Help me determine if something odd happened with my friends's determination

March 30, 2007 8:45 AM

Help me help a friend - wrongful termination?

I have a friend who was recently fired from his job less than two months in. The company is a national dealership for industrial equipment. My friend worked for the maintenance side. He's gone to school for what he does and is fairly new to the field but is a great worker and I'm not being biased about that. Kid grew up on a farm and knows what hard work is.

The chain of events leading up to his being fired is what makes me suspicious. He had no warning whatsoever. He walked in one morning on time as usual and they told him he had been terminated. His boss wouldn't even give him the reason right off the bat. He ended up having to call a couple of people from HR to get a clear answer. Turns out that he had at one point in time forgotten to tighten two bolts on a job. The work was minor and no one had ever notified him of his mistake. There was also another incident where he had been told to clean up the shop (move some heavy parts out of the shop). The things he was tasked to move were very big and the way was blocked by several other pieces of machinery which were being torn down. I've talked to him about it and he told me that the other technicians normally let things sit until the path is clear so he was under the assumption that it would be fine for him to do the same. Apparently that irked the boss somewhat but still no one notified him of his error. He came in the next day and was told that he no longer had a job. The incident with the bolts happened about two weeks prior. The shop boss is wanting the shop to be a five star shop and told my friend his actions were not up to the standards of the shop. I've worked in many different places. Every time something bad happens you get written up - there's a paper trail. It just seems really odd to me that something like this could happen all of a sudden. No paperwork, no notification. My friend didn't have any idea that anything was going against him. Also, the shop hadn't given him any real training regarding certain portions of his job. There were no pretenses (my friend was hired straight out of school).

Am I barking up the wrong tree here or do I have something? Also, state is Iowa if that makes a difference.

posted by unvivid to work & money (15 comments total)

I believe Iowa is an at-will employment state. That means that an employer can fire an employee for any reason, as long as it's not an illegal reason (like discrimination) and as long as there was no employment contract.
posted by amro at 8:55 AM on March 30, 2007

Unless it's for an illegal reason (based on his race, gender, age, sexual orientation [depending on Iowa's laws], religion, or for being a whistleblower), an employer can fire an employee for any reason it wants. It's unfortunate, but that's the nature of at-will employment.
posted by elquien at 9:17 AM on March 30, 2007

amro is right - every state in the US, except Montana, has at-will employment. An employer can fire an employee at any time, for any reason (or even no reason at all), with only a few explicit exceptions (e.g., racial discrimination).

Most companies like to have the type of procedure you describe, with one or more written warnings before termination, because that helps the company out if the fired employee does come at them with a lawsuit claiming he was fired for one of those illegal reasons. "No he wasn't," the company can say, "and we have the paper trail to prove why he was fired, and it wasn't because of illegal discrimination." But there's no legal requirement that companies do so.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 9:17 AM on March 30, 2007

There may be a saving grace in his contract, but if not, then nope, he's at will and can be fired whenever the higher-ups want to.
posted by craven_morhead at 9:25 AM on March 30, 2007

Plus, he was probably still within a 90-day probationary period where such termination without compunction is possible.
posted by DandyRandy at 9:36 AM on March 30, 2007

Well, he can sue for unemployment, which will force the employeer to prepare some sort of justification for their actions.

A contract employee tried to sue my company for unemployment after she was fired. Not only was there plenty o' paper trail documenting performance issues, she was caught in a flat-out lie falsifying her hours. If she can get a judge to hear that, your friend should be able to get a judge to hear his case.
posted by desuetude at 9:54 AM on March 30, 2007

Yes, even setting aside at will employment, most employers have a 90 day probation period so that they can kind of test out workers. It's not unusual for minor offenses which might not be grounds for dismissal later in someone's tenure to be considered grounds for termination during that probationary period.
posted by OmieWise at 9:54 AM on March 30, 2007

I found the results in this search useful in thinking about what constitutes wrongful termination. In a nutshell, the employer is not required to have a particularly good reason for firing the employee. It is just required that they did not apply act on a illegal basis.

I don't think your friend has a case. While this is pure speculation, it sounds to me like the shop boss didn't like him for some reason, maybe a personality issue, and was happy to have a reason to get rid of him. I imagine the "loose bolts" problem was dredged out of memory to bolster a weak case. It seems harsh and not very fair, but that's not illegal.

