Is minor offense a ground to fire an employee?
Dear Sirs,
I have a question. My friend had a minor offense in May and he pled guilty. He filled out his application to his employer before that and he said no to all criminal related questions. He started to work for the company in Aug. Last week, his employer found out this arrest and offense and fired he based on the fact that he never revealed this info to the company after he joined the firm. Is it legal for them to do so? Does employee have the responsibilities of keep employer posted of non work related event like this?
Thanks a lot.
Pang
Emi
Answers (1)
Discrimination on basis of criminal conviction
I'm sorry, but I really cannot answer your question based on the information provided. If your friend likes, he or she can call me, and I'd be glad to discuss the specifics of his or her situation.
However, I can provide some very general information. New York State's Human Rights Law and Correction Law prohibit employers with 10 or more employees from discriminating on the basis of criminal conviction. But these laws have some fairly big loopholes that make their actual application fairly limited.
Again, generally, an employer can discriminate on the basis of a criminal conviction (and a plea to a fairly minor offense can amount to a criminal conviction)if the nature of the conviction is such that it poses a risk to the employer's business in employing that person. Let me illustrate how this might work. Suppose someone has been convicted of a theft crime. That person now is trying to get a job as a cashier. In a factual situation like this, the employer is probably entitled to fire that employee, or refuse to hire that person to begin with, because of the criminal conviction alone.
Another interesting question is how did the employer learn of the plea. If the employer got the information from a credit report (remarkably, credit reports will contain information like that), the employer may have some liability to your friend if your friend did not give the employer an authorization for the credit report.
Credit reports will tell you who got copies of the report. I suggest that your friend ask for a copy of his credit report to see if the employer got a copy of it, and to see if the credit report contains any information about the plea.
posted by David M. Lira | Sep 12, 2001 1:27 PM [EST]
I'm sorry, but I really cannot answer your question based on the information provided. If your friend likes, he or she can call me, and I'd be glad to discuss the specifics of his or her situation.
However, I can provide some very general information. New York State's Human Rights Law and Correction Law prohibit employers with 10 or more employees from discriminating on the basis of criminal conviction. But these laws have some fairly big loopholes that make their actual application fairly limited.
Again, generally, an employer can discriminate on the basis of a criminal conviction (and a plea to a fairly minor offense can amount to a criminal conviction)if the nature of the conviction is such that it poses a risk to the employer's business in employing that person. Let me illustrate how this might work. Suppose someone has been convicted of a theft crime. That person now is trying to get a job as a cashier. In a factual situation like this, the employer is probably entitled to fire that employee, or refuse to hire that person to begin with, because of the criminal conviction alone.
Another interesting question is how did the employer learn of the plea. If the employer got the information from a credit report (remarkably, credit reports will contain information like that), the employer may have some liability to your friend if your friend did not give the employer an authorization for the credit report.
Credit reports will tell you who got copies of the report. I suggest that your friend ask for a copy of his credit report to see if the employer got a copy of it, and to see if the credit report contains any information about the plea.
posted by David M. Lira | Sep 12, 2001 1:27 PM [EST]
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