Employee Arrest
Nevada HR
274 Posts
Last week one of our EMT's was arrested for sexual assault. He's scheduled to return to work tomorrow (if he makes bail). Obviously we can't have him in the back of the ambulance w/ incapacitated females until this is resolved, we can't fire him based on an arrest and we don't want to put him off on paid administrated leave for two years until it goes to trial.
Help! I appreciate any suggestions you have!
Terry
Help! I appreciate any suggestions you have!
Terry
Comments
Can you furnish us a bit more info? How do you know he has been arrested? Do you have a policy requiring an employee to call in daily? How were you notified of his first day's absence? Do you have "Desk Duty" available?
I think the Union Rep is going to try to get our agreement for desk duty, although it would be setting a precedent and a job would have to be created.
And yes, we have "Conduct unbecoming an employee... or other acts of commission which impacts negatively of the public's perception of the integrity or credibility of the employer or erodes the public confidence in the employer."
There have been a couple of news stories about it, but can we dismiss him without a conviction?
People are wrongly accused. It does happen.
The Colonel
Because we're a long way from a conviction, we have decided to keep his job intact with some precautionary measures (provided we get buy-in from the union).
Based on the fact that this is likely to negatively impact the public's perception of the Department and could open us up to liability, he will have to sign an employment agreement that says he will avoid situations where he would be alone with a female; that his partner will have to be within 5' of him and any female patient he is treating; and that if on a call where a female patient will have to be transported, his role will be that of driver.
We further explain that we understand an arrest is not a conviction and that these measures are for his protection as well as ours, and that failure to comply could result in disciplinary action, up to and including termination.
Comments?
Sexual assaults are obviously against the law and there are severe consequences for those that break the law. So why should you have any confidence that the employee will comply with your agreement?
In other words, if the threat of prison wasnt enough to keep him from sexually assaulting someone, why would you think your "precautionary measures" will be effective?
Unless you have information that leads you to believe the individual is not a threat to the public, I would be very uncomfortable with your arrangment.
If the sexual assault charge resulted from an accusation resulting from the employee's personal relationship (wife, girlfriend, dating partner, etc.) rather than an assault on a stranger, it may be handled quite differently. If the former, your solution does not sound out of place to me, and the company can wait for the results of the trial. However, if the later, I would be a lot more cautious about placing others in harms' way and would consider termination. Even if you had to pay unemployment benefits, it would be better than a negligence lawsuit.
He's a respected member of the department and community from what I gather. He came in second for county commissioner a couple of years ago (not that that has any real bearing).
We've been sucked dry by putting people out on paid admin leave for months at a time while paying o.t. to backfill their positions; we don't want to reward arrested ee's by creating desk jobs for them while their counterparts run their tails off; we'll probably have to reinstate with back pay and benefits if we terminate based on an arrest and we're laying ourselves wide open for a negligence suit with our latest solution. Yikes!
Or you have a very serious, terrible violation and crime and you should act decisively to protect your other employees, your clients and your organization.
Unfortunately its a he said, she said. I think you do need to suspend the employee pending more information. Do you have an attorney that you are working with?
To Paul...yes, we can ask the employee his side of the story when he is released. If it was a situation that got out of hand, but not likely to reoccur while he's on duty, do you think we can still safely suspend w/o pay?
And we're working on retaining an attorney for this specific situation. The one we have currently may not be equipped to handle this.
Our difficulty was that the District Attorney asked that we not interview the minor victim. Without interviewing the victim, we could not complete the investigation. The employee was on paid administrative leave for more than two years. We were regularly beat up in the press because of this. We finally decided to give the employee different duties. When he refused those duties, we terminated him. The union supported our action. We have now negotiated language in our collective bargaining agreement that would allow us to suspend the employee without pay when an employee is charged with a crime and we can't complete an investigation because of a request from the court or prosecutor.