Being fired for making an inadvertent mistake at work is not a reason for losing the right to unemployment benefits, the Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled.
The court settled the case of Joan Dourney, who was fired from Panino's Restaurant in Shoreview, where she'd worked for 11 years, because she served alcohol to a minor.
Dourney said she thought a woman, who was accompanying a man she knew was over 21, was old enough to drink.
Her boss ordered her to card the woman, Dourney removed the drink, and then she was fired.
But the restaurant objected to her unemployment claim , saying she was guilty of employment misconduct and, therefore, ineligible for unemployment benefits.
It appealed the unemployment claim that was approved by the state.
The court said "even if a reasonable person would have carded the customer whom Dourney failed to card and Dourney's conduct could be considered negligent, (state law) expressly provides that inadvertence is not employment misconduct...
Because Dourney's forgetting to card the customer was conduct marked by unintentional lack of care, the conduct was inadvertence."
The case, however, shows the extent to which a worker occasionally has to go to get unemployment.