In a split decision denying unemployment compensation benefits to a truck driver who was fired for using a racial slur, a sole dissenting Commonwealth Court judge said the man should not have been found to have committed willful misconduct given his employer’s history of leniency regarding racial epithets.

A three-judge Commonwealth Court panel ruled 2-1 that Stephen L. Kraft, who is white, was rightfully denied benefits after his termination because he committed willful misconduct when he used an ethnic slur toward a black trainee. The majority, consisting of Judges Renee Cohn Jubelirer and Ellen Ceisler, flatly rejected Kraft’s argument that he could not have committed willful misconduct because the company’s anti-harassment policy was inconsistently applied.

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