Queens Legal Services Wins Unemployment Insurance Benefits for Improperly Fired Worker

"Fired Over a Tuna Sandwich, and Fighting Back"- The New York Times City Room blog has the story of a Queens man who was fired by Whole Foods and denied unemployment benefits after taking a sandwich that was to be thrown out. Queens Legal Services, a program of Legal Services NYC, won a ruling in our client's favor in February.

The administrative law judge, William Badillo, ruled in February
that Mr. Reese did not eat the food without paying for it and that he
did not take the food out of the store. And given the fact that Mr.
Reese did not have any prior record of warnings, it was seen as an
“isolated instance of poor judgment which does not rise to the level of
misconduct.”

Elizabeth A. Shollenberger, director of government benefits and
consumer law for Queens Legal Services, said that in the last six
months her office had seen an uptick of cases like Mr. Reese’s, in
which unemployment claims were being challenged. It is a phenomenon happening not only in New York, but also across the country. “A lot more people are getting fired for very minor reasons,” said Ms. Shollenberger, who represented Mr. Reese.

“What we are seeing is that they are firing people for ‘misconduct’
when what they are really doing is downsizing and it’s an attempt to
not pay benefits,” she said.

Last year, she said, her office was seeing three or four such cases
a week. Now she estimated that they are seeing 15 to 20 cases a week,
80 percent of which she says have merit. (Nationwide, employees win in two-thirds of the cases.)

Read more about Queens Legal Services' case by clicking here.