Court Opinion

ID: 9696294
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:43:59.97439+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:20.915666
License: Public Domain

WAHL, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent.' Margaret Auger and Lynn Wickenhouser had been employed as janitors by respondent Gillette Company for 14 and 13 years respectively, at a rate of pay of $7.08 per hour. There is no indication in the record that their work had been anything but satisfactory or that there had ever been any previous complaint, warning, censure or misconduct. Both women normally worked the third shift, from 11 p. m. to 7:30 a. m. Both were terminated from their employment for one incident of sleeping on the job.
The Auger appeals tribunal found that Auger was involuntarily separated from her employment for reasons other than misconduct. The tribunal, viewing Auger as entitled to unemployment compensation benefits, noted that her work had been completely satisfactory during her employment, that the employer had failed to prove that the claimant was guilty of misconduct in taking a nap during her coffee break and lunch break, and further that the employer had failed to establish that the claimant’s breaks were excessive. The Wickenhouser appeals tribunal concluded that Wicken-houser was discharged from employment for misconduct and that she was thereby disqualified from receiving unemployment compensation benefits. The tribunal concluded that the greater weight of the evidence was that that claimant and the coworker intended to sleep for at least two hours and that, in spite of the lack of warnings or evidence of similar incidents, this conduct was sufficiently serious, standing alone, to constitute misconduct.
The evidence on which the Commissioner relied in reversing the Auger appeals tribunal and affirming the Wickenhouser tribunal in finding statutory misconduct was that supervisor Keith Ewy had gone to the building at 2:30 a. m. on August 3, 1979, because of complaints from other personnel that these two employees were regularly sleeping during their employment hours, and had found the two sleeping in the women’s locker room on cardboard and pillows with an alarm clock set for 4:35.
It is undisputed that employees were allowed three breaks, including a lunch break on the third shift, aggregating 54 minutes, and that they were free to make whatever use of their breaks they chose. There is no showing that these employees of 14 and 13 years’ duration had been told, as they testified they had not been, that they must take their breaks at specific times or that they were not free to aggregate the time allotted for breaks. There is no showing that the “complaints” from other personnel alleged that these employees, even if napping on previous occasions, had slept far longer than their individual aggregated break time.
In my opinion, this is not the substantial evidence which warrants a finding of misconduct. I would reverse.