Attacked at Work by Another Employee

My question involves labor and employment law for the state of: Wisconsin

My granddaughter has been working at McDonald's for the last 3 years and was recently promoted to crew trainer which entailed directing the other employees on what to do and making sure tasks were completed. About a month ago McDonald's hired a new employee who on multiple occasions has gotten into loud and profanity laden arguments with other employees including the managers at the facility. A week ago my granddaughter told this girl to do a particular task and this girl blew up again. She rushed at my granddaughter, put her face within inches of her face, and challenged her, spoiling for a fight. My granddaughter was frightened but instead of putting her hands on the girl she flipped the girls hat hoping that would get her to back away. As the video tape shows my granddaughter was by no means the aggressor. She was not being mean to the girl or yelling at her, she just kept telling her to go do her job. As soon as the my granddaughter touched her hat this girl started flailing at my granddaughter. She was hit in the face and her arms were all scratched up. Never once did my granddaughter fight back. The most she did was cover her face with her arms. Eventually other employees showed up and the girl was forced out of the door screaming and swearing like she had done on the other occasions. Since then we found that this same girl, prior to coming to work at McDonald's had attacked at least two minors, putting one of them in the hospital.

Today, McDonald's fired my granddaughter claiming she "escalated" the situation. My thought is, if McDonald's had dealt with this girl from the very start this would never have happened to begin with. I realize she shouldn't have touched the girls hat but she was afraid and in the spur of the moment that was all she could think of to do to defend herself.

If your unasked question is, did McDonald's violate any laws by firing your granddaughter, the answer is no, they did not.

Your granddaughter made a poor choice in flicking the girl's hat, and that can reasonably be seen under the circumstances as escalating the situation; however, even if the decision was completely unfair, your granddaughter was an at-will employee and thus can be fired without cause.

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Quoting Grandpa0594

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McDonald's fired my granddaughter

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Tell her to file for unemployment.

McDonald's corporate handles all their unemployment claims through a consulting service. So they will definitely follow through and fight approval of every claim. I doubt your granddaughter will have a very good chance of being approved for benefits, since she did do the "hat flicking" maneuver, which was not very good judgment and could be seen as escalating the fight. It could certainly be seen as gross misconduct, definitely as making the situation worse, or using poor management skills that she had someone in her face threatening to hit her and she reached over and flipped their hat up. But she does need to go on and file a claim for unemployment anyway. McDonald's is not famous for being the best of professional good to your employees great places to work jobs in the world anyhow. We all know this. Being fired from McDonald's will not ruin her chances of finding something else.