According to an article by Charles Muhl titled “The Employment at Will Doctrine: Three Major Exceptions”, the mentioned doctrine is a United States Labor Law that allows employees to be fired or terminated from their position at their place of employment by their superiors without warning and for any reason that supplies just cause. (2001) It is also known as at-will employment, generally describing employment that can be granted and taken away without required reasoning and without notice. According to the Supreme Court of California:
“An employer may terminate its employees at will, for any or no reason - the employer may act peremptorily, arbitrarily, or inconsistently, without providing specific protections such as prior warning, fair procedures, objective evaluation, or preferential reassignment - the mere existence of an employment relationship affords no expectation, protectable by law, that employment will continue, or will end only on certain conditions, unless the parties have actually adopted such terms.” (2000)
Each of the eight scenario’s listed below possess some relation to the employment-at-will doctrine. As the hypothetical COO of the company experiencing these issues with their employee’s, I am required to determine within each scenario whether or not the employee can be legally fired, what type of action should be taken if any, and my standpoints on a possible whistleblower policy within the company.
The first scenario involves John, who posted a rant on the social networking site “Facebook” criticizing the company’s most important customer. The question of whether or not John can be legally fired is 100% justified. Employers are permitted to fire their employees when provided with just cause and reason enough to possess a desire to no longer want them at their company. In this instance, John insulted a very important client on his public