STATE OF WISCONSIN
LABOR AND INDUSTRY REVIEW COMMISSION
P O BOX 8126, MADISON, WI 53708-8126 (608/266-9850)

ANGELA R KING, Employee

HORIZONS INC, Employer

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE DECISION
Hearing No. 00606522MW

An administrative law judge (ALJ) for the Division of Unemployment Insurance of the Department of Workforce Development issued a decision in this matter. A timely petition for review was filed.

The commission has considered the petition and the positions of the parties, and it has reviewed the evidence submitted to the ALJ. Based on its review, the commission agrees with the decision of the ALJ, and it adopts the findings and conclusion in that decision as its own.

DECISION

The decision of the administrative law judge is affirmed. Accordingly, the employee is ineligible for benefits beginning in week 27 of 2000, and until four weeks have elapsed since the end of the week of quitting and the employee has earned wages in covered employment performed after the week of quitting equaling at least four times the employee's weekly benefit rate which would have been paid had the quitting not occurred.

Dated and mailed November 9, 2000
kingan.usd : 105 : 6  VL 1005

/s/ David B. Falstad, Chairman

/s/ Pamela I. Anderson, Commissioner

James A. Rutkowski, Commissioner

MEMORANDUM OPINION

The commission has affirmed the appeal tribunal decision in this case, because it agrees with the administrative law judge that the employee did not have good cause attributable to the employer to quit her employment. First, despite the fact that the employee's supervisor violated the employee's trust by divulging the nature of the relationship between the employee and her partner, the record indicates that the employer had legitimate reasons for doing so. There already was significant gossip in the office and dissension among co-workers, not because of the employee's sexual orientation, but rather because the co-workers believed the employee and her partner were the beneficiaries of favoritism from their supervisor.

The employee also does not state a successful claim under Wis. Stat. § 895.50. That provision does grant a right of privacy under certain circumstances, the only relevant one here being (2)(c), which defines invasion of privacy to be publicity "given to a matter concerning the private life of another, of a kind highly offensive to a reasonable person, if the defendant has acted either unreasonably or recklessly as to whether there was a legitimate public interest in the matter involved, or with actual knowledge that none existed."  The Wisconsin courts have construed this provision to include as the giving of publicity comments to co- workers and inmates of a jail. See Hillman v. Columbia County, 164 Wis. 2d 376, 395, 474 N.W.2d 913 (Ct. App. 1991). One of the requirements of this cause, though, is that the defendant have acted either unreasonably or recklessly as to whether there was a legitimate public interest in the matter, or with actual knowledge that none existed. The evidence simply does not establish that the employer acted either unreasonably or recklessly as to whether there was a legitimate public interest in the matter, or with actual knowledge that none existed. The employer had a legitimate interest in dealing with the matter, as it already was the subject of speculation and gossip among office staff.

For these reasons, and those stated in the appeal tribunal decision, the commission has affirmed that decision.

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