Comments on: Woman’s uniform was revealing, but her application wasn’t

By: Top 10 HR Blunders of 2008 | HRBlunders.com | The worst mistakes, catastrophes, and near-misses

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 21:40:52 +0000

[...] Woman’s uniform was revealing, but her application wasn’t. Heather Kearney of Des Moines, IA, says she was fired from her job as a criminal intelligence [...]

By: Marie Pegram

Marie Pegram — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 20:10:51 +0000

I think this is not the real reason for firing her. There is something else. Working for Hooters is so immaterial. She had already served in the military and had a good record. My question is what does the handbook state regarding probationary periods. I was under the impression that probationary is not a good word as it implies a contract after this period has been served. I thought the proper wording was introductory period. I think she has a good case. I think the employer is in the wrong. If Iowa is an at will state, they would have been better not to give a reason than to give this lame reason.

By: AZ HR

AZ HR — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 18:51:18 +0000

Interesting case, comments even more so.

Seems to be considerable confusion regarding resume versus application, they are not interchangeable. A resume is an advertisement to get the attention of a prospective employer–say whatever you want but be prepared to substantiate. An application is a company document, if you sign that you have completed fully and accurately and that proves not to be the case, you have falsified the document–based on that, she is guilty of falsification.

However, in this case, “according to court documents” the interviewer acknowledged the Hooters job. This is the key point and should be easily verified by checking the background report and interviewer deposition, otherwise Kearny has committed perjury (if that is the case, she has a bigger problems.) Once established that the interviewer was aware of the Hooters job, the omission cannot be used as grounds for termination since the company knew of the work AND the omission prior to the job offer.

Most importantly, the charge should be retaliation, not discrimination, If discriminatory pay practices exist that will be determined in the prior pending litigation and dealt with appropriately but if it’s established that the termination process coincides with her question regarding the pay formula, it becomes a different and more expensive ballgame. The response that she could not ask about the formula until after the other litigation is over is highly suspect. I think the taxpayers of Iowa are in for a big bill.

By: Don Price

Don Price — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 12:03:29 +0000

Mike,
Come on,! The posted comments are based on what informatin we do know. For starters, an ommission is not the same as falsification. And, accordingy to court documents, the interviewer acknowledged he knew about the job because it came up in her employment hisotry. No secret there. And finally, what does serving chicken and drinks to hungry people have to do with being a Criminal Investigation Analyst with the State
She spent 12 years in the military, has a masters in International Relatins with a concentraion in Security, but a push-up bra and cleavage somehow interferes with her ability to pay attention to detail. (I admire waiters and waitresses just for that reason)
We have about 500 women in our organization. Anyone want to gander a guess as to how many might be guility of this! Their case does not hold water.

By: Bev Riley

Bev Riley — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 21:41:25 +0000

Well, although there is a lot we don’t know, there are some very key facts that we do know. Since the discussion came up in the job interview and an explanation was given, I have to assume the employer considered it “non-fraudulent” or they wouldn’t have offered her the job to begin with. It seems to me that by making the offer when they had full knowledge, they were accepting her explanations and that leaves them without any foundation for then coming back and making a falsification accusation. .

By: SL

SL — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 20:43:37 +0000

It will be very interesting to see the judge’s ruling on this one. A grandparent used to say, “Something’s not right in the buttermilk” and too many pieces of this puzzle are missing.

By: mike

mike — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 20:04:23 +0000

Wow, how much can be assumed without facts.

First, we have not been advised regarding the nature of the application relevant to employment history, nor when she worked at the restaurant. If the application required listing ALL employment within last 5 years for instance, it would be falsification to fail to disclose that employment if it fell within that timeline. Furthermore, we are only told the applicant claims to have told the interviewer, we had no proof that actually occured.

Second, consider the nature of the position, criminal investigation analyst, little details matter when investigations are involved. The omission of data during hiring process is a suitable consideration relevant to suitability for such a position.

Let’s hope that before passing judgement on this one, they got all the facts!

By: Megan

Megan — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 18:40:36 +0000

The employer has the responsibility to fully review an application prior to interviewing an applicant. This is done so the interviewer can ask pertinent questions which can reveal things about a person’s work history, experience, possible skills that are uncommon that may be useful in the position but not an essential skill and a persons character (how compatable would this person be in the department). If the interviewer spots a discrepancy between the information provided and the information received in the interview they have to evaluate the risk of proceding further with this applicant.

In this case the interviewer/hiring manager chose to overlook the discrepancy that occured thus invalidating any leg to stand on in future employment decisions to be made about this new employee based on the application. If the employer was truly concerned about this they shouldn’t have hired the person in the first place. Should the person have left off a job from her application? Probably not. She may have run out of employment history room in which case she should have offered a complete employment history which would have been attached to her resume.

Depending on if this was “At will employment” she may have been unlawfully terminated, but unless she (and her lawyer) can prove that there was a sex-based discriminatory practice at work which, upon inquiry, sourced the investigation into her alleged application falsification I don’t think she can actually make that claim and I think she’d loose that one. From the article above it sounds as though she made an inquiry into the pay of her fellow employees during the investigation rather than prior to the investigation. There is no mention of positions available where she applied for the promotion or transfer and was refused–she only indicated that she had been passed over. Her failure to be specific may be her downfall especially if there is a state policy which does not permit newly hired employees to apply for promotion or transfer during their introductory period.

It will depend on how the attourney’s argue the case, but I’m willing to bet that a judge would rule in the former employee’s favor, but that any requested compensation (in the form of lost pay or damages) would be the absolute minimum awarded and she will not get her job back. I’m betting the judge would just stick to the hiring decision and toss the rest. If Iowa wants to be smart about this they’ll start an internal investigation and compensation analysis of staff to be pro-active and thus provide supporting evidence in favor of the state being fair in their hiring and compensation practices.

By: Karen

Karen — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 14:22:48 +0000

I agree with Robin Z.
The generic “restaurant work” should suffice and discussion of other, non-relevant work could be discussed at interview. I would also suspect the “equal pay” case had the employer looking for an excuse to limit females and resultant liability that may be expected..

By: Ann

Ann — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 15:25:10 +0000

Another thought here: Maybe employee is wrongly connecting the dots. Employee says she was “doing fine” at her job and the firing came after an investigation about falsification. We don’t know the outcome of that investigation (it may/may not be relevant to her termination); just because she alleges so doesn’t necessarily make it true. We also don’t know what the Employer had to say about her performance. Education and performance can be two different things. Despite her degrees, maybe she was just lousy at the job she was hired to do. She said she didn’t receive any discipline in her probationary period, but she may have received a poor or lackluster performance evaluation. The fact that her supervisor wrote a recommendation after termination isn’t relevant; many write a generic letter simply to help the employee find other work. Many terminated employees say they had done a “terrific,” “fabulous,” “great” job and were mystified at termination, when the reality was that they were awful, non-productive employees. As another post said, it sounds like there is much more to this story…..