Sticha v. McDonald's No. 291

346 N.W.2d 138, 1984 Minn. LEXIS 1299

• Court: Supreme Court of Minnesota
• Decided: March 30, 1984
• Docket: C4-83-517
• Status: Published

Opinions

WAHL, Justice.

Relator, Diana Sticha, has petitioned this court, by writ of certiorari, for review of the decision of the Commissioner of the Department of Economic Security filed March 18, 1983. This case again raises, from a slightly different angle, the troublesome question of when does a single or relatively isolated incident in the employment relationship of a long-term employee constitute statutory misconduct so as to disqualify the employee for unemployment compensation benefits.

The claims deputy determined that Sticha was discharged for misconduct. The Appeal Tribunal affirmed, finding that the employer had established an “intentional deception”. The representative of the Commissioner affirmed, concluding that the Tribunal’s finding with regard to “intent” was reasonably supported by the evidence. We reverse.

Sticha was a 10-year employee of a McDonald’s restaurant, working as an assistant manager at $6.50 per hour on November 4, 1982. About 6 o’clock that evening, during her 4 p.m. to midnight shift, she telephoned her employer’s manager, Mr. Pilachzynski, and told him that she and her sister Donna, who also worked at McDonald’s, needed the following day, Friday, November 5, off for their grandfather’s funeral. Pilachzynski complained about the late notice but, after ascertaining that Donna had been scheduled to work 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday and that Sticha had been scheduled to work from 4 p.m. to midnight, and after Sticha asked fellow employee Scott Johnson to close for her on Friday night, he agreed to let them have Friday off, in his words, “taking for granted, not assuming but thinking the funeral was Friday morning.”

Early Friday morning Pilachzynski read the funeral notices in the paper and discovered that Sticha’s grandfather’s funeral was on Saturday, November 6. He immediately called Sticha and, as he later explained in his response to Sticha’s statement of claim, “[I] asked her why she lied about when the funeral was? She answered a funeral is a funeral, isn’t it. I replied that a wake is a wake not a funeral. She said I’m sorry but it’s the same to me — I said so am I and we’ll see about your job too.” Within 5 minutes Sticha’s sister Donna called Pilachzynski and offered to come to work that day although she and Sticha had planned to clean Sticha’s house and cook food because relatives were coming over that evening after the wake. Pila-chzynski told her it was not necessary for her to come in and that if Sticha had explained he would have given them the time off anyway.

Neither Sticha nor her sister came to work on Friday. The wake for the grandfather was Friday evening. Scott Johnson worked for Sticha from 10 p.m. to midnight and closed for her. He testified at the hearing before the Tribunal that there were enough people to work that evening and that no problems arose either in the handling of the customers or in the closing of the restaurant. Sticha was never allowed to come back to work but was terminated because Pilachzynski determined that she had lied to him about the time of the funeral. Sticha filed a claim for unemployment benefits on November 11, 1982. In Pilachzynski’s responsive statement to the Department of Economic Security dated November 18, 1982, he indicated that approximately 5 years earlier, Sticha had been removed from the management staff for about a year for stealing money and had been warned that if she ever again was dishonest, she would be terminated immediately.

The question before this court is whether there is substantial evidence to support the determination of the Commissioner that this long-term employee was discharged for “misconduct” under Minn.Stat. § 268.-09, subd. 1(2) (1982) and was thereby disqualified from receiving unemployment compensation benefits. Tilseth v. Midwest Lumber Co., 295 Minn. 372, 374-75, 204 N.W.2d 644, 646 (1973) sets out the construction of “misconduct” which we have adopted from Boynton Cab Co. v. Neubeck, 237 Wis. 249, 259, 296 N.W. 636, 640 (1941):

“[T]he intended meaning of the term ‘misconduct’ * * * is limited to conduct evincing such wilful or wanton disregard of an employer’s interests as is found in deliberate violations or disregard of standards of behavior which the employer has the right to expect of his employee, or in carelessness or negligence of such degree or recurrence as to manifest equal culpability, wrongful intent or evil design, or to show an intentional and substantial disregard of the employer’s interests or of the employee’s duties and obligations to his employer. On the other hand mere inefficiency, unsatisfactory conduct, failure in good performance as the result of inability or incapacity, inad-vertencies or ordinary negligence in isolated instances, or good-faith errors in judgment or discretion are not to be deemed ‘misconduct’ * *

Windsperger v. Broadway Liquor Outlet, 346 N.W.2d 142 (Minn.1984), holds that an isolated hotheaded incident which does not interfere with the employer’s business is not “misconduct” which disqualifies an employee from unemployment compensation benefits under Minn.Stat. § 268.09, subd. 1(2) (1982). The incident in Sticha’s case, though isolated, is not a “hotheaded” incident except that tempers rose as Pilachzyn-ski accused Sticha of lying and Sticha tried to explain that she considered the wake to be a part of the funeral. But does Sticha’s conduct show “an intentional and substantial disregard of the employer’s interests or of the employee’s duties and obligations to [her] employer”? The evidence shows that it does not. Sticha was to work on Friday, November 5 from 4 p.m. until midnight. Her housecleaning thus would have been done earlier in the day on her own time. Donna, whose scheduled shift was from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday, offered to come to work but was told it was unnecessary. Sticha had contacted her employer nearly 24 hours in advance of her scheduled starting time to request time off. She arranged for Scott Johnson to work for her from 10 p.m. to midnight and to close for her before Pilachzynski agreed to give her the time off. No problems arose at the restaurant on her shift that night either in the handling of customers or in closing. Finally, Sticha considered the wake to be a part of the funeral. Surely this misunderstanding and lack of communication between the employee and employer, during a time of trauma in the employee’s family, does not constitute the “dishonesty” which the employer had prohibited.

We hold that the evidence in this case is insufficient to establish “misconduct” under Minn.Stat. § 268.09, subd. 1(2) (1982) where the employee’s conduct evinced a good-faith error in judgment in an isolated instance during her 10 years of employment and did not adversely affect the employer’s business. The determination of the Commissioner to the contrary is reversed.

Reversed.