If I was fired for an issue completely out of my control and my employer lied about it, could I have a case against them?
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If I was fired for an issue completely out of my control and my employer lied about it, could I have a case against them?
I worked for a company where I provided on-line chat support for customers of the company (a maker of barbecue grills). The software we used would have issues or glitches that sometimes caused our customers and us to lose connection with each other. The customer sometimes would still be able to send messages on their end but we would not receive them. This is what happened that they said I was exiting chats without customers knowledge because on the end they monitored our chats from it said “Accentslee exits chat”. But on my end it would show the customer lost connection; once that happened they were gone.
Asked on August 17, 2011 Kentucky
Answers:
M.D., Member, California and New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 12 years ago | Contributor
I'm afraid that you really have no case here. That is unless you have a union agreement or employment contract that prohibits such action, or this termination in some way violates company policy, or it is a result of legal discrimination. Absent any of the foregoing, your employer was well within its legal rights to discharge you.
The reason is that most states employment relationships are "at will", including KY. What this means is that an employer can hire or fire someone for any reason or no reason at all, as well has impose the conditions and terms of work basially as it sees fit.
I would still try and fight this. Set up a meeting with your boss/HR department or at least put in writing a letter explaining your side of things. You want to get something on the record as to why you feel your were fired for something that was not your fault (i.e. ""for cause").
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