Unemployment benefits possible in red-light ticket firing

Tuesday's Help-Wanted column answers some follow-up questions prompted by last week's article on who is responsible for paying a red-light camera ticket when an employee is involved.

DEAR CARRIE: Assuming an employer is responsible for paying a red-light camera ticket issued to a company vehicle, and the employee can legally refuse to pay, can that person collect unemployment benefits if fired? -- Seeing Red

DEAR SEEING: First, let me clarify the "responsible" angle. State labor law doesn't state that a company is "responsible" for paying tickets issued on its vehicles because of employees' mistakes. Rather, the law says that an employer cannot make unauthorized deductions from an employee's pay or demand separate payments to cover a company expense. And a ticket issued on an employer's vehicle is considered a company expense.

As last week's column said, an employee could voluntarily pay for the ticket. But if the Labor Department receives a complaint, it may check into how freely the payment was made.

As for unemployment benefits, yes, the person could qualify for benefits in the scenario you described, said Richard Kass, a partner at Bond, Schoeneck & King in Manhattan.

"If the employee is fired for refusing to pay the ticket, in violation of the New York labor law, then the employee would not be denied unemployment-insurance benefits," Kass said.

But the benefits could be denied if the company proves it fired the employee "for cause."

"If the employee is fired for driving badly and causing the ticket to be issued, the Unemployment Insurance Division of the Department of Labor would have to decide if the misconduct is serious enough to warrant a denial of benefits," Kass said.

DEAR CARRIE: If you work for a town does this apply? And if you are employed as a driver, can you be fired only if a police officer pulls you over for speeding, or does it also include the new school zone cameras? A lot of drivers on my job have been told that if we get a ticket we have to pay it. -- Public Domain?

DEAR PUBLIC: Your employer is right. Section 193 of state labor law, which focuses on wage deductions, excludes public-sector employees.

So the law prohibiting unauthorized wage deductions "does not necessarily apply to them," Kass said.

Kass also noted that some private-sector collective bargaining agreements may prohibit such payments. And it's worth mentioning that unionized employees generally have some protections against being fired on the spot that at-will employees wouldn't have. At-will employees can be fired for any reason at all, let alone for getting a ticket on the company vehicle.

DEAR CARRIE: Attorney Richard Kass stated that "if the ticket were for speeding rather than a red-light camera, then the ticket would have gone to the employee, not the owner of the vehicle." What happens in the case of red-light camera speeding tickets, which go to the employer? Who would have to pay? -- Whose Ticket?

DEAR WHOSE: The principle is the same. If the ticket is issued on the employer's vehicle, the company can't deduct that cost from the employee's pay. Such deductions are prohibited under Section 193. The company could fire the employee because of the ticket, but it can't legally demand payment.

As mentioned in last week's column, when the ticket is issued to an employee, like some speeding tickets, an employer has nothing to deduct or demand payment for. And the employee has no basis for demanding payment from the boss.