Wrongful Termination Suit?

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Wrongful Termination Suit?

My former employer accused me of shoplifting; I was then fired and arrested. I have receipts but was never asked to provide anything because they gathered

Asked on March 30, 2019 under Employment Labor Law, South Carolina

Answers:

M.D., Member, California and New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney

Answered 4 years ago | Contributor

Without an employment contract, union agreemnt or a claim for discrimination, you have no basis for a wrongful termination suit. The fact is that most work relationships are "at will". This means that an employee can be fired for any reason or no reason at all, with or without notice. Bottom line, a company can set the condtions of employment much as it sees fit. S Depending on all of the circumstances of your case, you may or may not be able to sue for your court costs or any amounts paid to a bail service for costs related to obtaining a bail bond (absent the cost of the bail bond itself since you should have gotten that back being that you complied with the terms of your release).

SJZ, Member, New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney

Answered 4 years ago | Contributor

Unless you had a written employment contract which was violated, you have no grounds for a wrongful termination suit. To oversimplify somewhat, when there is no contract, no termination is wrongful, since without a contract, all employment is "employment at will" and you may be terminated at any time, for any reason whatsoever, even reasons that turn out to be untrue or incorrect. So unless you can sue for breach of an employment contract, you have no grounds to sue for lost wages or the lose of your job.
You may be able to sue for your court costs or any amounts paid to a bail service for a bail bond (but not for the bail itself if you paid your own bail, since if you complied with the terms of your bail/release, you would get the bail itself back); to recover money you would have to prove not only that they were wrong but that they were unreasonably careless (negligent) in accusing you of the crime--basically, that at the time they called the police, no reasonable person would have concluded that you had committed a crime. Of course, it may not be worth suing for only those amounts.


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