By Lauren Brazele, ASU student journalist
PHOENIX – Bad language can get you fired. That’s what Jack Seballos, a former maintenance supervisor for Morenci Water and Electric, in Morenci, Arizona learned on Oct. 15 when Superior Court Judge Sally Duncan upheld the company’s 2018 decision to fire Seballos for his use of derogatory and offensive language on the job.
Seballos claimed that Morenci Water and Electric improperly terminated him in 2018, saying that the actions that resulted in his termination were protected under the Arizona Employment Protection Act. Additionally, he asserted that his 2017 performance review which called him a “very intelligent and good leader” established pretext. The same performance review also urged him to improve his communication style and “actively work on improving your listening skills and how you come across when you are speaking to other people.”
“The defendant company had a legitimate, non-retaliatory reason [to terminate Seballos] and as far as I can tell from the evidence, the plaintiff cannot prove pretext,” Duncan said.
Attorney Jessica Post, who appeared on behalf of Morenci Water and Electric, explained that Seballos’ termination was not only because of his use of profanity but how that language affected his co-worker’s job performance and morale on the job. According to court documents, this included a comment in which he told lineman apprentices that they are “lower than whale sh*t” during their first day on the job.
Another employee, according to court documents, filed a complaint against Seballos in which they claimed that he “uses the F word regularly,” threatened to lay off employees, and picked on an employee named Waldo. A total of four other employees corroborated this statement, but during an interview with Cynthia Thames, Seballos denied everything.
“Everybody is lying according to him, except he admits, making the lower than whale sh*t comment to the apprentices on their first day,” Post said.
Attorney Stephen Montoya, who appeared on behalf of Seballos, claimed that Seballos had performed well in his role, even earning safety bonuses. Additionally, Seballos had no disciplinary record at the company.
Motoya also explained that on Feb. 17, 2018, Seballos was reviewed as being a “great employee.” Just a few weeks later, on April 16, 2018, he was terminated.
“Companies that have sophisticated, competent HR departments actually paper file with warnings before they terminate employees. This is an employee who got extremely good performance evaluation,” Montoya said.
Montoya argued that this demonstrated that Seballos was terminated in an improper manner as it shows that the company was not previously upset with Seballos’ actions
Ultimately, Duncan ruled to grant Morenci Water and Electric Company’s motion for summary judgement although she was “not sure it was a protected activity.”
“It didn’t matter how good he was at his job. If you can’t get everyone in the boat to row in the same direction because you have a personality problem, it’s a problem for the company,” Duncan said.
Seballos has until Oct. 29 to file for an appeal and this case is on the dismissal calendar for Dec. 30.
