Pope v. ICAO

25CA0803 Pope v ICAO 10-02-2025

COLORADO COURT OF APPEALS

Court of Appeals No. 25CA0803
Industrial Claim Appeals Office of the State of Colorado
DD No. 35356-2024

Tammy Pope,

Petitioner,

v.

Industrial Claim Appeals Office of the State of Colorado and Professional
Psychology Association,

Respondents.

ORDER AFFIRMED

Division I
Opinion by JUDGE J. JONES
Grove and Schutz, JJ., concur

NOT PUBLISHED PURSUANT TO C.A.R. 35(e)
Announced October 2, 2025

Tammy Pope, Pro Se

No Appearance for Respondent Industrial Claim Appeals Office

Hall & Evans, L.L.C., Andrew D. Ringel, Denver, Colorado, for Respondent
Professional Psychology Association
¶1 In this unemployment compensation benefits case, Tammy

Pope appeals an order disqualifying her from receiving benefits

based on her job separation from Correctional Psychology

Associates (CPA). We affirm.

I. Background

¶2 Pope worked as a Mental Health Clinician at CPA for

approximately two years. After CPA terminated her employment,

she applied for benefits with the Division of Unemployment

Insurance (the Division), and a deputy for the Division initially

determined that she was eligible based on information she had

provided.

¶3 CPA appealed the deputy’s decision and requested a hearing.

After a hearing, at which Pope and two CPA representatives

testified, the hearing officer reversed the deputy’s decision and

disqualified Pope from receiving benefits under section 8-73-

108(5)(e)(XX), C.R.S. 2025 (failure to meet established job

performance or other defined standards). Pope appealed to the

Industrial Claim Appeals Office (the Panel), which affirmed.

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II. Standard of Review and Legal Principles

¶4 We will uphold the Panel’s decision unless the findings of fact

do not support the decision or the decision is erroneous as a matter

of law. § 8-74-107(6)(c)-(d), C.R.S. 2025. We review de novo

ultimate conclusions of fact and ultimate legal conclusions.

Harbert v. Indus. Claim Appeals Off., 2012 COA 23, ¶¶ 8-9.

¶5 A worker can receive unemployment benefits only if

unemployed through no fault of her own. See Debalco Enters., Inc.

v. Indus. Claim Appeals Off., 32 P.3d 621, 623 (Colo. App. 2001).

Determining whether a claimant is at fault for an employment

separation requires a case-specific consideration of the totality of

the circumstances. Morris v. City & County of Denver, 843 P.2d 76,

79 (Colo. App. 1992).

¶6 Section 8-73-108(5)(e)(XX) disqualifies a claimant from

receiving benefits if the failure to meet established job performance

or other defined standards caused the job separation. A claimant is

properly disqualified under this section if she knew what was

expected and failed to satisfactorily perform the job thereafter. See,

e.g., Pabst v. Indus. Claim Appeals Off., 833 P.2d 64, 65 (Colo. App.

1992) (a claimant who knew his employer’s concerns about job

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performance, but failed to improve, was disqualified from receiving

benefits).

III. Evidence Below

¶7 The hearing officer found that CPA put Pope on a Performance

Improvement Plan (PIP) that established, among other expectations,

that she could not remain in the facility beyond 10:00 p.m. The PIP

also informed Pope that she was to stop taking notes at 8:00 p.m.

and that an “ideal shift” was from 9:00 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. The first

page of the PIP included a list of “concerns,” including “repeated

problems with boundaries, staying later than allowed,” and “failure

to enter notes on a timely basis.” Pope signed the PIP on the

morning of September 11, 2024. Then, that evening, Pope sent an

email at 11:43 p.m. to her supervisor and several others indicating

that she was still working.

¶8 CPA’s owner testified at the hearing that Pope was not to meet

with people after 10:00 p.m. and “she should end her shift by then.”

Even if Pope wasn’t at the facility after 10:00 p.m., she was not to

work after that time. Pope “submitted [the email] to an open email

thread” rather than addressing issues with her supervisor directly.

The email “raised concerns regarding her ability to follow through

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on [the PIP,] and the decision was made to terminate” her

employment. Pope didn’t give any reason why she was working

after 10:00 p.m. or why she hadn’t sent the email by 8:00 p.m.

¶9 Pope testified that she was not in the facility past 10:00 p.m.,

but admitted that she had sent the email at 11:43 p.m. She

contended that she had sent an earlier text with the same

information before 8 p.m., however, and therefore complied with the

PIP. She also testified that the PIP was “told to her verbally”

because she had “blurred vision.” According to Pope, the PIP only

required that she leave the facility by 10 p.m., and didn’t say she

had to stop working by that time. She testified that her supervisor

told her she was discharged because her email was inappropriate.

¶ 10 CPA’s human resources director testified that Pope’s email was

deemed inappropriate because she sent it to “a very broad group of

people, not all of whom should not have been involved in that kind

of a discussion.” The director also testified that this lack of

judgment was “an ongoing concern” and that the “PIP was the final

warning.”

¶ 11 After hearing the testimony and reviewing the documentary

evidence, the hearing officer concluded that because Pope “knew

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what she was supposed to do and failed to do it,” she was at fault

for her job separation. The Panel found no error in the hearing

officer’s determination and affirmed.

IV. Analysis

¶ 12 On appeal, Pope asserts that the hearing officer did “not

correctly cite her defined work expectations” and “did not review”

the PIP. She contends that she didn’t “actually fail to meet any

employer-defined job performance or other standards.” She also

contends that the hearing officer should have asked more questions

to discover whether she had met expectations.

¶ 13 After carefully reviewing the entire record, we, like the Panel,

have no basis to conclude that the hearing officer made an error.

“It is the hearing officer’s responsibility, as trier of fact, to weigh the

evidence, assess credibility, resolve conflicts in the evidence, and

determine the inferences to be drawn therefrom.” Hoskins v. Indus.

Claim Appeals Off., 2014 COA 47, ¶ 10.

¶ 14 Additionally, the hearing officer doesn’t have a duty to

examine a claimant “exhaustively” or “develop the record

concerning [the claimant’s] version of the events and reasons

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surrounding [the] separation.” See Wafford v. Indus. Claim Appeals

Off., 907 P.2d 741, 743 (Colo. App. 1995).

¶ 15 Contrary to Pope’s assertion that the hearing officer didn’t

consider the PIP, the hearing officer expressly acknowledged that

the PIP document appeared in the record. That document spelled

out CPA’s concerns and expectations, which the hearing officer

referenced several times. See Colo. Real Estate Comm’n v. Bartlett,

272 P.3d 1099, 1103 (Colo. App. 2011) (an administrative agency is

accorded the presumption that it considered the evidence before it).

Pope admitted at the hearing that the contents of the PIP had also

been relayed to her verbally.

¶ 16 We have considered Pope’s arguments, but we conclude that

both the hearing officer and the Panel correctly determined that

Pope knew what was expected of her and failed to perform the job to

her employer’s satisfaction. That is all that is required for

disqualification from benefits under long-established Colorado law.

See, e.g., Montano v. Indus. Comm’n, 464 P.2d 518, 519 (1970)

(disqualifying a worker from unemployment compensation benefits

for failing to take reasonable measures to preserve his employment

relationship).

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V. Disposition

¶ 17 The Panel’s order is affirmed.

JUDGE GROVE and JUDGE SCHUTZ concur.

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