Wrongful Termination for Time Card Issues

What is the name of your state? Florida

This is something that happened to a few friends whom I work with.

Several people from my workplace were terminated for theft of time.

These people were supervisors who were granted access to the managers and supervisors parking in a garage which is access card controlled. (the regular short term parking for passengers)

These three people are very good, decent hard working employees who were told to use a time sheet to keep track of their time and forward it to payroll. Rather than use their id card which is the exact same one that everyone else (non-management) uses to swipe in for work.

None of these guys have had warnings for fudging numbers or any kind of disciplinary action for any reason in their 5-10 years (depending on the person) of employment with the airline.

We all were warned that the company would be doing an audit of everyone's time records, electronic and otherwise and their could be some serious repercussions for any errors that appeared that couldn't be explained or justified.

Well one day out of the blue these three supervisors were called in to the office and told they had been caught cheating the company out of time, basically stealing.

They were told that the parking garage entry and exit times didn't jive with their timesheets. None of the individuals were shown the garage time sheets or their payroll sheets to compare. Just shown the termination letter and were told to surrender their company ID and escorted off the property.

Now the question I have is this.... Can the company legally request and use public (it was the short term parking garage at the airport that sups and managers use for their parking) garage timesheets to use in terminating employees?

The people who were terminated didn't deny or confirm they had been leaving early but were told how many times the company had so called "nailed them for".

Now it isn't outside the realm of possibilities that family members or friends had borrowed their vehicles and left the garage or returned them to the garage during these employees shift. So how can the company rightfully say that it was the EMPLOYEE who was driving and not someone else?

Yes the airport has rules about who can use your gate card to park in this area and you're not supposed to loan the card to anyone and if you did and were caught, you were subject to suspension of the parking in that area.

So is the company within their rights to terminate someone for these kinds of situations without a warning?

There work group is non-union. So they aren't afforded that type of protection.

Corporate has pulled these individuals records and they all three have never had any type of disciplinary action in their many years with the company and are well liked by all.

Please if someone can address these items and give us some insight as to what their options are at this point...

At my advice, I asked these former employees to request these time sheets and garage times form local management who suddenly got very nervous and asked if this was for their attorney to which a YES answer was given. Now the delay tactics have begun. So we shall see if they give up the dirt.

It seems headquarters had no idea these terminations were taking place and hinted to the fact that parking garage times could NOT be used for a termination case. So if we could get some clarification of this, if at all possible, I would be very grateful!


Many, many thanks in advance!

Can the company legally request and use public (it was the short term parking garage at the airport that sups and managers use for their parking) garage timesheets to use in terminating employees? Yes.

The people who were terminated didn't deny or confirm they had been leaving early but were told how many times the company had so called "nailed them for". I expect you can imagine that if an employee's parking record shows them leaving at, say, 3pm on a number of days but their timesheet says they worked until 5pm, that certainly looks bad.

Now it isn't outside the realm of possibilities that family members or friends had borrowed their vehicles and left the garage or returned them to the garage during these employees shift. So how can the company rightfully say that it was the EMPLOYEE who was driving and not someone else? No, it isn't outside the realm of possibility but it's not unlawful for the employer to make the assumption it was the employee and not a family member who was doing the driving, particularly given that the airport has rules about who can use your gate card to park in this area and you're not supposed to loan the card to anyone and if you did and were caught, you were subject to suspension of the parking in that area.

So is the company within their rights to terminate someone for these kinds of situations without a warning? Yes. Time theft/timecard falsification is a MAJOR violation of company work rules. Theft is something that is virtually always going to get an employee fired as soon as it's discovered.

Please if someone can address these items and give us some insight as to what their options are at this point... Either these three guys WERE lying on their timesheets or else they were giving their parking access cards to others. Either way, it cost them their jobs.

At my advice, I asked these former employees to request these time sheets and garage times form local management who suddenly got very nervous and asked if this was for their attorney to which a YES answer was given. Now the delay tactics have begun. So we shall see if they give up the dirt. The employer has NO obligation to give copies of any of these documents to the ex-employees.

It seems headquarters had no idea these terminations were taking place and hinted to the fact that parking garage times could NOT be used for a termination case. That's an internal company matter. It has no bearing on the legality of the terminations.

There isn't anything in your post that suggests the employer violated any laws. These were not wrongful terminations.