On the Firing Line.

• Author: Spendlove, Gretta
• Position: Employee dismissals - Brief Article

"How to fire employees without getting burned"

I recently received a legal manual titled, "How to Fire Employees Without Getting Burned.." You may laugh at that title, but terminations are one of the riskiest, most headache-provoking aspects of business. As one business owner lamented after a particularly rough termination, "This is the worst experience I've had since I started this business 12 years ago!"

Terminations are difficult because of the strong emotions involved on the part of both worker and boss. The boss may face claims of discrimination or unlawful termination if the termination goes awry. He or she may also end up paying unemployment benefits for an employee whose work was totally unacceptable. The following scenario demonstrates the complex interplay between terminations, resignations, and unemployment compensation laws.

Enter Bill and Mary

Mary is a 43-year-old Hispanic female who works as an accounts manager. She is chronically late and her reports are inaccurate. Mary's boss, Bill, has decided she must go. He tells her he is terminating her for inaccuracy and lateness. "That's a lie," Mary replies. 'You're firing me because I'm an older woman and Hispanic." Mary files for unemployment benefits and starts searching for a lawyer.

Will the Utah Department of Workforce Services pay unemployment benefits to Mary and require reimbursement from Bill?

The Plot Thickens

As soon as Mary files a claim for unemployment, the department will send Bill a form, inquiring whether he contests the payment of unemployment compensation benefits. In order to do so, he must assert, and prove, that he had "just cause" for discharge. The three criteria for a just-cause discharge are: culpability, knowledge and control.

Culpability means that the discharge was so serious that "continuing the employment relationship would jeopardize the employer s rightful interest." Isolated incidents of poor judgment are not enough. The worker must also have had knowledge of the conduct the employer expected, and the conduct causing the discharge must have been within the worker's control.

Workforce Appeals in the Wings

To avoid paying benefits, Bill should emphasize that Mary's lateness and inaccuracy were continual problems that threatened his business. He should show that Mary knew what he expected and could have been timely and accurate if she chose -- the inaccuracies were not the result of reasonably relying on mistaken facts given her by someone else.

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