Termination for arrest?
tmattern
3 Posts
Currently some members of upper management decided to terminate a HR employee who works for me. Her position entails inputting the weekly payroll, handling all insurance and benefit. She also handles maintaining all the employee personnel files. She was arrested, at work, and spent the day in jail. They charged her with Fraud - use/poss. of indentifying information. She was indicted by the grand jury, but has not been actually convicted of the felony. This is charge is coming from her ex-husband who says she used his social security number to obtain phone service at her home. She sayd she is innocent and can prove it. However, the higher ups went ahead and terminated her because of the incident. In the company handbook it only states that an employee will be terminated if CONVICTED of a felony offense.
Can they legally do that? She even offered to take a leave of absence until her court date in 3 weeks to prove her innocence. They still flat terminated her, giving her a week of pay in lieu of notice.
What reprecussions can we face? I'm trying to figure out if I need to do damage control.
Can they legally do that? She even offered to take a leave of absence until her court date in 3 weeks to prove her innocence. They still flat terminated her, giving her a week of pay in lieu of notice.
What reprecussions can we face? I'm trying to figure out if I need to do damage control.
Comments
What should we do now? Can we still re-hire her after the case is dismissed?
She has no history of anything of this sort...so I think we may have a wrongful termination in our future since the whole incident was because her ex-husband still holds animosity towards her. The employee also stated to me that by firing her we are projecting to the community that we think she'd guilty. That could lead to defamation, correct?
"You can always let her know that in her future job hunting the company would be more than willing to give her an excellent reference."
I think I would refain from telling someone that you have terminated that you would give them a excellent reference. And, I think that I would also be reluctant to give them an excellent reference under these circustances. Any future employer who had and issue with this employee and identity theft would look at your reference and company as less that forthcoming and potentially a place to recoup some of there losses via litigation.
just my view.
Stuart
I did not find any evidence from your post to lead me to believe that this employee had a "propensity" for lifting others' identities or any other wrongful behavior. What I see, however, is your company jumping to conclusions and firing an employee who probably did not deserve such treatment.
Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Supposedly, a person is innocent until proven guilty and anyone can be accused of anything and even arrested for it. Doesn't mean they did anything at all. It happens all the time, especially in domestic
I would have suspended this employee pending the outcome of the court case. If the case is dismissed, she is out of a job through no fault of her own. If she didn't do what her ex husband accused her of, she probably will have a cause for wrongful termination, depending upon how your policy is written. If the language is "convicted" of a crime, then you are probably up that proverbial creek.
As far a losing trust in an employee, this is purely an allegation. If she has done nothing while in your employ to undermine her trust, then you don't have a leg to stand on here.
This seems like a case of "jumping the gun" without properly thinking things through. It seems to be, at the very least, to be unfair to the employee.
Good luck!
Putting the employee on paid or unpaid leave, until the issue is worked out (and the employee is either exonerated or convicted) is a perfectly legal response.
Doing nothing (although I wouldn't advise it) is a perfectly legal response.
Each of these responses can also be justified. Even if we think that putting the employee on leave is the fairest, terminating the employee can be supported. These allegations go right to the heart of her job duties (using someone else's personal information for her benefit). The company does not have to take the risk with all the other employee's personal information that this might not be true. Quite frankly, I would not feel comfortable with that employee having access to my personal information (of course if I worked with the employee and knew her, I might feel differently). The management of this company may also not feel comfortable with it. The management made a decision, it is a legal decision and a decision that can be justified.
Good Luck!
Thanks for letting me get this off my chest.
Regardless, when the case is dismissed, the real damage will be to employee morale when the realization sinks in that all of them are only an allegation away from being terminated whether they are guilty or not.
Trust and loyalty were dealt a blow with this decision in my opinion.
Paul