Just Cause

Just cause safeguards the employer’s right to discipline employees for cause where its exercise is necessary to the efficient mission of the business or agency, but also safeguards the interests of the disciplined employee by a standard that the cause asserted for discipline is just and the penalty is not disproportionate to the offense.

A just cause standard contemplates, among other things, the following questions:

1. Are employees made aware of the employer’s rules and orders and the consequences of violating such rules and orders?

2. Are the employer’s rules and orders reasonably related to the efficient and safe operation of the workplace? 

3. Before disciplinary action was taken, was there an investigation to determine whether the employee violated or disobeyed a rule or order of the employer?

4.   Was the employer’s investigation conducted fairly and objectively?

5.   Were the findings of the investigation based solely on the evidence?

6.   Did the employer apply its rules, orders and penalties evenhandedly?   

7.   Was the level of discipline reasonably related to the degree of seriousness of the proven offense and the record of the employee in his/her service to the employer?

Source:             A. Koven & S. Smith,    JUST CAUSE THE SEVEN TESTS

                  (2d. rev. ed.    D. Farwell  1992)  BNA Books

                  The Bureau of National Affairs, Washington, DC