Case Title: Williams v. Ohio Dep't of Job & Family Servs.

Citation: 2011-Ohio-2897

Docket Number: 20101166

State: ohio

Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Date: 2011-06-22T00:00:00Z

Document:
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as 
Williams v. Ohio Dept. of Job & Family Servs., Slip Opinion No. 2011-Ohio-2897.] 
 
 
NOTICE 
This slip opinion is subject to formal revision before it is published in 
an advance sheet of the Ohio Official Reports.  Readers are requested 
to promptly notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of Ohio, 
65 South Front Street, Columbus, Ohio 43215, of any typographical or 
other formal errors in the opinion, in order that corrections may be 
made before the opinion is published. 
 
SLIP OPINION NO. 2011-OHIO-2897 
WILLIAMS, APPELLEE, v. OHIO DEPARTMENT OF JOB AND FAMILY SERVICES; 
BRIDGEWAY, INC., APPELLANT. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it 
may be cited as Williams v. Ohio Dept. of Job & Family Servs.,  
Slip Opinion No. 2011-Ohio-2897.] 
Unemployment compensation — Just cause — When employment is expressly 
conditioned upon obtaining or maintaining a license, the employee agrees 
to the condition, and the employee is afforded reasonable opportunity to 
comply, failure to meet the condition is just cause for termination. 
(No. 2010-1166 — Submitted March 22, 2011 — Decided June 22, 2011.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Cuyahoga County, No. 93594,  
2010-Ohio-2222. 
__________________ 
SYLLABUS OF THE COURT 
When employment is expressly conditioned upon obtaining or maintaining a 
license or certification and an employee agrees to the condition and is 
afforded a reasonable opportunity to obtain or maintain the license or 
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certification, an employee’s failure to comply with that condition is 
just cause for termination for unemployment compensation purposes. 
__________________ 
 
LANZINGER, J. 
{¶ 1} In this case, we are asked to determine whether an employee 
whose promotion was conditioned upon the obtaining of a license within a certain 
time was terminated with just cause because she failed to meet that condition. 
I.  Case Background 
{¶ 2} Appellant, Bridgeway, Inc., is a community mental health center 
that provides a variety of services, including housing services, employment 
services, and counseling, to the mentally ill.  Appellee, Mary Williams, was hired 
as a full-time residential social worker at the center. 
{¶ 3} Approximately three months after her hiring, Williams was offered 
a promotion to residential services program manager by Bridgeway.  A residential 
services program manager is required to supervise and manage two 24-hour 
residential facilities and is responsible for all aspects of the operations 
programming, including signing off on clinical treatment plans.  Williams’s 
promotion was conditioned on the requirement that she obtain certification as a 
Licensed Independent Social Worker (“LISW”) within 15 months.  The 
appointment letter dated January 17, 2007, states: “You will be required to 
complete your LISW licensure within 15 months (by May 2008) which is a 
requirement for this position.  Failure to complete the LISW licensure by May of 
2008 will make you ineligible to keep this position.”  In signing the appointment 
letter on January 23, 2007, Williams acknowledged, “I have read the attached 
position description and accept the terms and conditions of employment as stated 
and discussed for the position of Residential Services Program Manager.” 
{¶ 4} Williams was scheduled to take the LISW exam in April 2008, but 
due to health concerns, she rescheduled the test for June, with Bridgeway’s 
January Term, 2011 
3 
 
