A small law firm in western Pennsylvania has found itself in a bind after management changed its mind over whether a legal assistant could do her job on a part-time basis.

The Commonwealth Court ruled against two-lawyer Ligonier Law in an unreported decision filed Monday. The court said former law firm employee Joslin Bennet did not voluntarily leave her job when the firm asked her to resume a full-time schedule or leave.

“Claimant was willing to continue under the new terms of part-time employment, but employer was not,” Judge Michael Wojcik wrote in a seven-page opinion. “Employer eliminated the part-time position, thereby severing the employment relationship.”

According to the Commonwealth Court, Bennet started working as a legal assistant at Ligonier Law in November 2015. She worked there for about eight months, then applied for unemployment benefits.

Bennet is a bilateral leg amputee, the court's opinion said, and she receives disability benefits as a result. But in January 2016, she learned that her disability benefits might be jeopardized if she made too much money working full-time hours at Ligonier Law. So she asked the law firm to let her work part-time, 15 hours a week.

Bennet worked part-time for seven months, but the firm eventually decided that she was unable to fulfill all of her responsibilities as a legal assistant in that limited time per week. The firm terminated Bennet, with a plan to hire a full-time legal assistant instead, the opinion said.

The Unemployment Compensation Board of Review found that Bennet did not voluntarily quit her job because she was willing to continue working on a part-time basis. The board also decided that she was not discharged for willful misconduct.

Ligonier Law argued that Bennet did quit, and the board should not have even proceeded to ask whether she was terminated for willful misconduct. The firm contended that Bennet voluntarily chose to decline full-time work, and therefore severed the employment relationship.

The Commonwealth Court disagreed. “Employer argues that claimant quit by refusing to work full-time and that the change from part-time work to full-time work was merely a reversion to the original terms of the employment,” Wojcik wrote. “However, by agreeing to claimant's request for part-time work, employer and claimant agreed to new terms of employment.”

“I learned that I shouldn't try to accommodate employees. That's what I learned from this case,” said Richard Flickinger of Ligonier Law, who represented his own firm.

The Unemployment Compensation Board of Review did not respond to a call seeking comment Monday.