Tara Stettner
Human Resource Management
Collette Stuart
Saint Paul College / Monday 5-7pm What is Wrongful Termination?
Wrongful termination is one of those claims that any business would dread. Eventually every business has to face the fact that an employee must be terminated. Whether it’s due to cut backs or performance, there is always a concern that the employee will file a claim or attempt to sue to the company.
How a business handles employees during the termination process can have an direct impact on whether the employee decides to file a suit. Sometimes, the person may just be controversial and there is nothing you can do to prevent a bad experience. In most situations a termination that is handled appropriately will go
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If an employee feels he or she was involuntary forced to leave a job because the employer made the job unbearable, he or she can file a wrongful termination suit against the former employer for constructive discharge however this is a whole different issue.
It's not enough for the employee to individually believe his or her working environment is intolerable. Courts instead look at whether a reasonable party would find the environment to be unusually egregious and hostile. If a reasonable party working in the employee's position wouldn't find the conditions intolerable, the employee's resignation will be treated as a voluntary resignation by the employee, even if the employee believes that he or she can't work under the conditions imposed by the employer.
However, realistically there are no specific laws that provide protection for employees who have been wrongfully terminated from their
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If the time comes to terminate the employee, it should not be a huge surprise. Documenting the process is important especially documenting progressive disciplinary measures. Keeping records of the situation goes a long way to avoiding litigation, and it also ensures that appropriate procedures are followed. Being able to identify performance objectives and advise the employee on whether they meet or don’t meet those expectations is helpful not just for termination, but also for training and motivating your team.
Terminate thoughtfully. Even if the employee recognizes that they may be terminated the actual event may still come as a bit of a surprise. Keep in mind that it’s a form of rejection or failure and not all people take rejection or failure the same way. Try to position the termination in a way that helps the employee to understand that although they are leaving your employment, they may be happier in a position or with a company where they are better suited. That may not always work, but using compassion and empathy can go a long way
Consider liability insurance. While liability insurance premiums can be expensive, they pale in comparison to the expense of defending a
Constructive discharge, or constructive dismissal, means that the employee resigned from their position as a result of the employer creating an intolerable and difficult environment. Constructive discharge is viewed as the employee being pressured to quit due to the employer making changes to the working conditions or responsibilities, but from a legal position, the employee quit due to forced termination, or fired without good cause. ("TimsLaw.com » Constructive Discharge - Being forced to quit - Tim 's Missouri Employment Law Info Site," n.d.)
In 1980, a precedent was set in a Michigan court case involving a man named Charles Toussaint who was suing his employer, BlueCross Blue Shield, for wrongful termination based on the guidelines set in the employee manual (Alfred and Bertsche 33). The manual stated that employees would only be terminated for just cause, and the court decided that Blue Cross had violated the agreements in the employee manual (34). The court also ruled that even with Blue Cross’s efforts to provide a document that “issued non-binding guidelines” the employee manual was a contract and Toussiant was wrongfully terminated (34). After the precedent set by this case many employers and employees for that matter were reviewing their employee manuals for the type of ambiguous language that could allow them to get sued or sue. Consequently, a slew of wrongful termination lawsuits followed this one, which is why it is now important for employers to draft their manuals with experienced legal staff. Even with the best legal team and the perfect wording there is still no definite assurance that an employer will be completely protected from such lawsuits, but taking these preventive measures helps in the long run.
Bennett-Alexander, Dawn D. & Hartman, Laura P. (2001). Employment Law for Business (3rd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill Primis Custom Publishing. Downloaded February 4, 2008 from the data base of http://www.eeoc.gov
Examples include rumination of an employee due to drug use and layoffs during times of downturn (Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart, & Wright, 2014, p. 305). Voluntary turnover is turnover initiated by the employee, often when the organization would prefer to keep them (Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart, & Wright, 2014, p. 305). Examples of these are employee retirement, or when an employee takes a job at a different organization. Both turnovers are costly to the organizations, training new hires takes time and money and replacing those works is expensive. Employees that left because of extreme job dissatisfaction can deliver bad publicity and shine an unfavorable light towards the organization in which the employee
punishable by removal, or, if the agency refuses to remove the employee, by forfeiture by the affected state or locality of
The purpose of this paper is to analyze a specific, hypothetical employment situation encountered and to include the information regarding employment conflicts, questions, grievances, lawsuits, etc., in terms of how the situation was handled or resolved. Employment conflicts are a constant issue everyday in any organization; it is how you handle them both legally and professionally that counts.
Employment at will is a law that is present in all fifty states in the US; although, in Montana there requires a stated cause for termination. Employment at will creates dissent among employees when they have been terminated for a cause that is thought to be unsubstantial or when no cause is given. There are pros and cons to the presumption, and employees and employers have different views. Employment at will means that the employer can terminate an employee at any time, for any cause without warning. However, even an at-will employee cannot be terminated because of discriminatory reasons. Employment at will also means that an employee can leave a job at any time without the fear of facing any legal consequences. An employer can also change the terms of employment without notice and no penalties. Throughout this paper, the two sides to employment at will will be discussed, and different examples of employment at will cases will be given. At its most basic, employment at will is not the best path because it can create feelings of violation and betrayal in the employee and can create a negative public opinion or loss of profit for the business.
Remington, J., Heiser, R., Smythe, C., & Sovereign, K. (2012). Human resources law (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
If employees choose to engage in these behaviors or other disclosures, they will be subject to disciplinary actions to include termination. Terminated employees will be included on a “do not re-hire”
Whatever guidelines the organization decides to use when preparing for a layoff, consistency is key (Gunn, 2017). A personnel policy should be in place in the event of needing to conduct a layoff. This should be in place well before the unfortunate
Ideally, when such cases are brought to the attention of an employer, the offending employee should be reprimanded and other appropriate actions taken against them. 4. Increased Workload If an employer arbitrary and unfairly increases your workload without your consent or without compensating you, you could press constructive dismissal charges against them. However, before taking this action, carefully scrutinize your contract to establish whether you have solid reasons and evidence to pursue this route.
An employer may dismiss an employee for a fair reason - this means the dismissal is substantively fair and if the employer has followed a fair procedure - the dismissal is procedurally fair.
In this case, Saito Sdn. Bhd. unilaterally terminated the benefits enjoyed by Roslan. When Roslan believes that her employer is accused of breaching an implied term of the employee’s contract of the employment as her employer had removed the benefits from her and generally it clear that the employee is no longer important. Therefore, constructive dismissal occurred. In this situation, Roslan was advised that make a formal complaint to her employer requesting that the problem be rectified. For instance, Roslan should write a formal letter to her employer asking for the reinstating the previously benefits. If no satisfactory rectification is made, the employee can walk off the job. The law of constructive dismissal requires the employee to leave in a timely manner. She must not delay too long.
“That’s it…you’re fired!” There are several reasons as to why someone could be fired, but I’ve noticed they all share a common process. I, personally, have never been terminated. Though, through my experiences working, I’ve encountered many employees who were unfit for a job. Many of these workers had one common goal, to get fired.
In one particular case, a nursing assistant was terminated for filing a lawsuit against a former patient of hers. When the hospital “demanded” that she drop the lawsuit, she refused and the hospital “deemed that she had resigned” (Cavico, 2005, page 192). In this case, the hospital used employment at will to pressure the nursing assistant to drop a legal matter. From a legal standpoint, the nursing assistant was well within her legal rights to file a lawsuit against an abusive patient, and yet her employer fired her because of it (Cavico,