wrongful termination

[rbreed]

I was terminated from my company earlier this week. The reason is for following a directive, that I have in writing, from my supervisor. Is this legal?

 

[cbg]

Probably. Unless there is reason to believe that this was a pretext to fire you because of your membership in a protected group, your having applied for a protected benefit (examples; w/c, FMLA) or because you reported illegal activity to the appropriate agency, an employer OR an employee in 49 out of 50 states (Montana is the exception) can terminate the employment relationship for any reason (except the reasons listed above).

It's up to you, but if you want to supply more detail I might be able to be more specific. I can't do anything but generalities with the information you provided.

 

[rbreed]

The company that I worked for provides auto leasing software to car dealers. The more the dealer uses the system, the more likely they are to renew. This service costs a minimumof $1000 per month, usually for 36 months. In September of last year I was promoted to a management position.
The person I worked under and I always got along very well and I trusted what he told me to do, and in turn passed that along to my employees. The message given to me over the past two months was "have your people go to stores and run the system." By doing this it shows an increase in use and they as well as myself and supervsior get paid for this. There was no written policy, until now, that made me believe that this was against company policy. In fact, my supervisor was very adament about having all of my people do this.
In a meeting held three weeks ago with the VP, we were told that the bonus level was rather high last month, about $74000, and the company was going to be watching where the associates were in relation to usage going up, the new message became "have them go there in the spirit of training." He also implied that they should go to the stores several times but not always document it, although he never came out and said that. They began calling all the field reps about a week ago and one said he thought I had told him to do this, and another that was not at the meeting said that I told him that this was the general message of the meeting, but not to do this.
Another rep sent a letter to the owner saying he had been told by me to go run the system, but he knew it came from my supervisors. When the VP called me, I made the mistake of not telling him what I had been told by my supervisor, because I feared retalliation. I was fired the next day based on what my reps had said to the VP.

 

[cbg]

Unless I am thoroughly misreading your message, I don't see anything illegal about your termination. If you didn't say anything to the VP about what your supervisor told you, how's he supposed to know? The VP acted on the information he had.

If you had a good relationship with the VP, you could try calling him and explaining the circumstances, but I don't see anything illegal about what happened.

 

[rbreed]

The reason I didn't "come clean" to the VP is because I feared retalliation from him or my supervisor. I have a clean employment record with the company, and it seemed like the VP was calling to make sure everyone was on the same page. I spoke with him about the termination and he said "well there is still an ongoing investigation and the decision was made to terminate you and one other person, maybe it was the wrong decision." I recorded this conversation so there is proof of his lack of confidence in his decision. Another VP of the company called me and asked me what had happened and he even felt I was being made to be a scape goat. He is presenting the information to the owner, along with information he has received from my employees.

 

[cbg]

Yes, I understand that you feared retaliation, but the fact remains that you still forced him to act on the information he had. And the end result is the same - you lost your job.

I'm sorry, I know this is not the answer you want to hear, but the bottom line is that this is not even close to a wrongful termination. Even the fact that the VP now thinks it may have been the wrong decision does not make the earlier decision illegal; nor does it require him to offer you your job back. He may, if he so chooses, but it is not mandatory since the decision was not illegal in the first place.