Hacker News Reader

Its not that cut and dried. Whether or not you were fired for cause depends on whether its reasonable to ask you to return to office or whether that would be considered forcing you to accept inferior work. An employer cannot arbitrarily change the terms of your job and not pay unemployment if you quit.

Well, but underperforming and coasting could be enough to tip the scale in favor of making the employee redundant. Not sure about America, but another option could be voluntary termination, which wouldn't give you severance but you'd be allowed to collect unemployment for some time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_dismissal

If you think being asked to return to the office is constructive dismissal please contact an employment lawyer prior to proceeding.