Court Opinion

ID: 9788783
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:18:15.68028+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:16.687706
License: Public Domain

SCHUMAN, J.,
dissenting.
Claimant missed a day of work due to illness and then completed his weekly allotment of assigned calls before the next week began by making extra calls on the days immediately after he recovered. He submitted a timely report listing the calls he made but indicating he made them on *451Tuesday through Friday when, in fact, he made them on Wednesday through Saturday. The report was otherwise accurate. He did not claim to have done work that he did not do. The quality of his performance met his employer’s and his customers’ expectations, as it always had in the past. A few weeks later, his employer discovered the falsification of dates — the first such offense by claimant — and fired him without warning. The majority affirms the Employment Appeals Board’s denial of unemployment benefits based on the conclusion that this single act was a “willful or wantonly negligent violation” of the employer’s legitimate standards and not merely an “[isolated instance[ ] of poor judgment.” OAR 471-030-0038(3)(a), (b). I agree with the first half of this conclusion; claimant willfully falsified a report, and his employer had a right to expect absolute honesty. I respectfully but emphatically disagree that his misconduct could plausibly be called anything more than an isolated instance of poor judgment.
Employer and claimant agree that claimant’s misconduct was a “single incident.” To resolve this case, therefore, we need to review the interpretation of only the last two words of the phrase “isolated instances of poor judgment.” As the majority correctly deduces (despite what might appear to be contrary language in Bunnell v. Employment Division, 304 Or 11, 17, 741 P2d 887 (1987)), we must affirm the department’s interpretation if it is “plausible * * * [and] cannot be shown either to be inconsistent with the wording of the rule itself, or with the rule’s context, or with any other source of law[.]” Don’t Waste Oregon Com. v. Energy Facility Siting, 320 Or 132, 142, 881 P2d 119 (1994).
Analyzing the wording of the rule and, as an “other source of law,” id., prior cases decided by this court and the Supreme Court, the majority locates two “extremes.” 187 Or App at 449-50. At one extreme are cases like Bunnell and Perez v. Employment Dept., 164 Or App 356, 992 P2d 460 (1999), in which the courts held that verbal outbursts followed by apologies, although demonstrating insubordination and disrupting the workplace, were merely poor judgment. At the other extreme is City of Grants Pass v. Employment Division, 94 Or App 328, 765 P2d 237 (1988), in which we *452held that a police officer’s conduct transcended poor judgment when he fabricated facts in an affidavit that he then used to obtain a warrant to search an innocent citizen’s house. The majority concludes that “[t]his case * * * is closer to City of Grants Pass.” 187 Or App at 449.
A review of the cases dealing with workers who were denied benefits based on single, isolated incidents of misconduct leads me to a different conclusion. The courts have held that arguing with supervisors or fellow workers, even loudly, obscenely, and in the presence of others, is poor judgment. Bunnell, 304 Or at 13, 17; Perez, 164 Or App at 367; Goodwin v. Emp. Div., 35 Or App 299, 581 P2d 115 (1978). On the other hand, actions transcending poor judgment (in addition to the false swearing in City of Grants Pass) occurred when a hotel employee was convicted of shoplifting from a store whose manager was a frequent guest at the hotel, Levu v. Employment Dept., 149 Or App 29, 941 P2d 1056 (1997); when an employee goaded a coworker into a physical altercation, Velez v. Employment Div., 106 Or App 349, 807 P2d 327 (1991); when an employee physically threatened a supervisor, Weyerhaeuser Co. v. Employment Div., 103 Or App 143, 796 P2d 385 (1990); and when an employee committed theft from her employer, see Fred Meyer, Inc. v. Employment Div., 103 Or App 404, 797 P2d 1066 (1990) (dictum).
The most obvious dividing line between poor judgment and more serious misconduct is criminality: In every case where the courts found that a single work-related incident disqualified the claimant from benefits, the incident was serious enough to constitute a crime. On the other hand, where the courts found the single incident to be mere poor judgment, the incident was nothing more than argument, back-talk, or verbal insubordination. Between these extremes, we might be guided by certain common-sense criteria such as the extent and nature of the harm inflicted on employers or coworkers. Willfulness, although not controlling, is relevant. Beyond those rough guidelines, we are in the realm of the subjective and the ad hoc.
My subjective ad hoc judgment is that claimant’s action was, as the court found the claimant’s actions in Bunnell, “a classic example of an isolated instance of poor *453judgment which, without more, is not misconduct * * 304 Or at 17. It involved no criminal activity. It happened only once. Although it was intentional in the sense that it did not occur by accident, we have no way of knowing whether it was a spur-of-the-moment impulse or a calculated decision. It inflicted no concrete damage to employer’s authority or to any coworker. It cost employer no money. Indeed, employer testified that claimant would have received permission to reschedule if he had asked for it. The only “damage” employer claims is its loss of trust in an employee who works without supervision. Although trust in employees is a valuable asset, its value is directly linked to what the employee can be trusted to do or not to do. An employee who lies about when he did his work inflicts much less harm than an employee who lies about whether he did his work at all; the former lies while the latter lies and steals. In short, claimant’s misconduct was minor, isolated, and inflicted no concrete harm on anybody. Unless we are willing to say that lying is a per se disqualifier for unemployment benefits regardless of its frequency, seriousness, or relevance to employer’s mission — a position with serious implications for any employee who has ever, for example, billed for the hour between 4:00 and 5:00 when, in fact, she worked from 4:00 to 4:30, chatted briefly with a coworker, and then worked from 4:35 to 5:05 — what this case presents is poor judgment and nothing more.
I dissent.