Goosehead Insurance Employee Who Participated in Storming of Capitol Fired
Texas-based personal lines insurance agency Goosehead Insurance fired an employee who participated in the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
According to a posting on Goosehead’s Twitter account, Paul Davis, who was associate general counsel, was no longer with the firm on the day after the riot.
Insurance Journal confirmed the dismissal with a company vice president.
Reports on Twitter by Roger Sollenberger, a writer at Salon, indicated the firing happened after Davis posted a photo of himself on Instagram, claiming that he was tear gassed at the Capitol.
A copy of an internal company email from CEO Mark Jones obtained by Insurance Journal confirms the firing was due to the former executive’s alleged participation in the violence at the Capitol.
“While we support our employees’ right to vote and express themselves politically, we do not condone violent or illegal acts. This one former employee’s actions are not reflective of our company culture or values, and we are disappointed with his behavior,” Jones said in the email.
In the email, Jones identifies himself as an immigrant from Canada and a political conservative who would “prefer a more conservative government than has just been elected,” but who accepts that “more people chose to move our government toward the left — and I respect their choice and it is my privilege to support the government my fellow citizens chose.”
Goosehead Insurance (NASDAQ: GSHD), a fast-growing independent personal lines insurance agency, has a network of nine corporate sales offices and over 1,100 operating and contracted franchises., Goosehead recently announced it had surpassed $1 billion in total written premium.
Headquartered in Westlake, Texas, Goosehead operates via a franchise model. Created in 2003 by Jones, a former Bain Consulting executive, and his wife Robyn, a real estate investor, the company began trading Nasdaq exchange in 2018. Founded as TWG Insurance, the agency consolidated its corporate and franchise operations under the Goosehead name in 2014.
More Repercussions
Davis is by no means the only employee or business in the country that has faced repercussions following the riot in Washington, D.C., on the day Congress met to confirm the Electoral College results and President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, according to an Associated Press report.
“Some business owners are being trashed on social media and their establishments boycotted, while rank-and-file employees at other businesses have been fired,” the AP reported.
Private employment is not necessarily protected in this situation. What occurred at the Capitol on Jan. 6 “‘was rioting, not protesting,'” Aaron Holt, a labor and employment attorney with law firm Cozen O’Connor, told the AP. “‘When someone violates the law, that’s almost never going to be protected, and a private employer is going to be within their rights to discipline or take some kind of action in response to that [which] might go against their fundamental core values.'”
On Jan. 13, 2021, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 232-197 to impeach Pres. Donald J. Trump for the second time. Ten Republicans joined with Democrats to impeach the president for inciting the Jan. 6 riot in which a mob of Trump supporters overwhelmed law enforcement and breached the U.S. Capitol. The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives in 2019 impeached Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. No Republicans sided with the Democrats in 2019.