Limitations To The At-Will Employee Rule Pt. 1

This article will discuss the exemption or limitations to the at-will employment rule on terminations which are illegal.

Have you been fired from your job? How do you know whether or not your termination was legal or illegal? In general it is assumed that most employment is under at-will employment rules, which basically means that an employer can fire an employee at any time for any reason or for no reason at all. However, there are some exceptions as to what falls into illegal or wrongful termination. With the exceptions come legal remedies to help you keep your job or to sue your former employer for wrongful termination. This article will discuss the exemption or limitations to the at-will employment rule on terminations which are illegal.

Written promises - if you have a written contract which promises you job security then you have a strong argument that you are not an at-will employee. For example, if your employment contract says that you can only be fired for specific or good reasons. The term good reason or good cause is defined to mean fair and honest reasons. Thus the employer’s decision to terminate the employee’s employment must be done in good faith. Therefore, the decision to terminate must not be:

Trivial

Capricious  

Unrelated to business needs or goals

Pretextual

Therefore, the employer needs a legitimate business reasons to terminate the employee. A written promise can also be found in an employee’s offer letter which makes a promise of continued employment. This allows the employees to enforce such promises in court. A written contract outlining such a promise is an express contract.

Implied in fact contract - this is an agreement based on surrounding circumstances of one’s employment. This can be as a result of what the employers said and did. The Supreme Court of California has held that a good reason or cause of termination can be implied and as such a court may require that the employer have good cause for terminating an employee despite the fact that there is no contract requiring a good cause for termination. Some factors a court may look at to determine the existence of an implied contract are:

Personnel policies or practices of the employer

The employee’s longevity of service 

Actions or communications by the employer showing assurance of continued employment

The practices of the industry in which the employee is engaged

Implied in fact contracts can be difficult to prove because most employers are very careful not to make promises of continued employment to employees.

Whistleblowing violations - whistleblowing laws protect employees who report activities that are unlawful or harmful. Therefore, employers may not retaliate against a whistleblower for reporting certain kinds of misconduct by firing him or her. The employee receives protection for whistleblowing if they disclose information about a violation of state or federal law to a government or law enforcement agency. This includes such actions as discrimination, unsafe workplaces or submitting false claims of payment to the government. The employee who is a whistleblower may forward information in respect of such violations based on assumptions and not necessarily fact.

California termination laws can be daunting, seek out a law firm of wrongful termination lawyers.

For a renowned law firm that specializes in wrongful termination the author of this article recommends The Cooper Law Firm.