Wrongful Termination - 101

Wrongful Termination or Wrongful Dismissal: These legal terms describe a situation where an employee has been terminated by the employer illegally.

An employee is not required to have a written contract of employment to have a case. The lack of a written contract of employment does not mean that the employee does not have a case. It is also important to understand that employers can in many cases fire an employee for any reason - however it is equally important to know that an employer cannot fire an employee for the wrong reason or an illegal reason.

Call our Law Office to discuss your case for free and allow our Firm to evaluate your case before any statements are given that could jeopardize your case. Our Law Firm can assist you on reviewing your Wrongful Termination Case and we invite you to call us for a free case evaluation. Call us toll free at 800-862-1260.

The following are examples of common wrongful terminations:

• A firing might be "wrongful" because the employee has a contract saying that he or she will be employed for a certain amount of time, and the employer disregarded the contract, firing the employee without any cause before the contract expired.
• Once wrongful termination has been established, an employee has the right to sue his or her former employer for damages. This includes lost wages and any "fringe" benefits as-well-as possible punitive damages. To successfully bring a wrongful termination suit, the terminated employee must have been discharged without "good cause." There must have been an "implied" contract with legitimate reasons to believe that the employment would have continued. The former employee may bring an action for damages as well as for breach of contract.
• The employee has the burden of proving that he or she was wrongfully terminated from their place of employment without any cause, or was retaliated against by said employer. Some types of evidence that an employee may use to prove his or her case include documents, computer-generated evidence, oral testimony of statements made by supervisors and co-workers; evidence of how other employees were treated differently than the employee.
• If you think that your employer terminated you because of discrimination based on race, creed, color, sex, national origin, religion, age, disability, sexual orientation, or marital status, we urge you to seek legal counsel. These are illegal reasons for termination of employment. We urge you to know your rights.
• "Constructive wrongful termination" is a form of wrongful termination. This happens when the employee is not actually fired from the job, but quits voluntarily because the working conditions become unbearable, and effectively is forced to resign.
• If you report your employer to the police or a state or Federal agency for some violation, it is illegal for your employer to fire you in revenge. That is known as "whistleblower" protection. An employer may not fire an employee who refuses to perform an unlawful act when ordered to do so by the employer. Firing an employee in retribution for exposing dishonest acts of the employer is illegal.
• It is against the law to terminate an employee for refusing to succumb to unwanted sexual advances. This can be in the form of direct sexual harassment, such as unwanted advances, improper touching or speech, showing explicit sexual photographs, etc. Or it can be in the form of subtle, indirect harassment such as creating a hostile work environment by expressly or implicitly making the continuation of an employee's employment conditional upon having sexual relations or having to tolerate inappropriate conduct.

For help determining if you have a case against your employer for wrongful termination, we strongly suggest that you contact our Law Firm, free of charge to find out of you can seek redress and sue your former employer to obtain justice. You should contact a lawyer to have your circumstances evaluated before you say or do anything that might jeopardize your case. Our Law Firm can assist you and we ask that you to call us for a free case evaluation. Call us toll free at 800-862-1260.