If you’ve been terminated in Pennsylvania for receiving poor customer surveys or poor customer reviews, your unemployment benefits may be denied. If you received a denial from the PA UC Service Center, you should absolutely seek an attorney to appeal this determination. Please be advised that there are only 15 days to file an appeal from the date the denial notice was mailed.
Under Pennsylvania’s Unemployment Compensation Law, unemployment benefits can be denied generally under Section 402(e), which provides that “willful misconduct” is a basis for denying someone’s unemployment benefits. A lot of people are confused about the term willful misconduct. Willful misconduct is denied as follows: âan act of wanton or willful disregard of the employerâs interests, a deliberate violation of the employerâs rules, or a disregard of the standards of behavior which the employer has a right to expect of an employee.”
PA’s Unemployment Service Centers are routinely denying unemployment claims based on this section of the law. If a worker receives a poor customer review and they are terminated, is that willful misconduct? That is a matter of interpretation based on a facts and circumstances analysis by the Unemployment Compensation Board of Review. Generally speaking, it may be considered a disregard of the standards of behavior which the employer has the right to expect of an employee.
On the other hand, arguments could be made that a poor customer review should not be considered willful misconduct. Maybe the customer lashed out at an employee due to his dissatisfaction with the actual product rather than the employee’s service. Perhaps the employee always performed to the best of their ability. Was this a single isolated incident or a pattern or poor reviews? Perhaps the employee received only a very small percentage of poor reviews. Maybe the customer review was not fair and honest. All of these factors must be taken into consideration and can be the difference between receiving unemployment benefits or being denied unemployment benefits.
If you find yourself in the same type of situation, please call me for a free case evaluation at (484) 362-9286.
