Court Opinion

ID: 9749582
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 16:51:48.419329+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:06:54.114708
License: Public Domain

BYER, Judge,
concurring.
I join the majority opinion. Because the facts of this case are disturbing, I write separately to explain my reasons for joining the majority in reversing the Unemployment Compensation Board of Review.
Ms. Groover’s conduct offends my personal sense of ethics; however, that is not the issue. Instead, the narrow issue is whether Ms. Groover’s conduct in not coming forward to inform her employer of the real culprit after the employer accused the wrong person constitutes “a disregard of the standards of behavior which an employer can rightfully expect of an employee____” Giglio v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 126 Pa.Commonwealth Ct. 471, 474, 560 A.2d 271, 272 (1989). This is a question of law.
Ms. Groover was not employed in a management or supervisory position. Instead, she was a residential program worker, earning $5.21 per hour. As such, she owed no special duty to her employer, but only the ordinary duties of an employee.
As tempting as it might be under these facts, I am not prepared to hold that an ordinary employee has a duty to “squeal” on a fellow employee, even where the employer has accused the wrong person of serious misconduct, at least in the absence of an express work rule which imposes such a duty. In our society, we generally do not impose duties to speak on our citizens. For example, a citizen has no legal duty to report a crime. Likewise, a citizen has no legal duty to come forward and “finger” a criminal even where the police have arrested an innocent person.
I do not think an employer has the right to expect more of an ordinary employee. To hold otherwise, I fear, would create a workplace environment where employees constant*624ly must be either looking over their shoulders at their fellow workers, or running to management at the least hint of improper conduct by a fellow worker. I would find such a situation as intolerable as I find Ms. Groover’s conduct offensive.
My position might be different if the employee’s disclosing information about a fellow worker would prevent serious injury to the employer. For example, an employee might have a duty to inform the employer if the employee knows a fellow worker is about to commit an act of sabotage or has contaminated a product. By contrast, this case involves only an employee's failure to speak concerning a juvenile prank, committed off employer's premises, which would not result in serious harm to employer.
Faced with the choice of granting Ms. Groover unemployment compensation benefits notwithstanding my distaste for her remaining silent after her employer accused an innocent employee or imposing “Big Brother” in the workplace as a matter of law, I opt for the former.1

. This does not imply that employer acted improperly by firing Ms. Groover. I believe that employer was well within its rights to terminate her employment. Again, the narrow issue is whether she engaged in such conduct which, as a matter of law, disqualifies her from obtaining unemployment compensation benefits.