Drink and Drive. Get Fired. Collect Unemployment Benefits? Yep, Says Court.

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One day, your human resources manager comes to you.  She tells you that an employee lost his commercial driver’s license because he was caught — off the job — driving drunk.

The driver’s license is a requirement for the employee’s job.  Can you fire the employee? Under virtually all circumstances, sure.

But then the employee files for unemployment compensation.  Can he collect?

The Connecticut Supreme Court, in a decision that will be officially released next week, says yes — at least given the facts of this particular case.  The court acknowledges it might come to a different decision if the employee had been caught during a testing program mandated by the employer.

I talked about the case and the implications for employers with WNPR’s Jeff Cohen yesterday and he provides as good a summary as anything.

Hopefully, the legislature will fix this seeming inconsistency in the law in the next term.

[View source.]

DISCLAIMER: Because of the generality of this update, the information provided herein may not be applicable in all situations and should not be acted upon without specific legal advice based on particular situations.

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