Labor & Employment Law

Employee who resigned rather than face disciplinary action denied unemployment insurance benefits based on ?disqualifying misconduct?

Matter of Riley v Commissioner of Labor, 2008 NY Slip Op 04588, Decided on May 22, 2008, Appellate Division, Third Department

The Unemployment Insurance Appeal Board rejected Kristine E. Riley?s application for unemployment insurance benefits after finding that she was disqualified from receiving unemployment insurance benefits because her employment was terminated due to misconduct.

Riley worked as a typist for a school district for approximately one year when she agreed to ?a stipulation of resignation? rather than face disciplinary charges.

Rejecting Riley?s challenge to the disapproval of her claim, the Appellate Division initially noted that a claimant who resigns in lieu of facing disciplinary charges may nonetheless qualify for unemployment insurance benefits as long as his or her actions did not amount to misconduct.

In this instance, however, the court found that the record establishes that underlying Riley resignation in lieu of facing disciplinary action was an episode in which she exhibited argumentative or disruptive behavior. Such behavior, said the court, may constitute misconduct, especially where, as here, the employee previously had been warned about similar behavior.

Accordingly, the Appellate Division found that substantial evidence supports the Board's finding that Riley engaged in disqualifying misconduct.

As to the question of an employer offering an employee the opportunity to resign rather than be served with disciplinary charges, such an action does constitute coercion. As the Court of Appeals ruled in Rychlick v Coughlin, 63 NY2d 643, court pointed out that threatening to do what the appointing authority had a right to do -- file disciplinary charges -- did not constitute coercion so as to make the resignation involuntary.

Full post as published by New York Public Personnel Law on May 23, 2008 (boomark / email).