Legal Forum
Discuss employment-law issues such as family leave, overtime, disabilities law, harassment, immigration and termination.
Welcome to the Legal Forum. Before posting, you may want to look through past pages of this Forum to see if your question has been answered. Also, search the Research Center.
Please note that this forum is for workforce-management professionals only, and not for employees.
Posted: 2001-08-22 10:47
We recently terminated several employees for theft of company property - legally, do we have to offer them COBRA??
nork2
Joined: Sep 13, 2001 Posts: 1037
Posted: 2001-08-22 13:22
The COBRA legislation actually states that COBRA must be offered to terminated employees except in those instances of "gross misconduct".
I would consider theft (depending on $$ value of goods stolen) to be gross misconduct. Most rational people would. The question is whether or not the case would be tried in front of a jury made up of rational people.
If you've made a police report and the police are investigating or have arrested the employees, it might support the contention of "gross misconduct". A conviction would be better yet.
EpsteinBecker&Green,P.C.
Joined: Sep 13, 2001 Posts: 8461
Posted: 2001-08-23 10:33
Carl correctly states the "gross misconduct" standard. If, in fact, the (former) employees stole company property, you should be on pretty solid ground to deny them COBRA. (If they didn't, you may have problems beyond COBRA.)
The Business of Management
Workforce Management editor John Hollon analyzes and comments on business, management and the art of leading a workforce.
Workforce Washington
Washington staff writer Mark Schoeff Jr. provides an insiders insights to the workings of our nations capital from the workforce management perspective.
Global Work Watch
Staff writer Ed Frauenheim blogs about how companies worldwide marshal and manage their workers.
= Member Only
Posted: 2001-08-22 10:47 
