I'll buy this line of thinking if only because I know how horrendously difficult the HR department at my company makes it to fire people. You have to have absolute, lock down, no questions asked proof of something pretty egregious for them to allow you to fire someone. We had a CDL driver get a DUI that he didn't report to us and the only reason HR let us fire him was because his CDL expired before his court proceedings were over; he couldn't renew his license and therefore couldn't drive. They're just so paranoid about potential lawsuits. Yeah I've worked at companies that take a similar approach. Instead of being fired, they will demote people or move them into different departments.