And frankly unless I misread the story your friend gave them a decent excuse to get rid of him. If he did indeed just make an assumption based on his perceptions of others' behavior and elected not to do what he was told to do without discussing the decision with whoever gave him the order, it sounds to me like the kind of thing that will get you fired. Not immediately, usually, but eventually. One of the really important lessons of employment I have learned is that if you can't deliver what you promised or were asked, you have to get that fact out in the open and deal with it as soon as possible. I don't mean to be harsh to your friend, it sounds like he got a raw deal to me, but this is an important lesson to learn.
posted by nanojath at 10:05 AM on March 30, 2007

I'm not a lawyer, but I think it's very hard to collect on a wrongful termination suit. Your friend would be much, much better off focusing his energy on lining up new employment rather than spending time worrying about what he may or may not have done correctly at his old job or whether it was fair he was fired. It probably was unfair, but it's better that he found out his employer sucks only a few months in rather than a few years down the line when he's more dependent on the paycheck.
posted by MegoSteve at 10:51 AM on March 30, 2007

I would write a letter to his boss's boss laying everything out very factually and request unemployment. Suggest you are willing to sue and see what happens.
posted by xammerboy at 11:00 AM on March 30, 2007

It might have been unfair but that doesn't make it wrongful. Also, employment-at-will doesn't seem like such a bad concept if you look at it from another angle. It works both ways. The employee can also quit without a good reason.
posted by Carbolic at 11:30 AM on March 30, 2007

The employee can also quit without a good reason.
True. Though many employment contracts require the employee to give advance notice. Usually 1-2 weeks.
Employers are free to can your ass at the drop of a hat.
posted by Thorzdad at 12:58 PM on March 30, 2007

The employee can also quit without a good reason.

I would like to point out that while this is generally given as the reason for at will employment, it's not a valid one. The concept is that either party can sever their relationship at any time, without notice or repercussion. The idea came about as a failed method of ensuring an employee isn't "blackballed" as a result of their leaving the employ of another.

The problem with that thinking is there is an overwhelming burden that's placed on the employee if they're terminated: sudden and unexpected loss of income, not being able to speak "negatively" in later interviews, having to overcome the stigma of being terminated without good cause, etc, etc. Those last two are the functional equivalent of being blackballed, yet the practice still stands. Were an employee to leave a company for no good reason, it's a rare instance where that leaving would cause an undo burden on their former employers. The law's intent is to make things equal, but it ends up providing more for companies than individuals. Unfortunately, attempts to change such laws are generally balked at and fought against by unions since granting "regular" folks protection from employers would pretty much make them redundant.

With that being the case, no your friend has no leg to stand on. An employer can fire an employee for wearing white after labor day, if they so choose....or, actually no reason at all. If your boss comes in and decides to be capricious and just fire you, that's perfectly ok, too. Tell your young friend "welcome to the real world, you're entirely on your own" and provide him with an outstanding reference for future interviews.
posted by Spoonman at 1:40 PM on March 30, 2007

Hi,

I also live in Iowa and a similar incident happened to a friend of mine.
Everyone who as mentioned, Iowa is an At-Will state where a person can be terminated at any time for any reason.

With that, I would still highly suggest your friend to apply for unemployment. Most likely when applying there will be a mediation (usually done over the phone) where a representative from the employer he/she worked for will give "their side" of why he/she was fired and your friend will give her/his side. With the facts that you have noted most, the fact that your friend received no reprimands or verbal communication about the intercessions, he/she will most likely receive some if not all unemployment compensation. Iowa unemployment is fairly good about that due to that law. If the mediator does not find in the favor of your friend and that time he can pursue private litigation and sue if desired, but again I think your friend has a good chance of winning some unemployment.

Good luck.
posted by lutzla23 at 2:37 PM on March 30, 2007

If you have an employment "contract" you aren't an at-will-employee you are a contract employee. In that case termination can only occur according to the terms of the contract (which, almost certainly, let's them can you whenever they want but hopefully you didn't sign a contract that didn't contain some severance pay provisions.)
posted by Carbolic at 3:31 PM on March 30, 2007