Polygraph Test Results Were Irrelevant in Firing

(CN) – An employee was not wrongfully fired for failing a polygraph test because he has already lost his employers’ trust, a federal appeals court in Virginia ruled.     Daniel Worden worked for SunTrust Bank in Anderson, S.C. He told police that he had been kidnapped overnight at his home and was going to be used in a bank robbery. He also called the bank, asking his co-worker to open the vault, but the co-worker refused and hung up the phone.     Worden later claimed the kidnappers realized their plan had failed and abandoned him in the woods.     Police questioned Worden, suspecting that he was behind the robbery. Worden agreed to a polygraph test, at which bank personnel were not present. He failed the police test and a later test administered by the FBI.     Worden’ supervisor fired him, and he did not cite the failed polygraph test.      “The record unequivocally shows that SunTrust would have terminated Worden even if it had not known the results of the polygraph examinations,” Judge Agee of the 4th Circuit ruled.