consent.  Unfortunately, she did not receive a passing score in June and was not 
eligible to take the exam again for 90 days.  Because Williams did not obtain her 
LISW certification within the time required, she was terminated. 
{¶ 5} Williams filed an application for unemployment compensation 
with the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.  The agency disallowed 
the application, determining that she had been discharged with just cause.  On 
appeal, the director’s redetermination affirmed the initial decision.  A second 
appeal followed, and the matter was transferred to the Unemployment 
Compensation Review Commission. 
{¶ 6} At a telephone hearing held in October 2008, Cheryl Lydston, 
Williams’s supervisor, testified on Bridgeway’s behalf.  She stated that Williams 
was discharged because she failed to obtain her LISW certification within 15 
months.  The supervisor explained that Williams’s failure to obtain the LISW 
certification affected Bridgeway because program managers were expected to 
provide clinical supervision of staff and to have a certain expertise in providing 
services.  Because Williams was not an LISW, another program manager had to 
sign off on treatment plans and clinically monitor the plans. 
{¶ 7} On cross-examination, Lydston acknowledged that another 
program manager, who had worked for Bridgeway for approximately 13 years at 
the time of hearing, did not have her LISW certification.  That individual, 
however, was a registered nurse and a licensed counselor and was hired at a time 
when the company wanted nurse managers.  Lydston also testified that although 
she did not have her LISW certification when she started with Bridgeway as a 
program manager in 2000, following her promotion to supervisor in 2006, she 
obtained the license in 2007 as the company had required. 
{¶ 8} Williams also testified.  She agreed that when she was promoted to 
program manager, she was informed that the promotion was conditioned upon her 
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obtaining LISW certification.  Williams also admitted that she failed the exam in 
June 2008. 
{¶ 9} The hearing officer issued a decision affirming the director’s 
redetermination that Williams was discharged with just cause: “The facts cited 
above strongly support the decision that claimant was discharged with just cause 
in connection with her work and that the Redetermination decision must be 
affirmed.  When claimant was offered and accepted the position as Residential 
Program Manager, she clearly knew that she was required, as a condition of 
employment, to pass the test to receive her LISW certification within fifteen 
months.  She waited to the last moment and failed the test with insufficient time 
remaining to retake the test. 
{¶ 10} “Claimant raises the defense that two other Residential Program 
Managers did not have the LISW certification.  One has been a Residential 
Program Manager for thirteen years and the other for five years.  It is not 
uncommon to have employers increase the educational pre-requisites in order to 
be hired or maintain employment.  Claimant knew she had fifteen months to get 
the certification.  She failed to do so without justification.” 
{¶ 11} Williams appealed to the Court of Common Pleas of Cuyahoga 
County.  Following briefing and a review of the record, the common pleas court 
found that that decision of the Unemployment Compensation Review 
Commission was not unlawful, unreasonable, or against the manifest weight of 
the evidence and denied the appeal. 
{¶ 12} Williams appealed to the Eighth District Court of Appeals.  The 
appellate court reversed, holding that Williams’s requirement to obtain an LISW 
certification was not fairly applied to other program managers.  Williams v. Ohio 
Dept. of Job & Family Servs., 8th Dist. No. 93594, 2010-Ohio-2222, ¶ 20.  We 
accepted Bridgeway’s discretionary appeal on one proposition of law: “An 
employee who fails to obtain a license or certification that was a condition of 
January Term, 2011 
5 
 
employment, as verified by the letter of appointment signed by the employee at 
the time of hire, is discharged for just cause in connection with work within the 
meaning of Ohio Revised Code Section 4141.29(D)(2)(a).” 
II.  Analysis 
{¶ 13} Williams applied for unemployment compensation after she was 
discharged by Bridgeway.  R.C. 4141.29 sets forth the eligibility and 
qualifications for unemployment benefits:  
{¶ 14} “(D) * * * [N]o individual may serve a waiting period or be paid 
benefits under the following conditions: 
{¶ 15} “* * * 
{¶ 16} “(2) For the duration of the individual’s unemployment if the 
director finds that: 
{¶ 17} “(a) The individual quit work without just cause or has been 
discharged for just cause in connection with the individual’s work * * *.” 
{¶ 18} R.C. 4141.46 provides that R.C. 4141.01 through 4141.46 is to be 
liberally construed. 
A.  Standard of Review 
{¶ 19} The 
Unemployment 
Compensation 
Review 
Commission’s 
determination of whether a claimant was discharged with just cause is appealable 
to the court of common pleas:  “If the court finds that the decision of the 
commission was unlawful, unreasonable, or against the manifest weight of the 
evidence, it shall reverse, vacate, or modify the decision, or remand the matter to 
the commission.  Otherwise, the court shall affirm the decision of the 
commission.”  R.C. 4141.282(H).  This limited standard of review applies to all 
appellate courts.  Irvine v. Unemp. Comp. Bd. of Review (1985), 19 Ohio St.3d 15, 
18, 19 OBR 12, 482 N.E.2d 587.  Thus, a reviewing court may not make factual 
findings or determine a witness’s credibility and must affirm the commission’s 
finding if some competent, credible evidence in the record supports it.  Id.  In 
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other words, a reviewing court may not reverse the commission’s decision simply 
because “reasonable minds might reach different conclusions.” Id. 
B.  Just Cause 
{¶ 20} Bridgeway contends that because Williams’s employment was 
conditioned on the obtaining of an LISW certification within 15 months, her 
failure to comply with that condition was just cause for her termination and thus 
she was not eligible for unemployment benefits. 
{¶ 21} Although not defined by statute, we have stated that “just cause” is 
“ ‘that which, to an ordinarily intelligent person, is a justifiable reason for doing 
or not doing a particular act.’ ” Irvine, 19 Ohio St.3d at 17, 19 OBR 12, 482 
N.E.2d 587, quoting Peyton v. Sun T.V. & Appliances (1975), 44 Ohio App.2d 10, 
12, 73 O.O. 2d 8, 335 N.E. 2d 751.  The determination whether there is just cause 
for discharge depends upon the factual circumstances of each case. Warrensville 
Hts. v. Jennings (1991), 58 Ohio St.3d 206, 207, 569 N.E.2d 489.  “[W]hat 
constitutes just cause must be analyzed in conjunction with the legislative purpose 
underlying the Unemployment Compensation Act.  Essentially, the Act’s purpose 
is ‘to enable unfortunate employees, who become and remain involuntarily 
unemployed by adverse business and industrial conditions, to subsist on a 
reasonably decent level and is in keeping with the humanitarian and enlightened 
concepts of this modern day.’ ”  (Emphasis sic.)  Irvine at 17, quoting Leach v. 
Republic Steel Corp. (1964), 176 Ohio St. 221, 223, 27 O.O.2d 122, 199 N.E.2d 
3. 
{¶ 22} However, we have cautioned, “The Act does not exist to protect 
employees from themselves, but to protect them from economic forces over which 
they have no control.  When an employee is at fault, he is no longer the victim of 
fortune’s whims, but is instead directly responsible for his own predicament.  
Fault on the employee’s part separates him from the Act’s intent and the Act’s 
protection.  Thus, fault is essential to the unique chemistry of a just cause 
January Term, 2011 
7 
 
