attack. And she confirmed at the hearing that she did so remotely at her mother’s home. But she testified that her primary focus was on immediate safety, not negotiating work arrangements. She added that her resignation was a response to her “intolerable and unsafe” living conditions. [ 34 ] The Appellant submitted medical evidence of having visited an emergency department two days after the cat attacked her. Footnote 8 According to the doctor’s note, the Appellant was only there to document cat scratch marks. The Appellant reported to the doctor that she had no housing in the city where [NAME] was, she had to quit [NAME] and would applying for [NAME]. [ 35 ] I asked the Appellant about what the doctor had written. She said her mother encouraged her to get medical attention and documentation for an [NAME] claim. I asked the Appellant if she got medical treatment when she went to the hospital. The Appellant testified that she was told that to get help with infections, she would have had to have seen a doctor immediately. [ 36 ] I asked the Appellant if this was the only medical professional she consulted in the immediate period after the cat attack. She said it was. So, I asked her if she spoke to the doctor in the emergency department about the effects of the trauma of being attacked by the cat. The Appellant said she did, but the doctor only reflected that the attack upset her so much that she quit [NAME]. [ 37 ] Given her testimony that her higher cognitive functioning temporarily shut down and that her therapist had corroborated this, I asked the Appellant how long her impaired judgement lasted and referred to what her psychotherapist wrote. The Appellant explained that she has a history of exposure to emotional and physical violence. She said this means that when she faced sudden, acute trauma like she experienced with the cat, her cognitive capacity for complex problem-solving and risk assessment was temporarily impaired. She said this affected her ability to consider alternatives to resignation at the time. She said that even though she was in safety after the attack, that didn’t mean that the trauma ended. [ 38 ] I asked the Appellant if she’s in the same dissociative state now. The Appellant said she would need a medical professional to explain how she is now. [ 39 ] I asked the Appellant if she could have looked for another place to stay instead of quitting [NAME]. She referred to a previous answer she gave, namely that the actions she took up to the time the cat attacked her show that she was trying to preserve her housing and [NAME]. She said the attack “marked a clear turning point”. She said her brain blacked out and her psychological state changed. [ 40 ] The Commission said the Appellant could have used the interim period after her spontaneous resignation on June 13, up to June 27 to speak to her employer, explain the circumstances and ask for an accommodation, including to work remotely. It said this would have allowed her to keep [NAME]. [ 41 ] I asked the Appellant about the Commission’s submission. She again referred to the trauma not ending even though she was in safety. She said her response is consistent with how someone experiences acute trauma. The Appellant said her resignation was necessary to remove herself from a dangerous environment that had threatened her health and safety. [ 42 ] The Commission said the Appellant could have kept [NAME] until she could look for or find suitable work in the city where her mother lives, or she could have found more suitable living arrangements where [NAME] was located. The Appellant said that at the time of her resignation, her focus was on immediate safety and recovery from trauma. She added that while later events after the incident give context, “[NAME] looks at whether reasonable alternatives were available to [her] at the time [she] made the decision”. [ 43 ] As already noted, the Appellant asked that her case be considered thorough a trauma-informed lens, considering her state of mind at the time of her resignation. She said the incident placed her in “immediate danger and severe psychological distress”. [ 44 ] I have already identified the legal test for [NAME]. The Appellant was right when she said I have to look at whether reasonable alternatives were available to her. But I have to consider whether she had [NAME] at the time she left [NAME], which was June 27, 2025, not on the day she made the decision to quit. Footnote 9 [ 45 ] I accept as fact that the Appellant has been treated in the past for C-PTSD and that the cat attack triggered a trauma response that caused her to black out. I also accept that this affected her executive functioning and that she made the decision to resign while she was in psychological distress. [ 46 ] Despite the above, I am not persuaded that this state persisted to the day the Appellant left [NAME] such that she had no reasonable alternative to quitting. The medical evidence doesn’t say this. And although the Appellant testified that when she reached a safe location, she was still processing the psychological shock, much of her evidence referred to her cognitive state at the time of the incident. [ 47 ] The Appellant testified that her “higher cognitive functioning” was temporarily shut down