Dixon v. Division of Employment Sec.

• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals
• Writing for the Court: Patricia Breckenridge
• Citation: Dixon v. Division of Employment Sec., 106 S.W.3d 536 (Mo. App. 2003)
• Decision Date: 06 May 2003
• Docket Number: No. WD 61202.,WD 61202.
• Parties: Mary DIXON, Appellant, v. DIVISION OF EMPLOYMENT SECURITY, Respondent, Medical Arts Research Collaborative, L.L.C., Defendant.

106 S.W.3d 536

Mary DIXON, Appellant, v. DIVISION OF EMPLOYMENT SECURITY, Respondent Medical Arts Research Collaborative, L.L.C., Defendant.

No. WD 61202.

Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District.

May 6, 2003.

John R. Campbell, Jr., Campbell, Loughlin & Johnson, Kansas City, MO, for appellant.

Sharon A. Willis, Mo. Div. of Employment Security, Kansas City, MO, for respondent.

Before SPINDEN, P.J., BRECKENRIDGE and NEWTON, JJ.

PATRICIA BRECKENRIDGE, Judge.

Mary Dixon appeals from the decision of the Labor and Industrial Relations Commission disqualifying her from unemployment benefits for a period of four weeks under section 288.050.2, RSMo 2000.¹ On appeal, Ms. Dixon claims that the evidence is insufficient to support the Commission's finding that she was discharged for misconduct connected with her work that would justify the denial of unemployment benefits. Specifically, she asserts that there is insufficient evidence to prove that she intentionally and deliberately made mistakes during her employment as required for discharge for "misconduct connected with work" under section 288.050.2. Because this court finds insufficient evidence to support the Commission's decision that Ms. Dixon was discharged for misconduct connected with her work under section 288.050.2, the decision of the Commission is reversed.

Factual and Procedural Background

Ms. Dixon began working at the Medical Arts Research Collaborative, L.L.C., (MARC) on June 18, 2001. MARC is a clinical research site, which conducts clinical research trials on behalf of pharmaceutical companies. MARC hired Ms. Dixon as a clinical research coordinator for a ninety-day probationary period. Ms. Dixon was responsible for conducting the trials at the site and serving as the information conduit with sponsoring companies. Specifically, Ms. Dixon's duties included attending meetings of the principal investigators, scheduling appointments of study subjects, administering study drugs, performing medical records discovery, obtaining medical histories, drawing laboratory specimens, taking vitals, and collecting data. On September 17, 2001, right before the end of her probationary period, Ms. Dixon was discharged from MARC.

Subsequently, Ms. Dixon filed for unemployment benefits. A deputy for the Division of Employment Security found that Ms. Dixon was discharged "because her inaccurate and inadequate work could have jeopardized the trial study as well as the participants." Thus, the deputy concluded that she was discharged for misconduct connected with her work and, as such, she was disqualified from receiving unemployment benefits for four weeks under section 288.050.2. Ms. Dixon appealed the deputy's decision to the Division of Employment Security Appeals Tribunal.

On December 11, 2001, the Appeals Tribunal held a hearing. At the hearing, Pamela LaSalle, president of MARC, testified that she discharged Ms. Dixon because she "just [was] not going to be able to use [Ms. Dixon] according to the standards that [she] had set for the [MARC]." Ms. LaSalle testified that she did not discharge Ms. Dixon for one specific incident, but instead for a "culmination of incidents" and because she was "not living up to expectations." She testified that she had various problems with Ms. Dixon, such as medical histories not being recorded properly, vital signs not being taken accurately, erroneous corrections of the patient records, and "too many" transpositions of numbers between source documents and the clinical research forms. In addition, Ms. LaSalle testified that Ms. Dixon was "somewhat aggressive, maybe a little argumentative, when it came time to appraise" her work, and she had difficulties working with the sponsoring company's monitoring staff, which were brought to Ms. LaSalle's attention on a regular basis. Ms. LaSalle further testified that Ms. Dixon "spent a great deal of time visiting with other study staff and actually precluding them from getting some of their work done," but that when she told Ms. Dixon to stop visiting, Ms. Dixon "actually closed her door during the day so as not to have exchange with other employees."

Ms. LaSalle also stated that there were a couple of instances where Ms. Dixon gave the wrong packet of study drugs to a patient, and once Ms. Dixon wrongly enrolled a patient in a clinical trial. Ms. LaSalle testified that Ms. Dixon often turned in reports with corrections and food spills on them. Ms. LaSalle also said that one of her reasons for firing Ms. Dixon was that a sponsoring company was threatening to not give any more trials to MARC if Ms. Dixon was the clinical research coordinator because it did not think she was up to par. Ms. LaSalle, however, testified that Ms. Dixon did not have a problem with absenteeism or tardiness. Additionally, Ms. LaSalle said that she did not believe that Ms. Dixon was deliberately doing poor work or deliberately making mistakes.

