Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility

High court to take ‘substantial fault’ case

By: Dan Shaw, [email protected]//July 19, 2016//

High court to take ‘substantial fault’ case

By: Dan Shaw, [email protected]//July 19, 2016//

Listen to this article

The Wisconsin Supreme Court has agreed to take up a case looking at whether a relatively new law should prevent a woman from receiving unemployment benefits after she was fired for committing a number of errors while working as a Walgreens cashier.

At the heart of the dispute is a legal notion known as “substantial fault,” which can be used to prevent someone from receiving unemployment benefits after being fired. State lawmakers adopted that standard in 2013 as part of a general effort to conserve money in Wisconsin’s unemployment-insurance fund.

According to an analysis by the state Department of Workforce Development, substantial fault can arise from “acts or omissions of an employee over which the employee exercised reasonable control and which violate reasonable requirements of the employee’s employer.” The only exceptions are for:

  • Minor violations of an employer’s rules, unless an employee repeats a violation after receiving a warning;
  • Unintentional mistakes; and
  • Work that was not performed because an employee lacked the necessary ability or was not supplied with equipment.

A Supreme Court news release Tuesday says Lela M. Operton v. Labor and Industry Review Commission et al. will be the first case the state’s high court has taken up involving substantial fault.

The dispute arises from Walgreens’ decision in March 2014 to fire Lela M. Operton, who had worked at one of the company’s stores in Madison for a little more than two years. Walgreens fired Operton after alleging that she had made eight cash-handling errors over the course of 20 months, several of them involving checks used to buy goods through the federal Women, Infants & Children program.

In two instances, she gave the checks back to customers. Operton was also alleged to have failed to ask for an ID before letting a customer use a credit card.

The card turned out to be stolen and was used to make a purchase totaling $399.27. Walgreens’ policies call for cashiers to check IDs for all purchases totaling more than $50.

Every time Operton made a mistake, she was warned. When she was fired, Walgreens objected to her request for unemployment benefits.

The Department of Workforce Development sided with Walgreens, finding that Operton’s “misconduct” made her ineligible for benefits. Operton appealed and was once again unsuccessful.

This time, though, the administrative-law judge ruling on the case found that, rather than misconduct, she should be denied benefits because of the state’s new substantial-fault standard. The case next went to the Labor and Industry Review Commission, which also found that Operton had committed a “major infraction” by not asking for an ID before allowing a customer to make a purchase totaling more than $50.

From there, the case entered the regular court system. The substantial-fault finding against Operton was upheld by Dane County Judge John Albert only to be overturned by the District 4 Court of Appeals.

The appeals judges found that Operton’s errors fell under the “inadvertent mistakes” exception to the substantial-fault standard. They also found that there was evidence suggesting Operton had committed a “major infraction.”

As the case makes its way to the Supreme Court, much of the dispute now hinges on how much deference should be given to decisions handed down by the Labor and Industry Review Commission. The commission contends its rulings should carry great weight given its long history of handling disputes over unemployment benefits.

The Court of Appeals, though, argues that much of that history was made irrelevant with the Legislature’s adoption of the new substantial-fault standard in 2013.

Polls

Should Steven Avery be granted a new evidentiary hearing?

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...

Legal News

See All Legal News

WLJ People

Sea all WLJ People

Opinion Digests