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Is this email abuse &/or illegal? Please help.

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nunya123

Junior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? South Carolina.

I have a friend who was recently wrongfully terminated. He worked for an individual who owned an 'under the table' business & we do understand that the laws that apply to 'legitimate' business do not apply in our case. But, we do have a few questions about what we can and cannot do to receive the compensation that we are owed out of a verbal contract.

My friend began emailing his ex-employer under a made up name about 2 days before he was fired...he emailed as 'a job seeker' in response to a job ad posted by his employer to try to find out when and why he would be fired. He has found his employer to be lying about him to job seekers that he was a horrible employee and that he even committed crimes, etc....none of which are true.

We are wanting to take the ex-employer to court for failing to pay severance pay from a verbal contract. And, contained within email messages, sent to our 'made up job seeker' from the employer, is admittance of this verbal contract & the employer's lying and reasons for such. We would love to be able to present this information in court as evidence to support our claim, but we fear that contacting the employer through a 'made up' name under false pretenses to derive necessary information from her may not be exactly legal.

Is this illegal or can we use the emails to support our case? Any insight on this will be much appreciated. Thank you.
 


eerelations

Senior Member
Even if your friend was a "legal" employee, his termination was perfectly legal. Employers may legally fire their "legal" employees for any reason, including wearing brown shoes to work, using the company email system for personal reasons (and what your friend did falls into the category of "personal" as it certainly wasn't in his job description), being late for work once by one minute, and even for being a perfect employee. Ergo, your friend's termination was not anywhere near "wrongful" in the legal sense of the word.

(Please note that employers may not legally fire employees because of things like their employees' race, gender, religion or disability. However, nothing in your post indicates that your friend was fired for a reason like this.)

Nothing in the law requires employers to pay severance pay, and verbal contracts are worth exactly the same amount of money they're printed on. Whatever your friend's former employer said in an email about the severance pay is extremely unlikely to rise to the level of a contractual obligation.

As far as slander is concerned, it seems from your post that your friend's former employer told a bunch of lies about your friend to your friend, and to no one else. While you may suspect the former employer has said these things to other people, you:
  1. have no evidence of this;
  2. you don't know who these people are; and
  3. these people - if they exist - may not have the wherewithal to have any impact on your friend's life and therefore will not cause any damages that your friend would need to sue for.
Finally, if your friend does try to take this further with his former employer, I hope he understands that his "under the table" pay arrangement will come to light, and the IRS will immediately dun him for all unpaid taxes. If he really really really wants to sue his former employer, he needs to brace himself for that big IRS bill coming down the pipeline.
 

cbg

I'm a Northern Girl
Not to mention the fact that there is no "we" here. You have no standing to sue the former employer for anything. I'm not at all convinced that your friend does either, as nothing you have posted comes anywhere near a wrongful termination and I see no contract for severance either. But IF there is any standing to sue, it belongs solely to your friend and you have nothing whatsoever to say or do in the matter.
 

nunya123

Junior Member
Thank you for reading my question and taking the time to write a detailed reply. You make many good points and I appreciate your help. The only thing that I think you misunderstood was that my friend did not use the 'company' computer for his correspondence but his own home computer on his own time. But that is unimportant you told me what I needed to know. Thanks.
 

eerelations

Senior Member
Even if he wasn't fired for misusing the company computer, his firing was still legal unless it was directly because of things like his race, age, gender, religion or disability.

Whether or not you can use your friend's former employer's emailed statements as evidence in a lawsuit is moot, because your friend has no basis for a lawsuit in the first place.
 

nunya123

Junior Member
I understand. I was just using "we" as a figure of speech. I was afraid that he wouldn't have any grounds to do anything based on a verbal contract and considering that the firing is not legally considered wrongful termination.

Ethically, it was wrong...left my friend with not enough to cover rent with no job in sight after being an above average employee. His employer just stated that his 'personality' didn't jive with her. And although it is cruel and unethical to 'screw over' a hardworking, kind individual like that...I do understand that in the end there is nothing illegal about it and that there is most likely nothing that can be done. Oh well.
 
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