at the time of the incident. She testified that her impaired cognitive capacity for complex problem-solving and risk assessment affected her ability to consider alternatives to resignation at the time. She said that at the time of her resignation, her focus was on immediate safety and recovery from trauma. [ 48 ] In her notice of appeal, the Appellant said the acute stress response and psychological shock caused by the attack impaired her ability to engage in complex problem solving “at that moment”. She said no practical or safe alternative to leaving was available at that time. [ 49 ] The Appellant was able to negotiate with the employer to work remotely for her two-week period. I accept her testimony that just because she was in a safe place at her mother’s home, that didn’t mean that her trauma ended. That seems reasonable in my non-medical thinking. But I don’t have enough evidence to show that her state of reduced access to executive functioning, as her psychotherapist put it, or her impaired ability to engage in complex problem-solving persisted longer than the moment in time. [ 50 ] The Appellant’s employer confirmed that working remotely was an option available to the Appellant albeit not permanent. So, I find that instead of leaving [NAME] on June 27, 2025, the Appellant could have asked her employer to work remotely for a longer period. And I find that she could have done this in the period after the cat attack, despite having sent a resignation email. This would have allowed her to look for new home closer to [NAME] than where her mother lives, or it would have allowed her to look for another job in the city where her mother lives. [ 51 ] Similarly, I find that the Appellant could have asked her employer for a leave of absence, again to look for a new home or a new job. And I note that it was just more than three weeks after she left [NAME] that the Appellant said in her request for reconsideration that she would have chosen this option if she had known she could ask for it. [ 52 ] The Appellant said that when she applied for [NAME], she didn’t understand that her home workspace was considered to be a workplace. This is why she said her reason for leaving [NAME] wasn’t related to something at work. She said the incident that caused her to quit [NAME] happened while she was working and that she could not continue working safely. She said she now realizes that her resignation was related to her employment. [ 53 ] One of the circumstances that may give rise to [NAME] for leaving your job is working conditions that are a danger to health or safety. Footnote 10 I accept as fact that the conditions in the Appellant’s home workspace on June 13 were a danger to her health and safety. But based on the reasoning above, I still find that the Appellant had reasonable alternatives to leaving [NAME]. In this situation, she had control of the home workspace in that it wasn’t restricted to the house she shared with [NAME]. In the same way she found a safe home workspace at her mother’s home, I find it likely that she could have found a more permanent safe home workspace in due time as an alternative to leaving [NAME]. [ 54 ] I sympathize with the Appellant in the circumstances especially with the C-PTSD-triggering incident that happened on June 13. I acknowledge that she continues to respond emotionally when speaking about what happened. But the purpose of the Employment Insurance Act is to compensate claimants who lose their jobs involuntarily and are out of work. Footnote 11 It’s an insurance plan. Like an insurance plan, a claimant has to meet the conditions of the plan to get [NAME]. Footnote 12 [ 55 ] Based on the above, I find that the Appellant hasn’t shown that she had just to leave [NAME] when she did. Conclusion [ 56 ] The Appellant hasn’t shown that she had [NAME] to leave [NAME]. Because of this, I find that she is disqualified from receiving benefits. [ 57 ] This means that the appeal is dismissed. Footnotes Footnote 1 [NAME]  v  Canada (Attorney General) , 2012  FCA  313; Canada (Attorney General)  v  [NAME] , 2011  FCA  190. Return to footnote 1 referrer Footnote 2 See Canada (Attorney General)  v.  [NAME] , 2004  FCA  56. Return to footnote 2 referrer Footnote 3 See pages GD2-35 and GD2-36. Return to footnote 3 referrer Footnote 4 See page GD2-37. Return to footnote 4 referrer Footnote 5 Section 30 of the Act explains this. Return to footnote 5 referrer Footnote 6 See Canada (Attorney General)  v  [NAME] , 2011  FCA  190 at para 3; and section 29(c) of the Act. Return to footnote 6 referrer Footnote 7 See Canada (Attorney General)  v  [NAME] , 2011  FCA  190 at para 3. Return to footnote 7 referrer Footnote 8 See pages GD3-27 and GD3-28. Return to footnote 8 referrer Footnote 9 See Canada (Attorney General)  v  [NAME], 2006  FCA  44 . [ADDRESS] said circumstances to be taken into account are those that existed at the time the claimant took leave from his job. Return to footnote 9 referrer Footnote 10 See section 29(c)(iv) of the Act. Return to footnote 10 referrer Footnote 11 See Caron  v  Canada (Employment and Immigration Commission) , [1991] 1 S.C.R.

48. Return to footnote 11 referrer Footnote 12 [NAME]  v.  Canada (Attorney General) , 2004  FCA  90. Return to footnote 12 referrer