Court Opinion

ID: 9526178
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:13:46.596161+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:19:10.331387
License: Public Domain

DAVIES, Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent.
The question here is not whether Wilson can be discharged, but rather, whether his conduct is so inappropriate as to disqualify him from unemployment benefits. The conduct at issue is the throwing of a snowball, without evidence of anger or maliciousness.
Tilseth v. Midwest Lumber Co., 295 Minn. 372, 374-75, 204 N.W.2d 644, 646 (1973), has not been applied to conduct comparable to the conduct in this case.
The majority relies on Hayes v. Wrico Stamping Griffiths Corporation, 490 N.W.2d 672 (Minn.App.1992). That case is clearly distinguishable. Hayes was motivated by anger and his conduct involved an inherently dangerous machine (an automobile). Wilson, in contrast, was engaged in horseplay and was using a snowball, an instrument of significantly less inherent danger than an automobile.
I share the majority’s interest in giving employers greater motivation to increase the safety of the work place by permitting them to discharge a dangerous worker without incurring the costs of unemployment compensation. I think, however, that the line should be drawn somewhere between Hayes — the aggressive use of an automobile in a company parking lot while in a state of angry frustration — and this case — the throwing of a snowball in an episode intended as horseplay.