Benefits for Employees Fired for Yelling at Their Boss – Rhode Island Lawyers Weekly

The award of unemployment benefits to a sales manager who was fired after raising her voice at her employer was upheld based on a district judge’s finding that the employee’s “poor professional judgment” did not rise to the level of willful misconduct.

The plaintiff, Amanda M. Augusta, worked as a full-time sales account manager for the complainant, JVC Franchising, LLC. At a sales meeting, the owner of the LLC presented the plaintiff’s sales figures to the company and indicated that they were unsatisfactory.

The plaintiff loudly expressed that she disagreed with his assessment of her sales performance. The two got into a verbal argument during which she loudly addressed the owner. The plaintiff was then fired for insubordination.

When the plaintiff subsequently applied for unemployment benefits, a hearing was held before an arbitrator from the Department of Labor and Training, who rejected the application. The arbitrator’s decision was later overturned by the department’s review board.

The Board concluded that the employer did not present sufficient evidence to support a finding that the plaintiff was terminated for knowingly violating a reasonable, uniformly enforced policy or that her conduct constituted an intentional violation of the employer’s interests.

“To prevail in a lawsuit like this, an employer must prove that the employee committed ‘misconduct’ and is therefore ineligible for unemployment benefits,” emphasized Judge Nicholas J. Parrillo.

“In this case, the complainant bore the burden of proving to the board that the plaintiff committed misconduct, either through willful conduct in willful disregard of his interests or through a violation of a reasonable and uniformly enforced rule or policy of the employer,” Parrillo added .

“In summary, the records indicate that Claimant was terminated because she raised her voice at the Company’s owner during a meeting on August 11, 2022, at which he publicly and falsely denounced her for poor sales,” Parrillo wrote .

“The fact that there had been an incident just a month earlier, on 5 July 2022, in which the Claimant shouted at the owner, which resulted in no disciplinary action, is significant; If there had been a uniformly enforced policy against yelling at the owner, she would have been fired. Since plaintiff was not fired following the July 5, 2011 incident, this court is left with the inescapable conclusion that no such policy exists,” the judge said.

He went on to say that although he considered it a “poor professional judgment” that the plaintiff had raised her voice to her employer, this did not in any way reach the level of “deliberate behavior with willful disregard for the employer’s interests”.

Parrillo concluded: “In fact, the Claimant defended her own sales statistics, which were grossly underrepresented by the owner.” The record is replete with evidence that the plaintiff’s efforts, misguided as they may have been, were all designed to to help the company increase its sales, an effort which the court cannot describe as disregarding the interests of the complainant company. The conclusion of the Review Board is therefore supported by competent evidence and the Court declines to second-guess that decision.”

The nine-page decision is JVC Franchising LLC v. Department of Labor and Training, Board of ReviewLawyers Weekly No. 63-030-24.

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