High court overturns firing over past crimes

At issue is state law regarding firms' use of criminal histories

Employers cannot terminate workers just because they have a past criminal conviction, the Hawaii Supreme Court has ruled.

The high court overturned a lower court decision Wednesday that threw out an anti-discrimination complaint filed by Jon S. Logan Wright in April 2004. In it he claimed the Kahului Home Depot fired him after a background check conducted more than a year after he began working revealed he had a 1996 Nevada drug conviction. In that case he served no jail time and was placed on probation, which ended in November 1997.

Wright still lives on Maui and is employed. His attorney, Meyer Ueoka, said his client was pleased with the decision, which means that "he will have his day in court."

Home Depot officials and their attorney could not be reached for comment.

Wright, in his appeal, had argued that he had passed three separate drug tests, including one when he was initially hired and that "in the spirit of the nondiscriminatory law, (Wright) has been rehabilitated and deserves a chance to work."

Ueoka said the law allows individuals who have paid their penalty "to give them a second chance."

"He should not be condemned forever and should be allowed to provide for his family," Ueoka said.

Maui Circuit Judge Shackley Raffetto sided with Home Depot, which maintained that Wright's past drug conviction was related to his duties and responsibilities, an issue that will now be left up to a jury to decide.

In response to Wright's complaint, Home Depot maintained that it was proper for them to consider his past record "because it bore a rational relationship to his employment, and therefore his firing was not illegal."

Wright appealed the decision to the Supreme Court in March 2005.

At issue is state law that says employers may ask and consider a person's past criminal record relating to hiring, firing or the conditions of employment "provided that the conviction record bears a rational relationship to the duties an responsibilities of the position."

"They can look back 10 years, and if there's a rational relationship to the job, they may consider it, but in this case here -- I'm just shocked," Ueoka said of the Circuit Court's July 2004 ruling.

Home Depot hired Wright in April 2001 as an associate salesclerk in the lumber department. Just 3 1/2 years earlier, he had been released from probation in the drug case. When he was hired, Wright passed a drug test and did disclose his drug conviction to a supervisor, Ueoka said.

The record does not show whether Home Deport did a criminal history check before hiring him.

In September 2002, Wright applied for promotion to department supervisor and again tested negative for drugs. This time, the employer did a background search and later informed Wright they were considering adverse action. He was fired effective Dec. 1, 2002, on the basis that his drug conviction violated company policy.