(Name changed for privacy. Photo is not the actual client.)
After 20 years in sales, “Alice” decided she wanted to transition to a field where she could help others and went to work in the call center of a state agency.
Early in her time in the new job, she accidentally offended a director by not realizing who she was. From that time forward, she noticed that the director had begun scrutinizing her behavior, once issuing a verbal reprimand for speaking too loudly on calls.
A week after this verbal reprimand, Alice had a dental appointment, for which her supervisor had approved time off. When she arrived at the call center after the appointment, she emailed a note from the dentist to the office administrator and to the director as a courtesy, not because the agency required her to do so.
Weeks went by, and then on the day of the office holiday party, the director called Alice to her office and accused her of submitting a “fake” dentist note, refusing to give Alice a chance to validate the note and notifying her the agency could terminate her as an “at will” employee. And in fact, she was then fired.
Within a week of her termination, Alice filed a reemployment assistance benefit claim. However, her claim was denied, stating that she’d been terminated for making a false representation. This was devastating to Alice, who is a single mom with two teenage boys to support.
At that point, Alice reached out to Jacksonville Area Legal Aid.
After instructing Alice to file an appeal of the denial of her reemployment assistance benefits, JALA attorney Edith Jones began to prepare her for an appeals hearing.
In that hearing, Alice produced evidence to show that the dental practice was among 17 franchised dental practices operating under the same name in Duval County alone, and that the state agency Alice worked for had contacted the wrong dental practice, failing to ask Alice for the address of the dental practice where she receives dental services.
Alice produced a dentist’s note on letterhead signed by the office manager that verified Alice as a patient and that she received dental services on the date in question, soundly refuting the agency’s claim of falsification.
As result, the appeals hearing reversed the denial of reemployment assistance benefits with a decision that the state agency had failed in its burden of proof to show she had engaged in misconduct.
Alice received a lump sum payment of over $3,000 in reemployment assistance benefits and said that without JALA’s representation she would have never prevailed in the case.
About Jacksonville Area Legal Aid
Jacksonville Area Legal Aid is a nonprofit law firm dedicated to delivering economic, social, and housing justice to low-income and at-risk individuals and families on the First Coast.
If you are an attorney interested in volunteering with housing-related issues, please contact Debra Talley, Pro Bono Case Placement Manager, at debra.talley@jaxlegalaid.org, or visit https://www.jaxlegalaid.org/pro-bono/.