termination.”  Tzangas, Plakas & Mannos v. Ohio Bur. of Emp. Servs. (1995), 73 
Ohio St.3d 694, 697-698, 653 N.E.2d 1207. 
{¶ 23} Fault on an employee’s part is an essential component of a just-
cause termination.  Fault, however, is not limited to willful or heedless disregard 
of a duty or a violation of an employer’s instructions.  Id. at 698.  Unsuitability 
for a position constitutes fault sufficient to support a just-cause discharge.  “An 
employer may properly find an employee unsuitable for the required work, and 
thus to be at fault, when: (1) the employee does not perform the required work, 
(2) the employer made known its expectations of the employee at the time of 
hiring, (3) the expectations were reasonable, and (4) the requirements of the job 
did not change substantially since the date of the original hiring for that particular 
position.”  Id. at paragraph four of syllabus. 
{¶ 24} In this case, it is clear that Bridgeway informed Williams of its 
expectation that she obtain her LISW certification within 15 months of her 
promotion, that she was aware of the condition, and that she failed to satisfy that 
condition.  There is no evidence or argument that obtaining the LISW certification 
was an unreasonable expectation or that the time within which she was required to 
obtain the license was unreasonable.  Although Williams argues that she was not 
afforded the opportunity to retake the examination, she was the person who 
controlled the timing of taking the examination.  In fact, Bridgeway 
accommodated Williams when she was not able to take the exam in April due to 
health concerns and allowed her to take it outside the 15-month period.  Even 
though Bridgeway had granted Williams a short extension to take the 
examination, it did not waive the requirement that she obtain the license. 
{¶ 25} Finding that Williams’s discharge was with just cause is consistent 
with the purpose of the Unemployment Compensation Act.  “The act was 
intended to provide financial assistance to an individual who had worked, was 
able and willing to work, but was temporarily without employment through no 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
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fault or agreement of his own.”  Salzl v. Gibson Greeting Cards, Inc. (1980), 61 
Ohio St.2d 35, 39, 15 O.O.3d 49, 399 N.E.2d 76.  There were no outside 
economic factors influencing Williams’s termination.  Williams had a 
responsibility to obtain the license as she had agreed to do when accepting the 
promotion.  Failing to meet that requirement was sufficient to establish fault as it 
was defined in Tzangas. 
{¶ 26} We hold that when employment is expressly conditioned upon 
obtaining or maintaining a license or certification and an employee agrees to the 
condition and is afforded a reasonable opportunity to obtain or maintain the 
license or certification, an employee’s failure to comply with that condition is just 
cause for termination for unemployment compensation purposes.  We therefore 
conclude that the review commission’s decision to deny Williams unemployment 
benefits was not unlawful, unreasonable, or against the manifest weight of the 
evidence. 
C.  Fairly Applied Policy 
{¶ 27} The court of appeals determined that Williams’s termination was 
without just cause because the requirement to obtain a LISW license was not 
fairly applied to all the program managers.  The appellate court relied on Shaffer 
v. Am. Sickle Cell Anemia Assn. (June 12, 1986), Cuyahoga App. No. 50127, 
1986 WL 6711, for the proposition that “termination pursuant to company policy 
will constitute just cause only if the policy is fair, and fairly applied.  Harp v. 
Administrator, Bureau of Unemployment Compensation (1967), 12 Ohio Misc. 
34.  This court’s review of the fairness of a company policy is necessarily limited 
to a determination of whether the employee received notice of the policy; whether 
the policy could be understood by the average person; and whether there was a 
rational basis for the policy.  The issue of whether the policy was fairly applied 
relates to whether the policy was applied to some individuals but not others.”  Id. 
at *2. 
January Term, 2011 
9 
 
