Most casinos have strict antitheft policies. But a casino in Ohio carried its policy pretty far when taking a replacement for a cracked plastic cup ended up costing an employee his job.
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We assume that the orientation included a discussion of the company’s theft policy, which stated that any unauthorized property found in a team member’s possession was grounds for termination.
The plastic cup with lid, which had the company logo and was given to the employee at the orientation, cracked after 3 months, and the employee asked for a replacement. Allegedly, HR told him that employees only get one free cup.
Then security cameras caught the employee in the training room taking two more cups and putting them into his bag. When confronted, he did not deny the incident because he thought he was merely replacing a cup, not stealing it. He also offered to return the cups. However, he was terminated for violation of the company’s theft policy.
When he filed for unemployment, the employee was denied by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services because he was fired for just cause, in this case theft. His appeal to the Unemployment Compensation Review Commission was also denied.
So he sought relief from the Franklin County Court of Common Plea because he felt he had been denied the progressive discipline indicated on his Team Member Coaching Notice with the “Suspension Pending Investigation” box checked off.
But that request was also denied because the court found that “the decision of the Commission was not unlawful, unreasonable, or against the manifest of the evidence,” so the court had no reason to “reverse, vacate, or modify the decision.”
The employer wanted to maintain its strict theft policy because of the numerous possibilities for theft in a casino setting and did not want to set a precedent by ignoring it this one time. The court also said that if the employee was at fault, which he admitted, he was pretty much responsible for his own “predicament.”
While that is understandable, HRSBT muses on how much those plastic cups caused the company in legal fees.