Question if I can receive unemployment insurance

[Lanaasks]

I am currently in an unusual situation. I am in danger of losing my job and need to know if I will be able to receive unemployment benefits.

I work with one other employee for an individual, a sole proprietor. Currently my employer and the other employee are out of the country and are not expected to return for six weeks.

My employer has been loosing his sense of reality of the past year and a half and has recently become a danger to him. I received an email from his friends and family this weekend stating that they are going to try an intervention when he returns and try to get him the physiological help he needs. My issue is my employer does not know of this. I am in a situation where I am supposed to set up his next trip, which will include subletting his apartment. If the family steps in and sets something up without his knowledge my employer will loose about $15,000 and have no place to live when he returns home. If I work with his family to protect his finances and his business, I will be disobeying my employer and I can get fired. My employer will be very angry and this will most likely happen. I know that if I am fired because I did not do "my job" I will not get unemployment insurance. I am planning on getting everything in writing from his family if they direct me to not sublet his apartment but I am not sure if this will protect me.

Please advise as I do not want my employer to loose his money or home but I do need to protect myself as well.

 

[cbg]

It's not as cut and dried as you seem to believe. The UI commission of your unnamed state will take all the circumstances into consideration. It's not as simple as "fired for not doing job - automatic denial".

No one here can carve an answer for your in stone either way. The state, and only the state, will make the decision. But they will make it based on ALL the facts, not just the words your employer uses to term you. If he terms you at all.

 

[Lanaasks]

That you. I am in New York.

 

[cbg]

This is one situation where I think your best bet would be to talk to a lawyer before you make your decision. No one here can promise that you will or will not get UI - only that it won't be a rubber stamp decision.

 

[de_novo]

Sounds like a case that will be granted benefits. Your state Unemployment Compensation Center will look at all of the facts regarding this case and determine whether or not you have committed willful misconduct. As an adjudicator, I would look at whatever documentation you had (try to get as much as possible) regarding the situation and then go from there. If you can prove that you did what was in the best interest of him AND his business, you would have a better chance than speculating that his family would have the intervention, the intervention would work, and he would lose the money. I would continue to do business as he wants in order to avoid this issue and to protect yourself. Still, speaking to an attorney beforehand may not be a bad idea.