possible wrongful termination?

Georgia

My wife is a real estate agent and was terminated today. Life at her job was seemingly going well until she told her boss that she was pregnant. At that point her boss seemed to change. She has been employed with this company for over 1 year. She is an onsite agent in a subdivision. There is no documentation of verbal counseling or poor job performance. In fact, she just had a record month selling over 12 houses! The stated reason for termination was for failure to follow through, resulting from her failure to attend a closing. There are no company policies or laws to our knowledge that state that it is manditory for agents to attend closings. In fact, the other agents in the company do not routinly attend each onem yet they are still employed. The office manager recently found herself in a similar situation, pregnant and threatened with losing her job. The boss's big fear is that the office manager and my wife would not return to the company foillowing the birth of their children. The office manager stated pre-delivery that she would return, however post delivery she opted not to return. This has created a false fear in the boss's mind that my wife would do the same. Poor job performance does not seem to be the real reason for termination, again she is selling record numbers of houses, but we do not know the real reason. The boss has failed to communicate this. There is no written contract of employment, but I do not know if this creates an "at will" relationship. If it does, there is no case.

As a side note, she works on commission. There are currently 8 outstanding contracts. Does GA have a law entitling her to those commissions? Now that she is not there, another agent will be required to accompany the purchaser on their "walk-through." Does this entitle them to a refereal fee? Using the "if-then" causation, had her boss not terminated her, she would have been able to attend those appointments on her own behalf and thus not give anyone a cut of the commission. Is she entitled to the entire amount (as she was planning on prior to today)?

Thanks in advance for any information you can provide us!

Chris

Termination of pregnant employee

Even though your wife probably was an at will employee, this is probably sex discrimination. What the employer did was a violation of federal law. If you can prove that the termination was motivated by the pregnancy, you have a very good case, and from the facts you gave, it sounds like you have some good evidence, and the case is certainly worth discussing with an employment law attorney in your state.

The Pregnancy Discrimination Act is an amendment to Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act. Under the Act, discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions constitutes unlawful sex discrimination. Pregnant employees must be permitted to work as long as they are able to perform their jobs.

Sorry, I don't know the status of the commissions.