The NJ Department of Labor and Workforce Development is proposing to re-define “misconduct” in unemployment law, based on a case that came down when I was still in diapers.
Here’s the info, from 41 N.J.R. 3781
The Department is proposing to amend N.J.A.C. 12:17-10.2, so as to replace the existing regulatory definition for the term “misconduct” with the definition of the term that appears in the leading case on the issue, namely, Beaunit Mills v. Division of Emp. Sec., 43 N.J. Super. 172 (App. Div. 1956). Specifically, N.J.A.C. 12:17-10.2(a) currently states that, “[f]or an act to constitute misconduct, it must be improper, intentional, connected with one’s work, malicious, and within the individual’s control, and is either a deliberate violation of the employer’s rules or a disregard of standards of behavior which the employer has the right to expect of an employee.” The court in Beaunit Mills, however, defined an act that would constitute misconduct as, “an act of wanton or willful 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.”
At some time during the history of the regulations between 1956 and the present, the Department evidently sought to paraphrase the court’s holding in Beaunit Mills. However, in doing so, it does appear that some of the meaning of the court’s definition for the term “misconduct” was lost. Consequently, again, the Department proposes to replace the existing definition at N.J.A.C. 12:17-10.1(a) with the above quoted definition from the holding in Beaunit Mills.