{¶ 28} We have never adopted such a standard nor is it necessary to do so 
in this case.  Williams accepted the promotion to program manager knowing that 
she was required to obtain the LISW certification within 15 months.  The 
requirement was stated as an express condition of the promotion; it was not stated 
as a company policy.  Furthermore, she was not similarly situated to the other two 
program managers who had significantly more experience than Williams and 
were hired several years before she was. 
{¶ 29} Although the appellate court noted that there is no governmental 
requirement that program managers be LISWs and that Williams’s supervisor did 
not know whether any other employee had been hired as a program manager on 
the condition of obtaining a license, as Williams had been, there also was no 
evidence that any other program manager had been hired in the same time period.  
There was, however, evidence that the two most recent employees who received 
promotions—Williams and her supervisor—were both required by Bridgeway to 
obtain LISW certification.  Unfortunately, Williams was unsuccessful in her 
attempt. 
{¶ 30} As the review commission noted, a company is entitled to increase 
the educational requirements for employment opportunities.  Nothing in the 
record shows that the requirement — to obtain LISW certification within 15 
months — was an unreasonable expectation or that other individuals were 
contemporaneously hired as program managers and were not required to obtain 
LISW certification.  Thus, even if we were to adopt a requirement that any 
company policy must be fair and fairly applied before a termination for failure to 
follow that policy is deemed a just-cause determination, there is competent, 
credible evidence upholding the review commission’s decision that Williams’s 
termination was for just cause. 
III.  Conclusion 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
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{¶ 31} It is undisputed that Williams was required to become certified as 
an LISW within 15 months of her promotion and that she agreed to that 
requirement.  Although she made a bona fide effort, she failed to meet the 
requirement, and she was terminated with just cause.  As we have stated, “To find 
that an employee is entitled to unemployment compensation when she is 
terminated for her inability to perform the job for which she was hired would 
discourage employers from taking a chance on an unproven worker.  Most 
employees need an employer to take a leap of faith when initially hiring them.  An 
employer relies upon an employee’s representations that she can adequately 
perform the required work.  Likewise, an employee relies upon an employer’s 
description of what the job will entail.  The party that fails to live up to those 
expectations is at fault.”  Tzangas, 73 Ohio St.3d at 698, 653 N.E.2d 1207. 
{¶ 32} Therefore, 
the 
Unemployment 
Compensation 
Review 
Commission’s decision to deny Williams unemployment benefits was not 
unlawful, unreasonable, or against the manifest weight of the evidence.  The 
judgment of the Eighth District Court of Appeals is reversed. 
Judgment reversed. 
 
O’CONNOR, C.J., and PFEIFER, LUNDBERG STRATTON, O’DONNELL, CUPP, 
and MCGEE BROWN, JJ., concur. 
__________________ 
 
Kenneth J. Kowalski and Maya Simek, for appellee. 
Porter, Wright, Morris & Arthur, L.L.P., Fred J. Pompeani, and Rebecca 
A. Kopp, for appellant. 
 
Michael DeWine, Attorney General, Alexandra T. Schimmer, Solicitor 
General, Laura Eddleman Heim, Deputy Solicitor, and Laura Blum Mazorow, 
Assistant Attorney General, urging reversal for amicus curiae Ohio Department of 
Job and Family Services. 
January Term, 2011 
11 
 
 
Legal Aid Society of Cleveland and Anita L. Myerson; and Ohio State 
Legal Services Association and Thomas W. Weeks, urging affirmance for amici 
curiae Legal Aid Society of Cleveland and Ohio State Legal Services Association. 
______________________