wrongful termination

[kmende1]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Az

I was terminated on a Facebook post by S. on 8/21/2017 prior to being officially terminated on 8/23/2017 on a conference call for a code of conduct violation which was not clarified as to what the exact code was. For the year i worked at S. I had no formal training, no company orientation and was not issued a company handbook. I had no previous disciplinary entries in my personnel file, had numerous awards for customer service, work performance and employee of the month 5/2017.

I am seeking a pro bono or contingency attorney to handle my case.

 

[cbg]

And what case would that be? Nothing you have posted supports a wrongful termination claim.

In any case, this is not the way to find legal representation. Reputable lawyers do not troll message boards looking for clients, and this is not a referral service.

 

[quincy]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Az

I was terminated on a Facebook post by S. on 8/21/2017 prior to being officially terminated on 8/23/2017 on a conference call for a code of conduct violation which was not clarified as to what the exact code was. For the year i worked at S. I had no formal training, no company orientation and was not issued a company handbook. I had no previous disciplinary entries in my personnel file, had numerous awards for customer service, work performance and employee of the month 5/2017.

I am seeking a pro bono or contingency attorney to handle my case.

I am curious. Was this a public Facebook posting?

Following is a link to the Arizona Bar Association where you can locate an attorney in your area, but I agree with cbg. I do not see any legal action for you to take.

http://www.azbar.org/Public

 

[commentator]

I'm curious if you were a regular payroll employee, just something about the sound of this makes me think they might have been misclassifying you as a contractor. If not, if you were a regular employee of the company, you need to file immediately for unemployment insurance. If the company is a regular tax paying entity, you have covered wages in the first four of the last five quarters and you were terminated after many years of employment, and if the company cannot show that they had a valid, employment related misconduct reason to terminate you, then you likely would qualify for unemployment insurance while looking for another job.

This is pretty much your only redress, not a lawsuit about being "wrongfully terminated" which you were not.

If you were terminated without warnings, without being given any idea that your job performance was not meeting their expectations or that you were doing something that was about to lead to your termination, without any opportunities to change your behavior and keep the job, then you're quite likely to be found eligible for unemployment, which is temporary income while you are looking for another job.

This is assuming that you didn't do something that could be called "gross misconduct" which means something so egregious that any reasonable person would've known it was wrong to do and would lead to their being fired (such as stealing from the company, or punching out your supervisor or setting the building on fire.)

Other than this, though, regardless of the manner in which you were terminated, there have not likely been any labor laws broken, simply because there aren't very many. There's nothing in labor law that says you can't be terminated by Facebook without warnings, or that you have to be trained or given a handbook or any of the other things you mention. The employer can do pretty much what they want to in regard to how they treat and train their employees or handle terminations. But if you want to pursue the legality of the termination, you still will need to file for unemployment insurance benefits immediately.

 

[quincy]

My concern is if there was a public Facebook posting stating termination was for misconduct. If so, that can be problematic. The termination itself might not be wrongful but publicly posting a reason for the termination could create legal issues for the employer.

 

[cbg]

Why? If the reason given is a truthful one, how is that a legal issue?

Contrary to what many believe, an employer is not required to keep confidential the reason for a termination. As long as the reason provided is not false or deliberately misleading, I'm not seeing a legal issue for the employer at all. He could post the reason for termination on a billboard on the interstate and as long as the reason is truthful, there's no violation at all.

(A code of conduct violation can in a great many cases also be misconduct. Nor do I see where the OP said anything about the employer calling it misconduct.)

 

[quincy]

Why? If the reason given is a truthful one, how is that a legal issue?

Contrary to what many believe, an employer is not required to keep confidential the reason for a termination. As long as the reason provided is not false or deliberately misleading, I'm not seeing a legal issue for the employer at all. He could post the reason for termination on a billboard on the interstate and as long as the reason is truthful, there's no violation at all.

(A code of conduct violation can in a great many cases also be misconduct. Nor do I see where the OP said anything about the employer calling it misconduct.)

Right. If a notice of termination is posted publicly and an employee's employment was terminated, that is not an issue. Not a great thing for an employer to do, perhaps, but not a problem legally.

If, on the other hand, a reason was given for the termination, it needs to be factual and not vague. "Misconduct" on its own covers a wide range of offenses and the implications can be harmful to an employee's reputation.

Misconduct was mentioned by commentator, by the way.

I think employers need to avoid using social media accounts when discussing employee disciplinary actions or reasons for terminations.

 

[cbg]

I do too. But what we think the employer ought to do and what they can do, do not necessarily coincide.

Yes, commentator mentioned misconduct with relation to his eligibility for UI. The OP didn't say that the employer said anything about misconduct.

 

[quincy]

I do too. But what we think the employer ought to do and what they can do, do not necessarily coincide.

Very true.