Hostile Environment/ Wrongful Term

[Bobina65]

Utah:
I was a GM of a family run restaurant (10 locations). The company was divided into North and South Districts. I had a district manager who presided over mine. If it were up to him, I never would of got the GM position. He was very stern with me from day one. I have seen him joke and laugh with others (he also goes hunting and other activities outside of work) but was always very serious with me. The other corporate officers and owners were great with me When I was promoted to GM, he told me it would be a no-smoking deal. Yet, other managers smoked and sometimes in front of us. So I hid it. (I should also mention, I was the only female GM in the company)
He has called me into the office (in my store) on several occasions to scold me for “something I've done wrong this week”. He also called me into HIS office to explain that he has seen a difference in my behavior in the last few months. He said he believed I may have been using drugs. He went on to say my employees nor my assistants trusted me, He said he has interviewed around 1/2 of them and 5-10 have said they agree. I didn't think that was true so I asked a couple of them (non threatening) I let them know I didn't want their answer they gave him, just that they had or hadn't been asked. He said I spent a lot of time in the office and on the computer.

My son worked for me at this location for 11 months.(It is a family run business all the way to the top). He was a cashier. In my meeting with my D.M., He instructed me, my son would no longer be able to work there and I was instructed to fire him by the end of the month!(Nov '08) He also said to tell my son "HE DID NOTHING WRONG". My son was training to be a manager and everyone said he did a fantastic job! He told me i needed less distractions at work, that I must focus. I have been very stressed over this ordeal and I believe my job suffered. My D.M. was in my store watching surveillance video and recording segments on disks every day for a month! Even his days off! (Dec. 08) He was fed information that I wasn't being honest with money) He could only find 1 day that even could have been a possibility in his mind of criminal activity (that was relayed to me), I got change (a stack of $1 bills for $100) out of our safe in the office and dropped it off to the cashier and they gave me the correct dollar amount for the change. But instead of taking it back to the office at that moment, I put it in my APRON pocket and continued to work for a while. 2 hours later, you can see me open the safe but he says it is not clear if I put the money back. They say the bank was short! But when I (and a witness) counted the mid-day till, the bank was even. He then said I got into the closet immediately(where my purse was stored) and he assumed I put the money in there.(I was getting a smoke to take on break).
I have worked there for 15.86 years! For $100 ?? He didn't find any other violations.
The other assistant has been written up twice for creating an over ring slip to take the place of a short till! Tell me that isn't untrustworthy! I have not had a single writeup in 8 years! Even through all this!

I was blocked from the internet because he said I spent hours on it. Yet, every minute I was on there was for the company! I would look up items for maintenance and see if I could repair that item for less money than a repair shop. I saved the company Thousands of dollars!

I did take this to the top… months before the termination. After that, I heard nothing from any of them. So I was surprised I was terminated.

I was told
he (my DM) had information that I had called and had my cook punch me in and showed up later. I explained that I am not allowed to edit my time card and there are times I needed to stop at the store on my way in, for the company so I would call and let them know I was working and would be there soon. He told me it was against policy and they were replacing me.
I was salary... not hourly...
I applied for unemployment. It was denied.
I had an appeal hearing on the 22nd and was there without counsel.
It was discovered that the opposing party was minus my DM. I should of asked for a dismissal right then! But wasn’t aware I should of. Most of the hearing was “hearsay and I don’t know, that was Jack’s deal” He was deer hunting and could not testify. The judge said that I had control of my demise and ruled that I was denied unemployment.

[pattytx]

Commentator (our expert on all things unemployment) will have to address your UI question, but this was not a "wrongful termination" under the law. Being wrongfully terminated has nothing to do with unemployment eligibility. This is as good a description of wrongful termination as any except for the statement

Employer Not Following Own Termination Procedures: Often, the employee handbook or company policy outlines a procedure that must be followed before an employee is terminated. If the employer fires an employee without following this procedure, the employee may have a claim for wrongful termination

which is VERY uncommon.
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrongful_termination[/url]

Neither is it a "hostile working environment" under the law. What you see as unfair, rude, unprofessional, illogical, does not a illegal HWE make.
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostile_work_environment[/url]

[cbg]

Put simply, a wrongful termination means that you were fired in violation of a specific law (in some states including public policy) which prohibits the employer from firing you for the reason he did.

Put simply, a hostile work environment exists when, and only when, the employee is subjected to either sexual harassment or illegal discrimination under Title VII and related laws (race, religion, national origin etc.)

[LeClerc]

I could be sex discrimination. You said you were the only female GM and you were scrutinized more closely and were required to exceed the performance of your male counter-parts to maintain your position.

If you believe that your sex or any other protected category was a contributing factor to your termination, whether stated or unstated, you should seek out an attorney in your state.

[commentator]

Regarding unemployment--it sounds as though you have had an initial decision denying benefits, then an appeals hearing, which you lost. If you did not then submit a request for an appeal to board of review, which was granted, then it would appear that unemployment at this point is a lost cause.

Incidentally, the appeals hearing is not a situation in which one needs, or will be provided legal counsel, it is a hearing, conducted by an appeals referee (who may or may not be an attorney) and who may or may not be called a judge, but it is not a "court" session. You cannot request a dismissal, nor do you have a right to confront the specific person who terminated you. Any representative that the company sees fit to send to the hearing is acceptable, and in some cases, they don't even send anyone. But you can't ask for dismissal of the case, as this is not "charges" that could be dropped or not dropped, this is a proceding to determine if they had a good "misconduct" reason to discharge you. It sounds, from the many issues you ran past us in your post, that theyhad many issues with you, but they bided their time until they hit upon something they felt you really had violated company policy by doing, (the clock punching issue)that you knew you were doing it, regardless of the reasons you may have had, and that you did it, even though you knew it might result in your termination. That would be "having control over your termination."

As for the other issues, you may want to explore the EEOC aspects of your termination with an attorney, but it sounds as though they had someone they wanted to get rid of, (you) and that they found as issue they could use (the clocking in) and they achieved it, and got your unemployment denied as well.