COURTNEY B. COYLE v. BOARD OF REVIEW, DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

 

NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE

APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION

SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY

APPELLATE DIVISION

DOCKET NO. A-0096-05T10096-05T1

COURTNEY B. COYLE,

Petitioner-Appellant,

v.

BOARD OF REVIEW, DEPARTMENT OF LABOR,

Respondent-Respondent,

and

INTERNATIONAL TECHNIDYNE CORPORATION,

Respondent.

___________________________________

 

Argued October 10, 2006 - Decided November 2, 2006

Before Judges Lintner and C.L. Miniman.

On appeal from a Final Decision of the Board of Review, Department of Labor, 76,143.

Courtney B. Coyle, appellant, argued the cause pro se.

Andrea R. Grundfest, Deputy Attorney General, argued the cause for respondent Board of Review (Stuart Rabner, Attorney General, attorney; Michael J. Haas, Assistant Attorney General, of counsel; Ms. Grundfest, on the brief).

PER CURIAM

Claimant, Courtney B. Coyle, appeals a Final Decision of the Board of Review (the Board), upholding the Appeal Tribunal that found Coyle disqualified for unemployment benefits for the first six weeks following her discharge for work-related misconduct, under N.J.S.A. 43:21-5(b). We affirm, however, for slightly different reasons than those expressed by the Board. See Isko v. Planning Bd. of Twp. of Livingston, 51 N.J. 162, 175 (1968) (holding that a judgment will be affirmed on appeal if it is correct, even though the wrong reasons were given).

The facts are substantially undisputed. Claimant was employed by International Technidyne Corporation (ITC) from March 11, 2002, through April 28, 2005, as a QC technologist 2. Her job duties included reviewing batch records of medical supplies used by doctors and medical facilities and manufactured by ITC so as to insure an acceptable range of quality. In March 2005, claimant reviewed batch records for a product with out-of-range results, which would have required additional testing before being released. She failed to identify and report the out-of-range results and the product was sent out to customers in three different countries. Because the distribution of the out-of-range product had the potential of harming patients, ITC recalled the product after the mistake was discovered, at a cost of $10,000. Claimant was discharged from work on April 28, 2005, due to the serious consequences of her mistake and because she had received a warning for similar unsatisfactory work in August 2004.

Claimant conceded that she failed to catch and report the out-of-range batch, asserting that she worked in a noisy environment in which she was interrupted constantly with questions and which interfered with her concentration. Although she acknowledged having received a disciplinary warning on August 26, 2004, for unsatisfactory review of batch records on June 7, June 18, August 4, and August 23, 2004, she pointed out that she received a score of "good plus" in her November 2004 employee review. Acknowledging that the cuvettes that were the subject of her batch review were medical devices that could have jeopardized someone's life, claimant stated that she would never intentionally make such a mistake.

Relying on 48 Am. Jur. Social Security, Unemployment Compensation 38, at 541-42 (1943), the Appeal Tribunal concluded that claimant was disqualified from benefits from April 24, 2005, through June 4, 2005, for failing to recognize and react to a batch of potentially unsafe product, which constituted misconduct connected with work as a result of her willful disregard of her employer's interest. 48 Am. Jur. Social Security, Unemployment Compensation, supra, 38, at 541-42, provides in pertinent part:

Misconduct within the meaning of an unemployment compensation act excluding from its benefits an employee discharged for misconduct must be an act of wanton or wilful disregard of the employer's interest, a deliberate violation of the employer's rules, a disregard of standards of behavior which the employer has the right to expect of his employee, or negligence in such degree or recurrence as to manifest culpability, wrongful intent, or evil design, or show an intentional and substantial disregard of the employer's interest or of the employee's duties and obligations to the employer. (footnotes omitted).

N.J.S.A. 43:21-5(b) provides that an individual who has been discharged for "misconduct connected with the work" shall be disqualified for unemployment compensation benefits for the week in which the individual is discharged and for a period of five weeks thereafter. The American Jurisprudence definition has been described as a "fair intendment" of the statutory requirement of "misconduct connected with the work," as used in N.J.S.A. 43:21-5(b). Beaunit Mills, Inc. v. Bd. of Review, Div. of Employment Sec., 43 N.J. Super. 172, 182 (App. Div. 1956), certif. denied, 23 N.J. 579 (1957). Misconduct does not mean "'mere mistakes, errors in judgment or in the exercise of discretion, or minor but casual or unintentional carelessness or negligence, and similar minor peccadilloes.'" Ibid. (quoting Boynton Cab Co. v. Neubeck, 237 Wis. 249, 258 (1941)). Nor does it apply to "mere inefficiency, unsatisfactory conduct, failure of performance as the result of inability or incapacity, inadvertence in isolated instances, or good faith errors of judgment." Ibid. (citing Boynton Cab Co., supra, 237 Wis. at 256-57). Deliberate refusal to comply with an employer's reasonable work rules has been deemed misconduct sufficient to trigger the statutory proscription against receiving the first six weeks of unemployment compensation. Id. at 183. However, isolated minor acts of misconduct not intended to injure have been deemed insufficient to warrant disqualification. Demech v. Bd. of Review, Dep't of Labor & Indus., 167 N.J. Super. 35, 39-40 (App. Div. 1979).

In Smith v. Bd. of Review, Dep't of Labor, 281 N.J. Super. 426, 432-33 (App. Div. 1995), the majority held that even a single incident involving a hospital employee, which was not minor because it involved potential injury to a patient, triggered the statutory six-week disqualification. In Smith, the claimant served food to a surgical patient, although told not to do so. Id. at 428. Here, the circumstances are more compelling than those in Smith. Unlike Smith, we are not dealing with a single incident, but instead the last of multiple incidents where claimant's failure to perform her quality control duties had the potential for injuring innocent third parties. Thus, claimant's misconduct was neither minor nor was it an isolated event or an aberration. Accordingly, we are satisfied that claimant's conduct, although not intentional, was sufficient to support the Board's conclusion because it amounted to recurrent negligence to such degree as to "show . . . substantial disregard of [her] . . . duties and obligations to the employer." 48 Am. Jur. Social Security, Unemployment Compensation, supra, 38, at 541-42.

Affirmed.

 

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A-0096-05T1

November 2, 2006