Sexaul Battery

Judy0603

We have just recently found out we have an employee on our staff convicted of sexaul battery can we fire this individual without cause for this conviction?

Don D

In Tennessee, sure. But, you always run the risk of the employee charging you with having terminated him because of his race, sex, religion, handicap status or age. Then you get to defend against that.

You'll get other advice about analyzing the job relatedness of the situation or what difference the conviction makes if he's doing his job. If your company has an attorney on staff or retained, you ought to run it by her/him anyway though, just for the Tennessee legal read on it.

HRinFL

It surprises me that you want to fire this ee "without cause" when you have a reason to fire him - dishonesty. Unless you do not ask on your application about ever committing/been convicted of a crime, that is a valid reason. Not disclosing information on an employment application, or being intentionally dishonest during an interview if asked about prior criminal acts, should be a terminable offense. Sexual battery is not something that just slips your mind, if you posed that question and he did not disclose his record, he lied and should be discharged.

The only concern I would have is how you "just found out." Was someone in the office moonlighting as a detective? How was this brought to your attention? Have you verified the information? if so, how? If you ran a background check and he did not give you permission, there may be some issues (hopefully when he applied you had him sign an agreement that you could run a background check). I agree wiht Don, talk to your attorney and tell him or her all of the facts. Make sure you gather all of your documentation for the attorney as well.