The Mississippi Supreme Court has awarded unemployment benefits to a worker who voluntarily left a job instead of agreeing to engage in price gouging three years ago during Hurricane Katrina.

The state high court this past week reversed decisions by a Jackson County and the Mississippi Employment Security Commission which denied Patricia Sherman benefits after she quit her desk clerk job at Days Inn in Moss Point.

Court records show Sherman quit when management instructed her to charge and collect room rates that were almost double after Katrina hit the Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005.

The Supreme Court says benefits are justified when workers voluntarily leave a job rather than violate a law.