Court Opinion

ID: 9662190
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:02:17.885095+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:37.211201
License: Public Domain

John B. Robbins, Judge. Today a five-judge majority of a nine-judge expanded panel of our court has affirmed the denial of unemployment benefits to an employee who was discharged for nothing more than being a team player and helping one of his employer’s crews complete a task. I respectfully disagree with their decision and dissent. Arkansas Code Annotated section ll-10-514(a) provides that a claimant shall be disqualified from receiving benefits for eight weeks if he has been discharged from his last employment for misconduct in connection with the work. Arkansas Code Annotated section ll-10-514(b) recognizes a heightened degree of misconduct that disqualifies a claimant until he subsequently has ten weeks of employment. These more serious forms of misconduct include (1) dishonesty, (2) drinking on the job, (3) reporting for work under the influence of intoxicants or a controlled substance, (4) testing positive on a drug screen, and (5) a willful violation of a bona fide rule or custom of the employer pertaining to the safety of fellow employees, persons or company property. In an apparent recognition that additional findings of fact are needed to shore up the Board’s decision, the majority’s opinion makes its own findings, including the following: 1) that Snyder knew Kellay Rand’s job was not light-duty work; 2) that Snyder knew that he was wrong in using Rand’s number on this occasion; 3) that Snyder agreed that his action justified disciplinary action; 4) that Snyder never claimed that he did not know about his employer’s prohibition against using another employee’s number; 5) that Snyder has used his own number on earlier occasions when his supervisor had requested him to coil hose; and 6) that Snyder intentionally used Rand’s number for the purpose of concealing the fact that he had performed this work. Even if all of these findings could be pertinent and could be supported by a review of the evidence in the record, such findings are irrelevant for at least two reasons. First, we do not make findings, we review findings of the Board, and the Board made no such findings. Secondly, these findings might lend some support to a conclusion that Mr. Snyder was guilty of the type of misconduct designated as (5) above, i.e., a willful violation of a bona fide rule or custom of his employer pertaining to the safety of fellow employees, persons or company property, but the Board did not base its decision on such a conclusion. Rather it held that Mr. Snyder’s misconduct was dishonesty. It is noteworthy that the Board neither found that Mr. Snyder had been warned at any time that logging work under another employee’s number would subject him to a discharge, nor that he was untruthful when he testified that he had performed work outside his restrictions on earlier occasions at his supervisor’s request. Consistent with Black’s Law Dictionary (1991), we have defined “dishonesty” as “a disposition to lie, cheat or defraud; untrustworthiness; lack of integrity.” Olson v. Everett, Director, 8 Ark. App. 230, 650 S.W.2d 247 (1983). Here, at the very worst, the claimant committed a good-faith error in judgment or discretion, devoid of wrongful intent or evil design. This falls short of constituting misconduct within the meaning of Ark. Code Ann. § ll-10-514(a), and even further short of the more serious forms of misconduct described in § ll-10-514(b). Consequently, the Board’s conclusion that claimant committed misconduct by being dishonest, as we have defined the term, is not supported by its scant findings of fact. The legislature has declared that the public policy in Arkansas is to provide benefits to workers who are unemployed through no fault of their own. Ark. Code Ann. § 11-10-102(3). The statutory misconduct provisions of the unemployment compensation law must be given an interpretation consistent with that declared policy, and it should not be so literally construed as to effect a forfeiture of benefits by an employee except in clear cases of misconduct. Willis Johnson Co. v. Daniels, 269 Ark. 795, 601 S.W.2d 890 (1980). What suffices to support termination from employment and what suffices to disqualify one from unemployment benefits are two different inquiries. Public policy is not served, and we do Mr. Snyder a significant disservice when we deny him unemployment benefits; we add insult to injury by affirming a conclusion that he has a disposition to he, cheat, or defraud. I would reverse the Board’s decision and remand for an award of benefits. Stroud, C.J., Hart, and Baker, JJ., join in this opinion.