Termination of Employment Due to Mental Illness

Facts of the Case

Stefan Sanders was in his fourth year of employment with the Grenada Police Department when he placed an off-duty 911 call asking for police assistance at his home. Responding officers found Mr. Sanders with a young woman, whom he had been seeing “for a few months” (City of Grenada, p 524). Mr. Sanders proceeded to make multiple delusional statements about the woman, raising concerns about his mental health. Mr. Sanders claimed that the young woman had suffered from a stroke and that when she awoke from the stroke, she was “gifted” with extraordinary powers, including the ability to do mass calculations in her head. Mr. Sanders believed that her “gifts” would make her a target and that the government might attempt to cause the woman to disappear. He called 911 because he did not want to be blamed for her disappearance. Mr. Sanders was subsequently placed on administrative leave and received a fitness-for-duty examination, which led to a diagnosis of delusional disorder. Mr. Sanders was determined to be unfit for duty as a police officer.

Mr. Sanders was allowed to seek a second opinion to contest the initial report’s findings but declined to do so, denying any need for additional evaluation. He did, however, allege in writing instances of wrongdoing on behalf of the police chief. The allegations prompted an investigation by the state attorney general, which was subsequently closed.

Mr. Sanders was ultimately terminated from the Grenada Police Department and sought unemployment benefits, which were denied. An administrative law judge (ALJ) upheld the denial of benefits, citing the Mississippi Supreme Court’s ruling in City of Clarksdale v. Miss. Emp’t Sec. Comm., 699 So. 2d 578 (Miss. 1997), noting that Mr. Sanders had the option to demonstrate fitness for duty with a second evaluation but chose not to.

Upon appeal, the Mississippi Department of Employment Security Board of Review (Board of Review) reversed the ALJ’s decision, noting that Mr. Sanders’ termination was not based on the failure to seek a second fitness-for-duty evaluation, but rather concerns about his mental health. The City of Grenada appealed to the circuit court, raising a new argument that Mr. Sanders’ failure to seek treatment, as recommended in his fitness-for-duty evaluation, constituted misconduct. The circuit court affirmed the Board of Review’s finding and declined to consider Mr. Sanders’ failure to seek treatment, stating that his mental health, not his refusal to seek treatment, was cited by the City of Grenada as the basis for his termination.

The City of Grenada subsequently appealed to the Mississippi Supreme Court, arguing that the ALJ had correctly relied on City of Clarksdale as the applicable precedent in this matter.

Ruling and Reasoning

The Supreme Court of Mississippi affirmed the judgment of the court of appeals, ruling that Mr. Sanders was entitled to unemployment benefits. The court did not refute the City of Grenada’s conclusion that Mr. Sanders was unfit for duty or its decision to terminate his employment. The court determined, however, that Mr. Sanders’ mental illness was outside of his control, and he was therefore entitled to receive unemployment benefits.

In its appeal to the Mississippi Supreme Court, the City of Grenada argued that the ALJ rightly applied the court’s previous City of Clarksdale decision in denying unemployment benefits to Mr. Sanders. In City of Clarksdale, a police officer was terminated after repeatedly failing to pass a physical fitness test. A finding of misconduct resulted in part from the officer’s refusal to engage in additional conditioning sessions that may have allowed him to pass the physical fitness test. Mississippi law states that a finding of “misconduct” disqualifies an individual from receiving unemployment benefits (Miss. Code Ann. § 71-5-513 (A)(1)(b) (2020)). The City of Grenada argued that Mr. Sanders’ failure to seek a second opinion regarding his mental fitness constituted the requisite misconduct.

The court rejected this argument, first by reiterating the definition of misconduct as an employee’s “willful and wanton disregard” of an employer’s expectations, and “carelessness and negligence” of such degree that the employee has shown an “intentional or substantial disregard of the employer’s interest or of the employee’s duties ….” (City of Grenada, p 526, citing prior case law).

The court determined that, in contrast to the claimant in City of Clarksdale, Mr. Sanders’ actions did not constitute misconduct. The court noted that “no evidence was presented that refutes the Board of Review’s finding that Sanders’s mental condition is the result of anything other than circumstances outside Sanders’s control.” (City of Grenada, p 528). Regarding Mr. Sanders’ failure to seek a second opinion, the court noted that there was no surety that a second opinion would have changed his fitness for duty or the City of Grenada’s decision to terminate his employment and additionally did not qualify as misconduct.

The City of Grenada argued that the decision in City of Clarksdale called upon the Mississippi State Legislature to amend the applicable employment statute if it felt unemployment benefits should be provided in such a scenario. It argued that the legislature’s failure to amend the statute in the ensuing two decades further affirmed the denial of benefits in City of Clarksdale and should be similarly denied in the current case. The court found that the legislature’s inaction suggested that the established definition of misconduct, as applied in City of Clarksdale and upon which qualification for unemployment benefits relies, was appropriate. Accordingly, the court determined that as Mr. Sanders did not engage in misconduct as legally defined, he qualified for unemployment benefits.

Finally, regarding Mr. Sanders’ failure to follow the recommendation to seek treatment for his mental illness, the court said that Mr. Sanders’ termination was based on his mental illness alone. Therefore, it would not consider whether this refusal constituted misconduct.