Court Opinion

ID: 9613654
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:19:01.526501+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:30.782454
License: Public Domain

RIGGS, J.,
dissenting.
I disagree with the majority’s view that EAB’s findings rationally support its conclusion that claimant’s off-duty conduct was work-connected. The incident leading to claimant’s discharge occurred off the job site and after hours and was unrelated to claimant’s job or to employer’s business. Although the incident may have justified employer’s discharge of claimant, it does not disqualify him from receiving unemployment benefits, because it was not “misconduct connected with work” under ORS 657.176(2)(a).
First, contrary to the majority’s assertion, the last chance agreement does not support the conclusion that claimant’s conduct was work-connected. The agreement arose in response to claimant’s drug- and alcohol-related conduct. Employer’s witness testified that he told claimant that this was his last chance to “stay clean” and that claimant promised not to drink or take drugs. The majority seems to say that employer had some sort of “job description” requiring “certain standards of conduct” while the employee was off-duty. 109 Or App at 633. I find no such “job description” in the record of this case and do not read EAB’s opinion to say that it did either. There is no evidence whatever that activities unrelated to drugs or alcohol were part of the agreement. Even if there was, there is no evidence, other than mere speculation, that news of the incident reached employer’s *635client or that it affected employer’s relationship with the client.1
Second, the fact that the other persons involved in the fight were employees of employer’s client does not, without more, make the conduct work-connected. Despite the majority’s speculations, there is no evidence that the dispute was related to claimant’s work or that it arose on the job site.2 Neither is there any evidence that claimant had worked or would be working with those persons on the job site.3 In fact, the only evidence is that he did not know who they were. The majority says that customer relations between employer and other business clients are important to employer’s business. That is self-evident, but there is no evidence cited by EAB or the majority that demonstrates any adverse action taken against employer by employer’s customer. Without facts that show a connection to the work, EAB is not entitled to conclude that claimant’s conduct would insure “an intolerable level of tension, if not downright fear, on the job.”
A general exhortation to conduct oneself in a “respectable and orderly manner” while off-duty cannot, alone, be considered reasonably related to the conduct of employer’s business. I would hold that EAB erred in concluding that claimant’s off-duty conduct was work-connected, and I therefore dissent.

 By discussing the last chance agreement, I suggest no agreement with the majority’s premises that it is or could be relevant to the disposition of this case. The majority pays lip service to Sun Veneer v. Employment Div., 105 Or App 198, 804 P2d 1174 (1991). However, notwithstanding its contrary protestations, the majority then proceeds to say that employer’s policies and the last chance agreement here do precisely what Sun Veneer holds that they cannot do: make off-duty misconduct work-connected which would not otherwise be work-connected under the law. Although the majority characterizes the contents of the agreement as a “job description,” the inescapable fact is that the agreement simply prohibits claimant from engaging in certain conduct.

 We found an off-duty altercation between two employees to be work-connected when the dispute originated in the workplace and the fight occurred immediately adjacent to the employer’s premises, immediately after both parties had left work for the day and while they were still wearing their uniforms. Flaucher v. Employment Division, 92 Or App 396, 399, 758 P2d 422 (1988).

 We have said that EAB would be entitled to conclude that an off-duty altercation between two employees was work-connected when the facts showed that one employee had beaten and robbed a co-worker, because such conduct “insures an intolerable level of tension, if not downright fear, on the job.” Muscatell v. Employment Div., 77 Or App 24, 28, 711 P2d 192 (1985).