Articles

Why It's Good To Be Fired

By Emeric J. Dwyer

It may seem strange, but it can be a good thing to be fired.

Of course, no one wants to be fired. It means you are out of a job. It means an unpleasant meeting in which blame is laid on your shoulders, whether you deserve it or not. Corporate America has concocted a myriad of terms to soften the separation: "Terminated," "laid-off," "down-sized," or "right-sized." But when it comes down to it, it means that your employment is done.

But, as with all things, there is a silver lining. Minnesota offers, through the Department of Employment and Economic Development, unemployment insurance for those who have been terminated. The intention is to soften the landing for those who lost their jobs and give them a safety net to look for new work.

Unemployment Insurance, however, comes with a catch - it is not available to everyone. You cannot collect the benefit if you quit your job without a "good reason" or if you were fired for "misconduct." And, as with all things in the law, those simple words come with heavy nuance.

Believe it or not, it means that it's better to be fired than quit your job.

The reason is that if you quit your job, it's very hard to get unemployment insurance benefits. Minnesota Statute 268.095 states, in part, that if you quit your employment you are ineligible for all benefits. Quitting your employment, as might be expected, means that at the time employment ended it was your decision to leave work. This is the case even if you have been told you are going to be terminated at a later time.

There are some exceptions, but they are limited. The common exceptions are:

• If you quit for "good reason," which means there is a reason caused by the employer, which directly relates to the employment, has an adverse effect on you as an employee, and would compel "an average, reasonable employee" to quit. To claim this exception, you have to have reported the action to your employer and given them time to correct it.
• If you quit to take a job that is "substantially better" than your current job, but you lose your new job before you can get benefits because of the new job.
• You quit the job within thirty calendar days of starting the job because it is "unsuitable." This is intentionally vague, but usually refers to unsuitable pay or work that is below a person's level of training and education.
• Similarly, if you quit work because it is "unsuitable" and you enter into re-employment assistance training.
• You quit because of serious illness or injury that made it necessary for you to quit.

That may seem like a lot of loopholes - but they are not very large ones. One should not count on falling into one of these exceptions when quitting; it's a factual determination that rarely is found in favor of an employee. Furthermore, you have to prove that you fit into one of the exceptions. When in doubt, a judge will rule against you.

For example, a "good reason" for quitting is not just having a capricious or cruel boss - it has to be harsh treatment that is very rare in employment settings, such as sexual harassment. The treatment has to compel you to quit, and the Minnesota Court of Appeals has stated that "[t]o compel is to cause or bring about by force, threats, or overwhelming pressure." Werner v. Med. Prof'ls LLC, 782 N.W.2d 840, 843 (Minn.Ct.App. 2010). They further went on to say "there must be some compulsion produced by extraneous and necessitous circumstances." Id. The Minnesota Supreme Court stated that deciding if an employee quit for good cause is analyzing "whether the employee's reason for quitting was compelling, whether it was real and not imaginary, substantial and not trifling, reasonable and not whimsical or capricious." Ferguson v. Dep't of Emp't. Servs., 311 Minn. 34, 44, 247 N.W.2d 895, 900 (1976). This may sound like legalese, but it means that a judge considering your case will only find a quit being justified in very extreme circumstances.

Even then, one incident is not enough. You have to report it to the employer and they have to pass up the opportunity to correct the behavior. One incident is not necessarily enough to justify quitting your job.

As such, under the law, if you quit your job you are not entitled to benefits unless you fall into one of the narrow exceptions. Conversely, if you are fired you are entitled to benefits unless one of a different set of narrow exceptions applies.

If you are "discharged" (terminated, downsized, etc.) from your employment, Minnesota Statute 268.095, subd. 4, states that unless you were terminated for "employment misconduct." Employment misconduct means that an employee's conduct is either a serious violation of the standards of behavior the employer has the right to reasonably expect of the employee; or a substantial lack of concern for the employment. Furthermore, the burden falls on the employer to prove this standard, so when there is doubt a judge would find in favor of the employee.

Also, the statute excludes many of the usual reasons for being terminated from counting as employment misconduct. Even if you are fired for "inadvertency," "inefficiency," "simple unsatisfactory conduct," or "good faith errors in judgment," along with many other exceptions, you can still receive your unemployment insurance benefit.

Accordingly, it's much easier to collect an unemployment insurance benefit if you were terminated. Even if you have to appear before a judge to argue for your benefit you are more likely to prevail if you were discharged rather than quit. The system favors those who were fired.

This means it is a fool who shouts "You can't fire me, I quit!"