What is Minnesota Employment Misconduct? Imagine being fired from your job and being told your work was “employment misconduct”.
But wait, you didn’t do anything wrong! And if your work was truly employment misconduct, certainly you would have known before it was to late, right?
Once the sting of hearing this wears off, now it is time to get dirty and prove why you are right.
What is Minnesota employment misconduct?
Minnesota Employment misconduct is a legal term. Sometimes, employment misconduct is defined for workers in a contract. Other times, workers can turn to Min. Statute 268.095. In this rule, we can find the term employment misconduct defined using three parts:
- Negligence,
- An intentional act, and
- Indifferent conduct.
Going forward, this article will focus on Minnesota employment misconduct as defined under the above referenced rule.
What if you do not know which one applies?
It is true, most workers fired for employment misconduct do not know if their acts were viewed as negligent, intentional, or indifferent.
For this reason, a prepared worker ready to defend themselves must engage an proactive process by outlining why their process was right.
If you need help making this step, consider contacting this law office for help.
When is employment misconduct negligence?
A negligent act in the workplace is a very complicated term because it requires a review of past circumstances in other places of work.
The negligence standard is different for every type of occupation. A negligent truck driver is held to a different standard than a worker helping patients in a medical facility.
Likewise, a negligent sales rep is held to a different standard than a worker offering administrative support. In other words, if an employer in Minnesota accuses a worker of employment misconduct, applying the negligent standard will mean something different for every line of work.
As a result, data, processes, employment handbooks, past reviews, and workers fulfilling a similar job are excellent resources when proving why Minnesota employment misconduct did not occur.
When is employment misconduct an intentional act?
An intentional act is an act done for a specific purpose. For example, a worker intentionally performed a task. The defense to an intentional act considered Minnesota employment misconduct is a task performed that one’s employer expected.
This law office sees more workers intentionally not perform tasks because they were focused on a different task or a task they believed was more important.
It is the belief if this law office that a worker who prioritizes their job duties is not engaging in an intentional act.
However, employers can disagree – which is generally where a problem can occur.
When is employment misconduct indifferent conduct?
Indifferent conduct is acting like a person does not care about their job. It is the experience of this law office that very few people or workers are seeking termination. Otherwise the worker would quit and walk out the door.
For this reason, indifferent conduct usually gets attached to insubordination. Yes, employers love to claim insubordination is indifferent conduct and therefore Minnesota employment misconduct.
This is unfair for a number of reasons. Likely, you can think of many reasons your actions or performance was not insubordination.
Where can employment misconduct take place?
According to the rule, Minnesota employment misconduct can occur on job or away from work. Yes, this is an unfair standard and workers need to stand up for themselves.
On the other hand, do not get overly excited about actions away from work. All of us can be accused of something and not every crime, traffic stop, or ticket away from the office is employment misconduct.
