Iowa school employee fired for being drunk on the job
Iowa Workforce Development manages unemployment claims filed on behalf of Iowans. (Photo by Getty Images, logo courtesy the State of Iowa)
A Waterloo school district employee who was fired for allegedly being drunk at work is not entitled to unemployment benefits, a judge has ruled.
According to state records, Justin Aten worked as a full-time systems specialist for the Waterloo Community School District from December 2019 to January 11, 2024, when he was fired. As a systems specialist, Aten was responsible for driving to various school district buildings, reviewing the buildings’ mechanical systems and repairing any problems.
On Jan. 8, 2024, a district employee heard a loud crash and went outside to investigate. The employee allegedly saw Aten standing next to a school district vehicle while looking at another employee’s damaged vehicle. When the employee asked Aten what had happened, Aten allegedly responded in a confused, incoherent manner while slurring his speech and leaning on one of the vehicles to keep his balance. Aten then got into a school district vehicle and drove away.
According to the school district, Aten participated in a subsequent meeting with the district’s human resources officer, although it’s not clear when that meeting took place. During the meeting, Aten’s speech was slurred and he smelled of alcohol. Aten then agreed to a series of tests, the first of which showed a blood-alcohol concentration of .148 percent. The second test indicated a blood-alcohol level of .144. Both readings were far in excess of the legal limit for driving, which is .08.
Aten later denied that he had been drinking at the time of the accident and denied having been intoxicated, although he was unable to explain his conduct or the test results. He later filed for unemployment and collected $1,164 before the district appealed the matter and the case went before Administrative Law Judge Patrick Thomas, who ruled Aten was ineligible for benefits.
“The employer’s unrebutted testimony is that (Aten) drove a school district vehicle into another employee’s car while demonstrating clear signs of intoxication and then drove away from the scene of the accident without reporting the accident,” Thomas noted in his ruling.
Other Iowans whose unemployment cases were recently decided include:
— Michelle Hartman, who resigned from QV Urgent Care in October 2023 where she worked as a nurse. Hartman had previously reduced her hours for the company, citing concerns that the urgent care clinic where she worked was often left with fewer staff than was necessary. On a few occasions, she was allegedly left alone in the clinic, and it had to close. After moving to part-time status, she was assigned to work on a day when only she and a front-desk receptionist were on duty. The next day, she quit, citing her concerns with staffing and with the fact that her employer, unsolicited, had sent an Uber driver to her home to drive her to work when she experienced car trouble.
Hartman was denied unemployment benefits. Noting that Hartman had continued to work part-time after raising the staffing issue, Administrative Law Judge Alexis Rowe concluded that her “concerns were not so bad that the work environment was intolerable, detrimental, or unsafe.”
— Jesse Bevins, who worked as a full-time paramedic for the University of Iowa Hospitals from April 2023 through March 2024, when he was fired. On Feb. 27, 2024, Bevins was dealing with a patient who became unresponsive. Bevins twice attempted to assess the patient’s level of consciousness by touching a pressure point on the patient’s neck to elicit a response, after which the patient became argumentative. The patient later told a nurse Bevins had assaulted her by pressing her neck and indicated she would be filing a formal police report.
The hospital fired Bevins, stating that while pressure points can be used to assess unresponsive individuals, the hospital’s seizure-precaution policy did not allow for the use of “painful stimulation” on individuals experiencing seizures. The judge who heard Bevins’ case awarded him unemployment benefits, finding there was no evidence he willfully disregarded policy and appeared to have made a mistake arising from a misunderstanding of the policy.
— Cheri DeGroot, who worked as a full-time probation officer for the Center of Creative Justice from 2103 through March 2024 when she was fired. She was fired after a discussion with a colleague who had informed her that she had helped a client make a phone call to get a ride from the office. According to the center, DeGroot responded by telling the colleague that the client had asked her for assistance, too, but she refused. “I’m not her n—–,” DeGroot allegedly told her colleague, using a racial epithet. DeGroot had previously been given a warning for making derogatory statements about clients and comparing them to cartoon characters while mocking them for their socioeconomic status. She was denied unemployment benefits.
— Danielle L. Finin, who worked for Mercy Medical Center in Clinton as a lab technician from March 2022 to March 2024 when she was fired. On March 2, 2024, Finin took issue with the manner in which blood was being drawn from a patient, became upset and was cursing, and then told a colleague she needed to stay busy or risk being punched in the face. The hospital fired her for the threat of physical violence. She was denied unemployment benefits, although the judge in the case ruled she had been fired due to excessive unexcused absenteeism, which was not an issue in the case.
The post Iowa school employee fired for being drunk on the job appeared first on Iowa Capital Dispatch.
