At-Will Employment: Limits of At-Will Employment

About at-will employment: Employers' use of the at-will employment doctrine as a shield to cover-up abusive firings is limited by statute and by public policy. Read about the limits:

"[A]n at-will [employment] statement does not really give employers free reign to terminate employees for no reason. There are two reasons for this.

"First, although every state except Montana recognizes the at-will employment relationship either by court decision or by statute, most also restrict it in some way. Courts in a majority of states have limited its application by allowing the at-will [employment] relationship to be restricted under several legal theories. For example, employees have claimed that their employer’s policies were contracts which the employer breached, that their termination violated some public policy, that their termination violated a 'whistleblower' statute or statutory anti-retaliation provision; or that the employer’s action constituted a wrongful act (or, in legal jargon, a 'tort'). The result is a patchwork of case law that varies from state to state, making it difficult for employers to know when, or if, they can rely on the at-will nature of the [employment] relationship.

"The second reason for caution is that many employees are specially protected under federal or state discrimination laws, which must be complied with regardless of at-will [employment] status. Therefore, if you terminate a protected employee for 'no reason' or without following your normal disciplinary process, you are raising a red flag that the termination was for improper or even discriminatory reasons. Thus, you may be provoking a challenge to the termination which otherwise might not have occurred."

Read more at At-Will Employment.

------------

Technorati tags: wrongful dismissal, wrongful termination, wrongful discharge, employment law, human resources, HR, fired, at-will employment.


at-will employment