Yanda v. Aetna Life Ins. Co.
| Decision Date | 16 August 1995 |
| Docket Number | No. 94-2624,94-2624 |
| Parties | 20 Fla. L. Weekly D1850 Bradford M. YANDA, Appellant, v. AETNA LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY & Affiliated Companies, and Florida Unemployment Appeals Commission, Appellees. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
An Appeal from the Florida Unemployment Appeals Commission.
Neil Flaxman, Coral Gables, for appellant.
John D. Maher, Tallahassee, for appellees.
Before BARKDULL, COPE and GREEN, JJ.
Affirmed.
Respectfully, under the facts and circumstances of this case, I cannot agree with the majority opinion which affirms the denial of unemployment compensation benefits to Bradford Yanda on the basis of "misconduct" as that term is defined in section 443.036(26), Florida Statutes (1993). In my view, Yanda's conduct can be characterized as no more than one isolated incident of a good faith error in judgment which this court and others have said is insufficient for the denial of unemployment compensation benefits.
Prior to his discharge, Yanda had been employed by a Florida office of Aetna Life Insurance Company ("Aetna") for six years in the capacity of an auditor. Before the subject incident, Yanda had an unblemished employment record and was considered a good employee.
In his capacity as an auditor, Yanda was permitted the use of a company car. As a condition of his employment, Yanda agreed that he might be subject to a $200 penalty by Aetna if he was involved in an automobile accident which Aetna deemed preventable while operating the company's car. On or about February 1, 1994, Yanda was involved in an accident when a female motorist struck Aetna's car. Yanda did not know the cause of the accident, as he did not see the other car until after the impact. At the scene of the accident, Yanda was unable to communicate with the other driver because she spoke only Spanish. According to Yanda's unrefuted testimony, there were eyewitnesses to the accident but he failed or neglected to obtain their names before they left the accident scene.
When the police arrived, Yanda was ticketed for the accident. Yanda protested his liability for the accident and requested a trial in traffic court. In accordance with Aetna's policy, Yanda immediately reported what limited details he knew about the accident to Aetna. Aetna's Corporate Risk Management Safety and Environmental Unit in Hartford, Connecticut, organized a committee to review the accident. The committee found the accident to be preventable by Yanda. However, the committee reached this finding based only on the limited information provided Yanda. 1
Aetna notified Yanda of the preventability finding and set a due date for the payment of the $200.00 fine. In the interim, Yanda requested an appeal in accordance with Aetna's guidelines, stating that he wanted a delay in Aetna's final determination of preventability until after his day in traffic court. He anticipated that he would obtain more information about the accident in court to provide to Aetna for its full and fair determination of a preventability finding. Shortly thereafter, Aetna's appeals committee convened, again considering only the limited information that Yanda initially provided, and found the accident to be preventable. In a subsequent letter, Aetna notified Yanda of the appeals committee's finding and requested immediate payment. During conversations with his immediate supervisor, Yanda repeatedly asked for a delay in payment until he could gather the additional information about the accident because he was concerned about losing his job and severance benefits. Yanda feared that the finding of a preventable accident on his employment record would eventually become grounds for dismissal. 2
Nevertheless, Yanda was notified that he had a week to pay the preventability fine and was warned that his failure to do so would constitute insubordination, 3 which could result in termination. Yanda examined Aetna's "Rules of the Road" manual and noted that there was no mention of a preventability fine deadline and employee termination for failure to pay. Although Yanda never explicitly refused payment, he decided to delay payment pending the resolution of the traffic matter. Yanda reasoned that Aetna would not have adequate grounds for firing him for a simple delay in payment.
Aetna terminated Yanda when he failed to pay the penalty by the prescribed deadline. Aetna deemed Yanda's failure to pay to be an act of insubordination. The referee in the hearing below agreed, finding that Yanda intentionally refused to follow a valid work directive by his employer and this constituted misconduct which rendered him ineligible to receive unemployment benefits. It is from this finding that Yanda brings the instant appeal.
Under section 443.036(26), "misconduct" includes but is not limited to, the following, which shall not be construed in pari materia with each other:
(a) Conduct evincing such willful or wanton disregard of an employer's interest as is found in deliberate violation or disregard of standards of behavior which the employer has the right to expect of his employee; or
(b) Carelessness or negligence of such degree or recurrence as to manifest culpability, wrongful intent, or evil design or to show an intentional and substantial disregard of the employer's interests or of the employee's duties and obligations to his employer.
This statute is remedial in nature and as such should be construed liberally in favor of the claimant seeking benefits. Benitez v. Girlfriday, Inc., 609 So.2d 665 (Fla. 3d DCA 1992); Hummer v. Unemployment Appeals Comm'n, 573 So.2d 135 (Fla. 5th DCA 1991); Spaulding v. Florida Indus. Comm'n, 154 So.2d 334 (Fla. 3d DCA 1963). Although an employer may consider behavior to be insubordinate, the statute requires that the employee's conduct be tantamount to an intentional disregard of the employer's interest to be defined as misconduct. Spaulding, 154 So.2d at 339.
I fail to see how Yanda's failure to pay this penalty by the deadline date arbitrarily set by his employer adversely affected the employer's interest. Yanda's decision not to pay Aetna the $200 penalty as requested was undoubtedly ill advised. Obviously, in hindsight, the more prudent course of action for Yanda would have been to pay the penalty under protest and attempt to resolve the matter with Aetna after the disposition of his traffic case. But at most, Yanda's conduct can only be deemed to be poor judgment. Misconduct serious enough to warrant an employee's dismissal is not necessarily serious enough to warrant forfeiture of compensation benefits. Benitez, 609 So.2d at 666.
This court and other Florida courts have consistently held that the exercise of poor judgment, particularly in an isolated incident, does not amount to misconduct sufficient to deprive an employee of unemployment benefits. Kelley v. Pueblo Wholesale Co., 627 So.2d 534 (Fla. 3d DCA 1993) (...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Pascarelli v. Unemployment Appeals Com'n
...and consistently operated his inherently dangerous vehicle in excess of the speed limit). Yanda v. Aetna Life Insurance Co., 658 So.2d 1218 (Fla. 3d DCA 1995) (Green, J., dissenting). Generally, courts require more than a single instance of poor judgment to disqualify a claimant from unempl......