Case Name: Cindy L. UNDERHILL (Johnson), Appellant, v. PUBLIX SUPER MARKETS, INC., and Florida Unemployment Appeals Commission, Appellees
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1992-12-08
Citations: 610 So. 2d 48
Docket Number: No. 91-2826
Parties: Cindy L. UNDERHILL (Johnson), Appellant, v. PUBLIX SUPER MARKETS, INC., and Florida Unemployment Appeals Commission, Appellees.
Judges: Before SCHWARTZ, C.J., and NESBITT and FERGUSON, JJ.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 610
Pages: 48–51

Head Matter:
Cindy L. UNDERHILL (Johnson), Appellant, v. PUBLIX SUPER MARKETS, INC., and Florida Unemployment Appeals Commission, Appellees.
No. 91-2826.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Third District.
Dec. 8, 1992.
Rehearing Denied Jan. 12, 1993.
Gaebe, Murphy, Mullen, Antonelli & Ger-lin and David Kleinberg, Coral Gables, for appellant.
Joseph W. Carvin, Human Resources Counsel, Publix Super Markets, Inc., Lake-land, Alley and Alley, chartered, and Mark P. Graves, Tampa, for appellees.
Before SCHWARTZ, C.J., and NESBITT and FERGUSON, JJ.

Opinion:
FERGUSON, Judge.
Publix's employment policies, instituted after the appellant was hired, require employees to submit to drug testing upon demand without a showing of probable cause or reasonable suspicion. Ms. Under-hill was directed to an off-site "independent" laboratory for the purpose of being tested for drug use. She agreed to do so. She was then asked to execute a document which indicated that the testing was voluntary. Ms. Underhill refused to sign the form saying that she would not "sign something saying I'm doing it voluntarily when it's not voluntary." She was terminated from employment.
An appeals referee upheld lower administrative determinations denying Underhill's claim for unemployment benefits, finding that the termination was for misconduct connected with her employment. Specifically, the appeals referee found, as a matter of fact:
The claimant felt she was being har-rassed and told her supervisor after discussing the matter that she would submit to the drug test, but that she would not sign the consent form since she was not submitting to the drug test voluntarily-
From that finding of fact the referee concluded:
The Claimant's refusal to sign the consent form constitutes, in fact, a refusal to take the test.
For reasons which are painfully obvious, we disagree that refusal to sign the form, as written, was the same as a refusal to take the test. Whatever concerns the employer may have had for legal challenges by employees to its valid drug-testing program was already the subject of voluntarily executed pre-employment or continued-employment agreements. In this case the two acts — agreeing to submit to a drug test as demanded and a refusal of a post-demand request to execute a consent form — are clearly separate and distinct.
Although the parties have presented abundant historical facts of their nine-year employment relationship, our narrow inquiry is whether Underhill's refusal to sign the consent form on May 2, 1991, constituted employment misconduct as defined in section 443.036(26), Florida Statutes (1991), justifying a denial of unemployment benefits. We hold that it did not.
Misconduct in the Unemployment Compensation statute is defined as:
(a) Conduct evincing such willful or wanton disregard of an employer's interest as is found in deliberate violation or disregard of standards of behavior which the employer has the right to expect of his employee; or
(b) Carelessness or negligence of such a degree or recurrence as to manifest 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.
§ 443.036(26), Fla.Stat. (1991). The statute should be liberally construed in favor of the claimant when making a determination whether the employee's conduct constitutes misconduct which would disqualify him from receiving unemployment benefits; its disqualification provisions must be construed narrowly. Hummer v. Unemployment Appeals Comm'n, 573 So.2d 135, 137 (Fla. 5th DCA 1991); Langley v. Unemployment Appeals Comm'n, 444 So.2d 518 (Fla. 1st DCA 1984); § 443.031, Fla.Stat. (1991). A refusal by Underhill to execute a document which states that her submission to a drug test is voluntary, when in fact the testing is compulsory, is not employment misconduct by even a broad reading of the statute.
Reversed and remanded.
SCHWARTZ, C.J., concurs.
. The "war on drugs" alarm sounded by the dissent rings hollow in this setting. Observations made by the employer, that the employee had "bags under her eyes" and a problem with "dependability," were made four to five years before this incident. On March 29, 1991, she signed the employer's "Employee Consent for Testing." There is no suggestion that the employee showed signs of drug use or poor work performance in the eight-month period preceding the November 1991 demand that she submit to a random test. She agreed to comply with the March drug test agreement but refused to agree that the execution of another consent form was voluntary. That latter action was not a breach of the earlier testing agreement. As the dissent notes, the claimant's refusal to sign another consent form was "meaningless."