Fired Hospital Worker Wins Review of Workplace Retaliation Claim Related to Denial of Companion Dog

While they rebuffed a drunk driver’s effort to get off on a technicality, the South Dakota Supreme Court this week did do a favor for a fired hospital worker and her companion dog.

Former central-supply technician and EMT Joyce Riggs contends that the Bennett County Hospital and Nursing Home opposed her claim for unemployment benefits in retaliation for her request to bring her dog to work to help her deal with her depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. The state Division of Human Rights and the circuit court rejected Riggs’s allegations and denied her unemployment benefits. The Supreme Court did not affirm or reverse that decision, but in a ruling issued Wednesday, the Court ordered DHR to consider two letters from Riggs, from the day of her termination and one week after, that do not appear in any of the written record of DHR’s consideration of her case.

I say this ruling looks like a favor because, from the Court’s description of the case background, the hospital had pretty solid grounds for firing Riggs and denying unemployment benefits. A doctor testified to Riggs’s worsening psychological conditions since 2012, when new hospital policy required Riggs to stop bringing her dog to work. However, a January 2015 review found Riggs was performing adequately at the hospital, with “no verbal or written warnings of unsatisfactory job performance over the past year, and no substantial impairment of any major life activity or function.” When Riggs’s supply-tech supervisor handed Riggs a letter informing her of the hospital’s denial of her dog request and her right to appeal within 30 days, Riggs “reacted by throwing the policy in a drawer, slamming the drawer, cursing, and then walking away.”

Riggs’s on-the-job behavior went downhill from there:

Following the committee’s denial of Riggs’s request, Riggs’s relationship with the Hospital’s management became increasingly strained. According to [hospital CEO Ethel] Martin, Riggs would not communicate with Martin or respond to Martin’s directions. According to Dillon, Riggs came to [supervisor Katie] Dillon’s office on February 4, 2015, upset that Martin had terminated another employee. Riggs referred to Martin as a “bitch” and said she hoped a family member of the terminated employee would beat Martin “so bad she can never do anything to anyone again.”

On February 26, 2015, Riggs interrupted a meeting of the Hospital’s board of directors, demanding review of the denial of her request. Because Riggs had not followed procedure to be placed on the agenda, the board’s president instructed Riggs to follow the Hospital’s grievance procedure. He told Riggs she could be placed on the agenda for a board meeting the following week. Riggs stomped out of the room, slammed the door, and could be heard yelling as she walked away.

On March 2, 2015, Martin and Dillon approached Riggs to speak with her about her workplace behavior. Riggs responded by covering her ears with her hands and repeatedly saying, “No.” Riggs left the office and went to the break room, and Martin and Dillon followed. Riggs called her husband [Alfred Riggs, her EMT supervisor] and told him that “it was an emergency” and that “they had her cornered.” Following Riggs’s refusal to speak with Martin and Dillon, Martin made the decision to terminate Riggs’s employment for insubordination and failure to follow Hospital policy. Later that morning, Martin found a letter in her mailbox that appeared to be an appeal from the decision to deny Riggs’s request. And on March 11, Riggs’s husband delivered a letter to the Hospital from Riggs appealing the decision to terminate her employment.

On March 12, 2015, Riggs applied to the South Dakota Department of Labor, Division of Unemployment Insurance (DUI), for unemployment benefits. DUI notified the Hospital of Riggs’s claim on March 13. The Hospital filed a response on March 16. Two days later, a DUI investigator contacted the Hospital and spoke with Martin regarding Riggs’s claim. Martin provided DUI with documentation on Riggs’s termination. DUI ultimately concluded the Hospital had terminated Riggs for work-related misconduct. Consequently, DUI denied Riggs’s request for unemployment benefits, and Riggs appealed [Chief Justice David Gilbertson, ruling, Joyce Riggs v. Bennett County Hospital & Nursing Home, 2018.06.27, pp. 3–4].

That workplace misconduct is pretty clear. Not listening to the boss, cussing the boss out, wishing bodily harm on the boss, interrupting executive meetings, refusing to follow policy, refusing to communicate with other staff, and having a screaming freak-out are all solid grounds for booting an employee. No matter what grievance an employee may have with decisions made by the boss, one cannot respond with the above actions and expect to remain employed, let alone get unemployment benefits.

Riggs’s situation sounds different here from the Laura Zylstra Kaiser case. Zylstra Kaiser was sexually harassed in the workplace. The record shows that, far from creating a hostile work environment, Zylstra Kaiser worked extra hard to satisfy the conditions of a work improvement plan that seemed rigged to make it impossible for her to get back on the boss’s good side. Zylstra Kaiser proved to a jury that her supervisors in DCI closed ranks to protect the good old boys from her valid accusations of sexual harassment and pushed her out of job she had performed adequately for years. Riggs lost an argument with her boss over policy and, even with a reasonable appeals process available, started throwing tantrums at work.

The court did Riggs a favor in asking DHR to take a second look at the case. But unless the letters not yet reflected in the record hold some remarkable new details or a compellingly different account of what happened, Riggs’s behavior on the job seems just cause for dismissal, dog or no dog.