Ms. Dixon also testified at the Appeals Tribunal hearing. She stated that she had eleven years' experience in the clinical research field, and that transposition errors were "fairly common" because of the fast pace of the work. She admitted that she gave two patients the wrong study packets, but said she immediately realized her mistake, asked the clinical research associate what to do, and was told that the clinical research associate would fix it. She also testified that when she wrongly enrolled a patient in a clinical study, the mistake was quickly discovered, and she offered to resign but her resignation was not accepted. In addition, Ms. Dixon indicated that she "pretty much underestimated what it took to do the job." She said that the job "was a lot harder than what I anticipated, but I was really trying to do a good job."

After the hearing, the Appeals Tribunal affirmed the deputy's decision that Ms. Dixon was disqualified from unemployment benefits under section 288.050.2 because she was discharged for misconduct connected with her work. The Appeals Tribunal found that although "[t]here is certainly no suggestion that [Ms. Dixon] was doing anything wrong on purpose[,]" her "overall work performance indicates a persistent inattention to the accuracy and detail essential to the employer's operations[.]" The Appeals Tribunal further found:

While no single episode would amount to more than a mistake, the combination of so many episodes, particularly such avoidable errors as transposition of numbers, indicates a significant lack of concern for the employer's interest in accuracy and [Ms. Dixon's] duty to make sure there were no mistakes in her work.

The Appeals Tribunal then concluded that Ms. Dixon was discharged for misconduct connected with her work and subject to disqualification of unemployment benefits for four weeks under section 288.050.2. On February 27, 2002, the Commission, with one member dissenting, affirmed the decision of the Appeals Tribunal and adopted the Appeals Tribunal's decision as its own. This appeal followed.

Standard of Review

Unemployment compensation proceedings are governed by Chapter 288, the Missouri Employment Security Law. Merick Trucking, Inc., v. Mo. Dep't of Labor & Indus. Relations, Div. of Employment Sec., 933 S.W.2d 938, 940 (Mo.App.1996). Under section 288.210, decisions of the Labor and Industrial Relations Commission are appealed directly to the appellate courts. The statute provides that an appellate court may modify, reverse, remand for rehearing, or set aside a decision of the Commission only on the following grounds:

(1) That the commission acted without or in excess of its powers;

(2) That the decision was procured by fraud;

(3) That the facts found by the commission do not support the award; or

(4) That there was no sufficient competent evidence in the record to warrant the making of the award.

Section 288.210. See also Merick Trucking, Inc., 933 S.W.2d at 940; Miller v. Kansas City Station Corp., 996 S.W.2d 120, 122 (Mo.App.1999).

When reviewing the Commission's decision, findings of fact by the Commission, when supported by competent and substantial evidence and in the absence of fraud, are conclusive, and the appellate court's jurisdiction is limited to questions of law. Section 288.210. As the court has stated:

Findings and awards of the Commission which are clearly the interpretation or application of the law, as distinguished from a determination of facts, are not binding on the court and fall within the court's province of independent review and correction where erroneous. And, where the findings of ultimate fact are reached not by a process of natural reasoning from the facts alone, but rather by application of law, it is a conclusion of law and subject to reversal by the court.

Davis v. Research Med. Ctr., 903 S.W.2d 557, 571 (Mo.App.1995). To the extent the appeal involves evaluating evidence relative to the Commission's findings, "[this court] may not substitute [its] judgment on the evidence for that of the Commission, and [this court] defer[s] to the Commission's determinations regarding weight of the evidence and the credibility of witnesses." Nell v. Fern-Thatcher Co., 952 S.W.2d 749, 752 (Mo.App.1997). To the extent this appeal involves questions of law, however, no deference is given to the Commission. Id. Thus, because the issue of "[w]hether an employee's actions constitute misconduct associated with [the employee's] work is a question of law," this court is "not bound by the Commission's determination on this issue." City of Kansas City v. Arthur, 998 S.W.2d 870, 873 (Mo.App.1999).

Insufficient Evidence of Misconduct

In her sole point on appeal, Ms. Dixon claims that the evidence is insufficient to support the Commission's finding that she committed "misconduct connected with her work" that would justify the denial of unemployment benefits under section 288.050.2. Specifically, Ms. Dixon argues that simple mistakes or incompetence cannot rise to the level of misconduct under ...