Employment-At-Will Case Study

According to Halbert & Inguilli (2012), Employment-At-Will is a rule that was developed giving employers that right to fire employees for a good cause, a bad cause, or even something that is morally wrong. This legal rule allows employers to do this without any legal ramifications. With many changes throughout the years, there are a few exceptions to the legal rule and employees cannot be fired for the state’s Public Policy Exception. This exception means that an employer cannot wrongfully terminate an employee for any reason that is protected under public policy. The Public policy exception means that an employee cannot be terminated because of four major situations: 1) An employee refuses to perform an illegal act at the request of an employer;

We have learned from Pillsbury v. Smyth, which is a similar case, that Joe could, in fact, be terminated for his actions. He could be terminated legally because there is no exception to the employer’s right to terminate an employee-at-will doctrine. His termination does not violate Public Policy. In the Smyth v. Pillsbury (1996) case, it was ruled that Smyth had no reasonable expectation of privacy because he was using a company computer. Joe was using a company computer to write the email, so there is no expectation of privacy either. In order to limit the liability of the company, termination of Joe would be the best step. The company should expect for Joe to follow through with the legal action, so they should be prepared to defend themselves in court. Joe will be jaded for being fired and possibly want revenge. As for the impact on operations, I would send out a memorandum that explains the privacy policy of the company, and the policy for criticizing customers. Letting people know what is expected this would limit the impact on

Junior Corporation, No. 7:2011 cv -508. In this case, Abigail Shomo was in a relationship Junior, the son of the president of Junior’s Corporation. Ms. Shomo was hired to be a waitress, but when she told Junior’s father, the owner, that she was pregnant with Junior’s child, he proceeded to tell her to abort the child or be fired. He stated that no one wanted to see “a waitress with a belly” and that customers did not want to be served by a pregnant woman. After Ms. Shomo refused to abort the child, the owner of Junior’s Corporation fired her. Ms. Shomo filed for wrongful termination in the Commonwealth of Virginia stating that it violated the Public Policy exception of the Employment-At-Will Doctrine. Although the federal court stated “ terminating an employee because they refuse to have an abortion offends the conscience of the court” (Krauss, 2013) there was no law that protected Ms. Shomo from termination. During the case, it was determined that the Shomo case did not meet any of the exceptions for the Virginia-at- will rule although it was morally wrong. The federal court of the Commonwealth of Virginia dismissed the