Court Opinion

ID: 9626758
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:23:27.35649+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:33.219288
License: Public Domain

ZIMMERMAN, Justice:
(Concurring in the Result).
I join in affirming the decision below that claimant Bontems is entitled to unemployment compensation. However, I cannot agree with the majority’s reliance on the Industrial Commission’s finding that the claimant lacked the culpability necessary to deny her benefits because her actions were beyond her power to control. Instead, I would measure the claimant’s culpability by the essentially objective criteria laid down in our prior cases.
Under section 35-4-5(b)(l) of the Code, an employee cannot be denied unemployment compensation unless discharged for conduct (i) that occurred in connection with the employment, (ii) that was adverse to the employer’s interest, and (iii) that evidences the requisite degree of culpability. Clearfield City v. Department of Employment Security, 663 P.2d 440 (Utah 1983); Lane v. Board of Review, 727 P.2d 206, (Utah 1986).
In the present case, the employer seems to assume that if it had a good reason to fire the employee, the employee should not receive unemployment benefits. However, that is not the law. The three-part test set forth above must be met. Here, it was not. I think there is some real question as to whether the actions of Bontems were actually adverse to the interests of the employer, given its long tolerance of her conduct. However, that issue need not be resolved, since I conclude that Bontems did not act with the requisite degree of culpability.
Our prior cases make it clear that mere “inefficiency, unsatisfactory conduct, or failure of good performance as a result of inadvertence or isolated errors in judgment or discretion” will not suffice to show culpability. Lane v. Board of Review, 727 P.2d 206 (Utah 1986). What is required is “volitional acts by an employee who could not have been heedless of their consequences.” Clearfield City v. Department of Employment Security, 663 P.2d 440, 444 (Utah 1983), quoted in Lane v. Board of Review, 727 P.2d 206 (Utah 1986); accord Trotta v. Department of Employment Security, 664 P.2d 1195, 1199 (Utah 1983).
In the present case, there was evidence before the Board that Bontems had not contravened any specific directive from management and had not acted in bad faith. Indeed, the uncontradicted evidence, which the majority opinion lays out in some detail, shows that the actions for which Bontems was fired were only a continuation of the conduct she regularly engaged in while performing the functions for which *474she was hired, conduct management had previously been willing to tolerate. Under our decisions in Kehl v. Board of Review, 700 P.2d 1129 (Utah 1985), and Lane, such conduct under such circumstances is not sufficient to support a finding of the culpability required to deny benefits.
Since the Industrial Commission could properly have found that Bontems’ conduct did not show culpability, I would affirm its decision. However, I would not ground that affirmance on the basis relied upon by the Commission — that Bontems simply lacked the talents necessary to deal with those she encountered on the job and that she could not, therefore, control herself. I disagree that our prior cases sanction any such expansive exculpation of an employee who lacks self-control.