Fired-for-gossip case has people wondering
HOOKSETT, N.H. --Sometimes life in the office fishbowl can get downright toxic.
In Hooksett, where four municipal workers were fired for gossiping about their boss, a fact-finder says the town offices were rife with "gossip, whispering and an unfriendly environment."
"The environment is described as 'toxic,'" concluded lawyer Lauren Irwin, who was hired not just to find out who blabbed, but who referred to Town Administrator David Jodoin in "derogatory terms."
But even in a toxic workplace, legal protections against unfair treatment are surprisingly weak, according to legal experts.
The short answer for anyone wondering whether they can be fired for gossiping, or anything else: Yes.
It's on the New Hampshire Department of Labor Web site: "In New Hampshire an employer can fire without giving a reason or a notice."
"I receive phone calls from people every day who believe that they are protected from unfairness in the workplace, whether it's a firing or some other type of unfair action," said lawyer Jon Meyer, who is representing the "Hooksett 4."
"When people call me and I tell them the limits of the law, they are mostly pretty shocked by that," he said.
Contracts protect unionized employees with third-party hearings on firings and other disciplinary actions. But at-will employees don't have a shield, said Charles Craver, a specialist in labor and employment law at George Washington University Law School.
"At will you can fire for good cause, bad cause or no cause at all," he said. "There's no civilized country in the world except the United States that allows a discharge for no reason at all, but we do."
Exceptions are firings for race, age, sex, religion, sexual orientation, a disability or perceived disability. In New Hampshire, workers also are protected from wrongful termination n cases where they are fired for doing something that supports public policy or refusing for the opposite reason.
Jodoin, town councilors and lawyers aren't talking about the firings. But in the court of public opinion, most people seem to agree with Zee Morse, a Manchester resident who sounded off during a shopping trip recently in Hooksett: "People gossip in the workplace all the time and I think it's ridiculous making such a fuss ... I don't think they deserve to be fired."
In a court of law, it gets more complicated.
The women -- former tax assessor Sandra Piper, assistant Joanne Skrewniak, former code enforcement officer Michelle Bonsteel and assistant Jessica Skorupski -- are fighting to get their jobs back through appeals to the Town Council. Skorupski and Skrewniak expect to get an answer on Friday; they're not optimistic since it was the council who fired them in April.
Their lawyers dispute the council's authority over the firings and say they'll take the matter to court.
Meyer said Hooksett's Town Charter and state Right to Know law govern proceedings for personnel discussions, discipline and dismissal, and give the women similar protection to private workers with contracts. Unlike private employees, public workers' speech is protected under the Constitution -- though the conditions are complicated and spotty. Those plus due process all would come up in a court case, Meyer said.
"The law is you have to be speaking as a citizen, not as an employee and that it has to be a matter of public concern," Meyer said. "The free speech benefit ... has to outweigh the disruptions."
"The town has tried to style this as a just sort of being idle gossip. But the real issue here in terms of the speech is the perception that (Jodoin) was favoring one employee over another employee," Meyer said.
The women say they didn't start the rumor -- about an apparently cozy relationship between Jodoin and a woman employee -- and weren't the only ones who talked about it. They say they discussed it only briefly before deciding it was untrue, though Skrewniak admitted once referring to Jodoin as a "f-----," albeit behind closed doors.
For them, the say the rumor was upsetting because the woman, known in documents as "A," worked in a specially created position and was paid more than Skrewniak and Skorupski, despite having less experience and seniority.
Meyer said he has never before encountered a case of firing over gossip, although he does represent former Claremont assessor Steven Snelling, who was fired after criticizing the city's assessing system in a newspaper. Snelling won a wrongful termination lawsuit in court, which the city is appealing in the State Supreme Court.
Craver notes the test in deciding whether workplace speech is protected depends on several factors: whether it's malicious, whether the speakers knowingly spread a false rumor, discussed trade secrets and whether it's a matter of public interest.
"If they really felt like this was something that could affect them in their employment it should be protected," he said.
It's not the first time public employees have been fired for talking out of turn.
-- Last year an aide to former U.S. Charles Bass lost his job after he used a congressional computer to post misleading blog entries about his boss' political opponent.
-- In 2005, Joseph Steffen, an aide to former Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich, was dismissed after spreading extramarital affair rumors about then-Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley, who is now governor.
-- In 2000, then-New Hampshire Gov. Jeanne Shaheen fired aide Michael O'Malley over gossip about confidential government matters.
Craver said there are costs for Hooksett even if it is legally in the right over the firings.
"There is a difference between what you had the legal right to do and what in effect almost morally you should have done," he said.
"This could end up being a case that could cost the community a couple of hundred thousand dollars in legal fees and they could win. Yet they will have lost both because of the extreme expense and the fact that many people are going to ask is this really what they should be terminating people for?"
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On the Net:
New Hampshire Department of Labor: http://www.labor.state.nh.us/worker--faq.asp#4
Town of Hooksett: http://www.hooksett.org/
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Associated Press researcher Julie Reed in New York contributed to this report.
