Groover v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review

In Groover v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 134 Pa. Commw. 617, 579 A.2d 1017, 1019-20 (Pa. Cmwlth. 1990), the Court held that absent a specific requirement by the employer, an employee has no duty to report a co-worker's misconduct to an employer. In Groover, the Court stated: Claimant's failure to report her co-worker's questionable acts to her employer was reprehensible and caused regrettable consequences. However, where it is alleged that an employee's actions breached a duty, this court's role is not to decide what the employee should have done, but rather what she was obligated by a duty to her employer to do. We have found no law, nor has any been supplied by counsel, to support the contention that an employee's knowledge of a co-worker's questionable acts creates a duty to report those acts to her employer. To impose such a duty, would require an employee with knowledge of a co-worker's questionable acts to either report the co-worker and alienate those whose acts did not constitute misconduct or to remain silent and risk suspension or discharge at the hand of an employer in whose judgment the acts did constitute misconduct. We conclude that the imposition of such a duty is neither required by existing law nor consistent with sound judgment. Consequently, we hold that there is no such duty. In the present case, it is not disputed that claimant neither participated in, nor encouraged, co-worker's questionable conduct. There is also no suggestion in the record nor by the parties that claimant ever lied to conceal her co-worker's misconduct. Clearly, claimant has not affirmatively acted to deceive employer. We conclude that her failure to disclose information regarding a co-worker's misconduct does not constitute a disregard of expected standards of behavior, as a result, no willful misconduct has been established. Id. at 1019-20. In sum, it is not willful misconduct for an employee not to report "a co-worker's questionable acts" to the employer because employees have no such duty. On the other hand, employees may not conceal a co-worker's misconduct. Id. In Groover, the co-worker's misconduct consisted of making an anonymous obscene phone call to the employer's place of business in the presence of the claimant. The employer discharged an employee for making the call, but it was the wrong employee. The claimant did not speak up even when the wrong employee was disciplined. The Court held that the claimant did not commit willful misconduct because she had no duty to identify the true caller.