Job loss can quickly lead to personal hardship. It can prove quite challenging to find a new job that offers competitive pay with little advance notice. Most people prefer to have new employment lined up before they leave their current positions.
An unexpected termination usually doesn’t give a worker much opportunity to start looking for alternate sources of income. Instead, they often lose their jobs immediately upon notice from their employers. Many workers who get fired may resent the company’s decision. Some of them may suspect that the company violated their rights and wrongfully terminated them.
When can a firing in an at-will employment state potentially go from being an upsetting inconvenience to a wrongful turn of events that may warrant legal action?
If the firing is retaliatory
There are laws that protect the right of workers to engage in certain activities their employers may not particularly like. Workers have a right to report workplace injuries and request medical accommodations for their health challenges.
They have a right to talk with one another and organize. They can even serve as whistleblowers when the company violates the law without risking the loss of their jobs. In scenarios where companies fire workers without justification shortly after the worker engaged in activities protected by law, the employee may be able to assert that the company wrongfully terminated them as a form of retaliation.
If the firing is discriminatory
Employers typically cannot use the protected characteristics of an employee to make decisions about who the company hires, promotes or fires. When workers can show that the company made the decision after learning about a disabling medical condition, that could be discrimination. So could a firing right after a request for basic religious accommodations, that might be an indicator that their termination was wrongful and therefore illegal.
Employees who suspect that a termination may have violated their rights often need help, which may include reviewing the situation with someone who is objective and familiar with employment laws. Wrongful termination litigation may sometimes result in workers getting their jobs back. Other times, they can receive financial compensation for the hardship caused by the company’s inappropriate decision-making.
Discussing a situation that led to a sudden job loss with a skilled legal team can help workers assert their rights. Wrongful terminations are actionable even in an at-will employment state where companies can fire workers for no reason.