Top Four Signs of an Illegal Termination
I was reading an interesting blog post on The Ohio Employers Blog entitled “6 Tips to Avoid an Employment Lawsuit” and it brought out several key indicators that employees should consider if they get fired. If you have recently lost your job, ask yourself if any of the following four factors are present.
1. No Reason Given for your Termination
If a company fires someone, they will have a good reason for it. If your company is honest with you they will tell you the reason. In fact, a good company will have given you advance notice of the reason. But if your company does not give you a reason for your termination, then you should be suspicious. Let me give you a real life example. I have a 14 year-old son and he normally gets home from school at 3 p.m. On day, he showed up at 2 p.m. and I asked him why he was home early. He said, “no reason.” Well that smelled funny and further investigation revealed that he got in trouble at school and was sent home early. My son tried to pull a fast one. Some companies are just like teenagers who think they know it all and they try to pull fast ones too. Don’t believe it if it happens to you. Inquire further and if you don’t get a straight answer, think about calling a reputable employment lawyer because you might have a case
2. Bogus Reason Given for your Termination
The next tell tale sign of underhanded conduct is the bogus reason for termination. Sometimes companies try to put employees on the defensive by making false accusations of poor performance. It is a pretty good technique and it probably prevents a lot of lawsuits. But don’t fall for it. If you are doing your job and get fired for reasons that are plainly false, then your company might be trying to hide an illegal reason for terminating you.
3. Termination after Good Evaluation
If you are fired for alleged poor performance and you also have a history of positive performance evaluations, then you might have a case. The companies allegations of poor performance will be contradicted by it’s own evaluations. A termination under these circumstances looks suspicious.
4. The Company Violated its own Policies
Some companies create detailed termination policies and procedures. Many mangers do not know how to follow their own rules and often violate the policies. Check your company’s policy manual. If they did not follow their own rules, then that also looks suspicious.
It comes down to honesty and candor. Good companies are honest and they will not hesitate to provide the real reason for terminating an employee. But if a company tries to cover it up, then it creates problems for everyone. The ironic thing here is that a company is free to fire its employees and it does not even need good cause. Most all employees can be fired at the will of the company. So employers simply need to be honest when they fire people.
