Court Opinion

ID: 9583160
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:35:23.357181+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:37:57.548986
License: Public Domain

SUNDBY, J.

{dissenting).

Who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best: his state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o’er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.
Milton, On His Blindness (1652).
Palombi’s "mild yoke” was the school district’s suspension pending an investigation of charges that *526he molested two of his former students. The DILHR found that the district had failed to prove the misconduct for which it discharged Palombi and he was awarded unemployment benefits. A jury subsequently acquitted him of criminal charges arising out of the alleged molesting.
When the charges were made against Palombi, the district suspended him without pay. However, the district’s policy was to limit unpaid suspensions to thirty days. Therefore, he was paid for six weeks during which he was investigated and he awaited the results of the district’s investigation and its decision as to his continued employment.
The sole issue is whether the weeks during which Palombi was suspended with pay should be counted as weeks of employment under sec. 108.02(29), Stats. (1983-84). The LIRC affirmed the following determination of the examiner: “Staying away from his work station pursuant to the employer’s orders does not constitute performing a wage-earning service for that employer.”
The examiner and the LIRC concluded that a week in which an employee receives wages but does not do work for the employer is not a “week of employment” within sec. 108.02(29), Stats. (1983-84), which provides:
An employe’s “weeks of employment” by an employer means all those weeks in which the employe has performed any wage-earning services for the employer in employment subject to this chapter and, when requested by the employe, all those weeks for which the employe’s vacation pay or dismissal or termination pay was allocable as wages for benefit purposes and for which benefits were not paid.
*527The LIRC contends that Salerno v. John Oster Mfg. Co., 37 Wis. 2d 433, 155 N.W.2d 66 (1967), compels the conclusion that Palombi did not perform any wage-earning services when he stood and waited for the district to complete its investigation and decide the disposition of the charges against him. However, Salerno is readily distinguishable. There, the employee had been discharged and was awarded backpay in an unfair-labor-practice proceeding before the Wisconsin Employment Relations Board. Id. at 436, 155 N.W.2d at 67. Although she was ordered reinstated, during the period between the time she was discharged and when she was reinstated, she was not even an employee of the company. In contrast, Palom-bi was an employee of the district and acted under its direction, albeit he was suspended pending determination of his employment status.
The case relied on by the Salerno court, Fredricks v. Industrial Comm., 4 Wis. 2d 519, 91 N.W.2d 93 (1958), involved a claim for unemployment compensation benefits by discharged employees following a protracted strike. During the period of the strike the employees withheld their services as a tool of economic suasion to coerce the employer to accept their wage demands. Under no view of their status could they have sustained a claim they continued to perform services for their employer. In contrast, Palombi did not withhold his services of his own volition. His employer directed him not to perform services except to cooperate in the ongoing investigation of the activities for which he was suspended.
Palombi was a public employee whose continued employment could have been detrimental to the public health, safety and general welfare. If Palombi was in fact guilty of molesting students, it was *528imperative that he be suspended from contact with students. Persons in certain types of public employment have to accept that possible suspension while charges against them are investigated goes with the territory. It is public policy, reinforced by constitutional commands, that such employees not be summarily dismissed without notice and an opportunity to be heard and, especially, without an opportunity to clear their names of unfounded allegations damaging to their reputations. Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 573 (1972); 4 McQuillin, The Law of Municipal Corporations, sec. 12.255a, p. 447 (3rd ed. 1985). Such public employees have a duty to make themselves available and be responsive to the public employer’s investigation of the activities for which they have been suspended. I conclude that such public employees, while under suspension for purpose of investigation and not for disciplinary purposes, are employees performing wage-earning services for the public employer.
Because I conclude that Palombi was performing wage-earning services for the district while he was suspended pending investigation and disposition of the charges against him, I dissent.