Should Court Deny Unemployment Benefits for Facebook Venting?

Joseph Talbot worked at Desert View Care Center  as a nurse and was discharged due to a Facebook post that Desert View found violated its Social and Electronic Media Conduct Policy 

Talbot posted the following on Facebook:

Ever have one of those days where you'd like to slap the ever loving bat snot out of a patient who is just being a jerk because they can? Nurses shouldn't have to take abuse from you just because you are sick. In fact, it makes me less motivated to make sure your call light gets answered every time when I know that the minute I step into the room I'll be greeted by a deluge of insults.

A nursing professor who was one of Talbot's Facebook friends saw the post and e-mailed Desert View the next day to express her concerns about resident safety. Talbot said he was just frustrated and venting.

Talbot was fired and applied for unemployment. Initially, he was approved for benefits. On appeal, the Idaho supreme court denied him benefits.

The majority opinion reasoned: "A person is not entitled to unemployment benefits when “he was discharged for misconduct in connection with his employment.” I.C. § 72–1366(5). The burden is on the employer to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the discharge was for employment-related misconduct. Employment-related misconduct is (1) a willful, intentional disregard of the employer's interest; (2) a deliberate violation of the employer's reasonable rules; or (3) a disregard of a standard of behavior which the employer has a right to expect of his employees."

The dissenting opinion reasoned that the employer’s social media policy did not apply to off-duty employee comments about patients. The two dissenting justices thought the following language from the company’s media policy was too vague to put Talbot on notice for this particular comment: “As with the conduct expected of employees at their worksite, employees will at all times avoid slanderous, vulgar, obscene, intimidating, threatening or other bullying behavior electronically towards any of the groups identified above or towards other facility stakeholders.”