By AJ Esral, Esq.

Employers in Maryland and Washington, D.C. face complex legal challenges. This guide explains key employment law concepts and how businesses can protect themselves.

When Off-Duty Behavior Follows Employees Back to Work

By: AJ Esral, Esq.

Can a company discipline, or even terminate, an employee who misbehaves outside of work?

Here’s the scenario: a warehouse operations supervisor at a Maryland distribution company disciplines an employee for repeated safety violations and insubordination. The employee insists he is being singled out and, after a failed internal complaint, becomes increasingly fixated on the supervisor and another coworker who corroborated management’s concerns. Things escalate, and one Friday evening, the employee runs into the supervisor at the local supermarket and curses him out for the world to hear, ending his rant by dramatically promising revenge, and punching the guy in the face.

By Monday, word has spread across the workplace. Employees are frightened, management is scrambling to address safety concerns, and the company is asking a hard but urgent question: can it lawfully terminate the employee, even though the most serious conduct happened off duty and away from company property? In Maryland, the answer very likely is, yes.

Maryland is an at-will employment state. That means that, absent a contract, statute, or other legal protection, an employer may terminate an employee for any reason or no reason at all, so long as the termination does not violate a clear mandate of public policy. Maryland courts have described that exception as narrow, not broad. In practical terms, an employer

does not need to prove that the employee committed a crime or violated a written policy in some technical sense; they just need some legitimate, nonretaliatory basis for ending the employment relationship. Threatening conduct that is linked to workplace relationships easily qualifies.

The fact that the employee’s most alarming conduct occurred off the clock does not defeat the analysis. Maryland law does not impose a rigid rule that only on-premises or on-duty misconduct counts as workplace misconduct. Instead, there are categories of off-premises conduct that Maryland law recognizes as justifying disciplinary action.

Maryland’s highest court long ago provided a set of factors that courts have used to determine whether conduct is adequately connected to the workplace to justify discipline up to and including termination of employment. In Employment Security Board v. LeCates, 218 Md. 202, 145 A.2d 840 (1958), the then-Court of Appeals articulated that the key question is whether there was a sufficient nexus between the off-duty conduct and the employer’s interest in maintaining a safe and functional workplace.

This principle was sharpened in Fino v. Maryland Employment Security Board, 218 Md. 504, 147 A.2d 738 (1959). Fino distinguishes between an employee who beats his wife after hours and one who assaults his fellow employee after hours, contending that while the former case lacks any clear workplace nexus, the latter case does not. When the misconduct arises from workplace tensions, targets workplace actors, and predictably disrupts workplace operations, the nexus requirement is satisfied.

So, for example, in Stinson v. Towson Inn Restaurant Corp., 1602-BR-93, a 1993 Maryland Board of Appeals opinion, an employee assaulted his coworker after hours, off premises, over a work-related dispute. The Board held that under the LeCates framework, the assault was incident to the work and was a breach of the employee’s duty to his employer. Similarly, in De Amat v. United Natural Foods, Inc., No. 8:21-cv-02323 (D. Md. 2024), the court treated it as a legitimate employment concern when employees in a store complained that their supervisor was constantly screaming at them, and they expressed concern for their safety.

Thus, when the off-duty behavior fosters a genuine sense of fear within employees in a given workplace, such behavior may be disciplined, and the employee may even be terminated, because that behavior directly impinges on the employer’s interest in maintaining a productive company.

To be sure, employers should still act carefully. They should investigate promptly, document witness statements, preserve security footage or messages, consider interim leave or security measures, and make sure the termination decision is not tainted by retaliation, discrimination, or inconsistency. But once the facts are substantiated, Maryland law gives employers substantial room to act decisively, and the fact that the confrontation happened off premises does not meaningfully insulate the employee from discharge. To the contrary, where the conduct is rooted in work, directed at workplace participants, and destabilizes the safety and functioning of the workforce, termination not only is lawful; it may be the most responsible course an employer can take.

Luchansky Law specializes in helping businesses make defensible termination decisions,

often on short notice, before a bad situation gets worse. If you’re dealing with this—or any other workplace challenge—email me at aj@luchanskylaw.com, and I’ll be happy to help.

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