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Ross v. HOM Furniture11/10/2003
ployment by an employer shall not be disqualified from any employment benefits except when.á.á. the applicant was discharged because of employment misconduct." One definition of misconduct under Minn. Stat. § 268.095, subd. 6(a), is, " ny intentional conduct, on the job or off the job, that disregards the standards of behavior that an employer has the right to expect of the employee or disregards the employee's duties and obligations to the employer." Id., subd. 6(a)(1).
Employment misconduct has recently been interpreted to mean conduct that is (1) intentional and (2) disregards "standards of behavior the employer has a right to expect or the employee's duties and obligations to the employer." Houston v. Int'l Data Transfer Corp., 645 N.W.2d 144, 149 (Minn. 2002). According to Houston, intentional conduct is conduct that is "deliberate," and "'disregard' means 'to pay no attention to; leave out of considerations; ignore; [.á.á.] to treat without due regard, respect, or attentiveness; slight.'" Id. at 149-50 (quoting Random House Dictionary of the English Language 569 (2d ed. 1987)). Therefore, the employee must not have "only engaged in intentional conduct, but also intended to, or engaged in conduct that evinced an intent to, ignore or pay no attention to his or her duties and obligations or the standards of behavior the employer has a right to expect." Id. at 150.
In deciding unemployment cases, "the issue is not whether the employer can choose to terminate the employment relationship, but rather 'whether, now that the employee has been terminated, there should be unemployment compensation, a determination which focuses on the willfulness of the employee's behavior.'" Schmidgall v. FilmTec Corp., 644 N.W.2d 801, 806 (Minn. 2002) (quoting Auger v. Gillette Co., 303 N.W.2d 255, 257 (Minn. 1981)). Typically, "refusing to abide by an employer's reasonable policies and requests amounts to disqualifying misconduct." Id. at 804. Further, " single incident can constitute misconduct when an employee deliberately chooses a course of conduct that is adverse to the employer." Id. at 806. Also, "an employee's decision to violate knowingly a reasonable policy of the employer is misconduct." Id.
Here, relator admits he engaged in intentional conduct by backing up the truck without a spotter. Relator only contests the determination that he intentionally disregarded his employer's reasonable standard of behavior.
The standard of behavior, here the policy requiring a spotter, is clear, direct, and unambiguous; it is equally clear that the policy is motivated by reasonable employer goals of reducing property damage and personal injury claims.
Relator's argument that no damage occurred is irrelevant. The employer's policy does not set forth an exception for low speed or no damage accidents; the policy does not even require that an accident occur. Thus, any time a driver backs up a truck without a spotter, the driver falls below the standard of conduct the employer reasonably expects. While the result in this case is unquestionably harsh, relator committed misconduct when he backed up the truck without a spotter because he engaged in intentional conduct and disregarded his employer's reasonable standard of behavior.
Affirmed.
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