Her insurer said she was gone - her employer said her job was waiting
A cosmetology school worker’s fight for unemployment benefits collapsed - not because of her employer, but her own testimony.
The Delaware Superior Court on October 14, 2026 upheld the denial of unemployment benefits to a former learning leader at Paul Mitchell The School Delaware, finding she had not shown she was genuinely available for work after a pregnancy-related leave.
The employee started at the school in 2022 and went on leave in December 2024 for a high-risk pregnancy. Her newborn then needed constant care for breathing complications. Her doctor cleared her to return on April 28, 2025.
That is where things got complicated.
She asked the school’s co-owner about remote work so she could stay close to her baby. The school said no - its hands-on training model and state licensing rules made remote roles impossible. She never went back.
The co-owner insisted the employee had never been terminated. The school had simply made her inactive in its systems and was “really just still waiting for her to be approved to return.”
But the paper trail painted a different picture. The school had cut her access to internal platforms and disabled her email. Her insurer sent a letter stating the school had reported she was “no longer with their organization.”
The Unemployment Insurance Appeal Board sided with the school. It found the employee was medically unable to work until April 2025, and after that date, her...
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