Terminated without cause. Do I have a claim for unjust termination or toxic work environment? I was recently terminated without cause. I had been working in a liquor store for about 6 months. There was something &quot;special&quot; about the work environment. Several businesses in the area were owned by the same parent company. The store I worked in had a back door that connected to a brewery and restaurant etc. Sometimes management from the other parts would come in to &quot;help out&quot; or tell us what to do. For example the bar manager complained we were keeping the lights too bright and it was affecting his customers (the door was glass so you could see through it). I wasn't given a reason or notice for termination but I can guess why. Yesterday I was in a room alone and dropped the f word a few times. I was mad because a car just ran over my phone. Someone came in and told me not to swear. I apologized and said I didn't realize other people could hear. I latter found out he was a cook from the kitchen. My coworker told me I go home or go get my phone repaired. I left for a few hours. I know it's strange but it's common for people in this job to leave for long periods of time and come back to work later. After I returned my manager came in. She complained it was her day off and she lives far away. She asked for &quot;my side of the story&quot;. So basically I was fired for swearing. What I would like is a) to get the job back b) get money I'm wondering if there could be discrimination? Other coworkers swear, even in front of customers. Others leave up to 2 hours early or take ridiculously long breaks. I found it very hostile that a cook would complain to management about me swearing, even after I apologized and explained I didn't realize people could hear. In general I felt the management did not provide a safe work environment On multiple occasions my manager told me she thinks a coworker of mine is doing a terrible job. She knows this but forces me to work with them. The store only has 2 people working at a time and some tasks require 2 people. Another coworker was very difficult to work with. I think he may have had a mental illness. I wasn't made aware of the details but he complained to the parent company about me and refused to work with me. Initially the manager had wanted to reduce my work hours so we wouldn't have to work together though this never happened. On one occurrence I was outside of work and he came running after me yelling about how I didn't do my job. He wanted to quit but management asked him to stay to give them time to find a replacement. He stayed for another day but got mad and walked out halfway through a shift. management had repeatedly asserted that people shouldn't be working alone, yet people often times were scheduled to work alone Work Safe came in on several occasions and made orders. Not all of the orders were fully enforced. For example we were supposed to have a Joint Health and Safety Comity. This was supposed to happen but just never did. Also the first aid kit went missing. When I needed to take time off work for a medical appointment they tried to tell me I wasn't allowed. management repeatedly said they would make things better, for example having a ban list for customers who were caught stealing. Though I was hired as clerk, I was told to stand outside and do crowed control (security guard work) On at least one occasion a restaurant worker tried to trick me into selling him alcohol even though he was underage. He used his position of how we are sort of coworkers to influence me. I didn't sell it to him in the end. We stopped accepting cash payments when COVID started. Management kept saying that we were going to accept cash payments again. In fact, one manager was working with us on the floor for a while. She saw how crazy and angry some customers got by not accepting cash. She said she realize this was abusive to staff and will have the tills with change back so we can start accepting cash again. So basically management new that we were working in an abusive environment. most of the price tags were wrong. Customers got mad about this but management did not give us the tools to fix it. one till can't print receipts and hasn't been fixed for over a month There were aggressive customers but management refused to view video surveillance to ban them Refunds couldn't be made to debit cards. Given that the displayed prices were sometimes off, this was a big problem. Had to climb up an unsteady latter to do get to storage. Work Safe ordered the company to have an engineer inspect it but to my knowledge this never happened. Coworkers did very unethical things. One example is a coworker sold things that we were supposed to give away for free with purchase with a specific product and pocketed the cash. Can management turn a blind eye to things like that and fire me for swearing? Are any of these points worth hiring a lawyer for?
No First, there does not appear to be unlawful discrimination: there is nothing to suggest that you are a member of a protected class and were terminated because of that. Second, you were given no reason for your dismissal so your employer is not claiming you were terminated for just cause. So, in BC, an employer &quot;can end an employee's job by giving written working notice or pay&quot; and this is perfectly legal. For someone who worked for &quot;about 6 months&quot;, the notice/pay period is 1 week. So either they must give you 1 weeks work or pay you 1 weeks wages.
You do have freedom of conscience but you do not have a blanket right to refuse work you were ordered to perform. You have to perform work you were ordered to perform. If you refuse, you can get an Abmahnung (disciplinary letter). A second Abmahmung would be grounds for firing. The Abmahnung is invalid if the work you refused would have been unreasonable – but you'd have to litigate this. Your freedom of conscience does affect what work you can be reasonably asked to perform. You have the burden of proof to show that the work would have been unreasonable. You are required to alert the employer in advance. If you took a job where you could reasonably have been expected to know that it might come into conflict with your conscience, you should have mentioned this during the interview. Taking the job anyway effectively waives your freedom of conscience. Of course this doesn't apply if your job changed after you were hired. If you successfully claim freedom of conscience, you are not entitled for pay for the work that you didn't perform. Here, your claim of freedom of conscience does not seem to stand on very strong footing. It is normal for web development to include analytics, ads, and social integrations (what you seem to call “trackers”). This is a bit like taking a job as a nurse and claiming “my conscience doesn't allow me to perform blood transfusions” or taking a job at a defense contractor and claiming “my conscience doesn't allow me to work on weapons”. Your personal conscience may be more strict than applicable laws, but don't forget that there are laws. You might reasonably see it as your professional obligation to alert stakeholders of their compliance obligations. You have a stronger case for refusing work than the difficult to prove “freedom of conscience” if the work you are asked to perform would be illegal. You'd have a stronger argument for exercising your freedom of conscience if your work would endanger users that live under oppressive governments.
You are asking the wrong question: it is up to you to decide how to deal with your injury. The employer's role, if any, is limited to after-the-fact compensation. In Texas, workman's compensation coverage is not mandatory, so that is a variable affecting the details. If the employer has workman's comp, they are protected from various legal actions against time, but they also don't get a &quot;vote&quot; in compensation, which is provided by the insurance company. Assuming that the employer is a non-subscriber (as they are called), then the question of employer liability is resolved either by negotiation or lawsuit. You can read a breakdown of the legal essentials here. When you go to court, you would have to prove that the employer was at fault. Let's assume that you've proven that, then the remaining question is whether that loss is reasonably related to the injury that the employer was responsible for. There are multiple kinds of medical transportation available, ranging from patient self-transportation on the bus to calling 911. The laws regarding 911 calls are a matter of local jurisdiction, but the general rule is that you only call 911 for genuine emergencies. However, there isn't a clear, practical standard that distinguishes between an emergency vs. &quot;something that you need to deal with eventually&quot;. Given your description of the injury, I will work on the assumption that this qualifies as a true medical emergency in your town. Now, typically, 911 EMTs make a professional judgment whether you need ordinary ambulance transportation vs. &quot;Medic One&quot; style transportation – this isn't decided by the employer. The one area where an employer could have a say in the matter is in accessing his personal or work phone, in order to call 911. Your description of the circumstances is not exactly clear: do you have a phone, or access to a phone? You do not have to have employer permission to make an emergency call on your phone. So to continue looking for ways to make this a problem for the employer, I will assume that you had no access to a phone of your own or any other employee, and the employer refused to let you use his personal phone or company phone to call 911, but would let you use his phone to call home (this is an entirely rhetorical assumption, but I have no evidence that the situation is otherwise). Now the question is whether the employer has a legal obligation to provide access to a work or personal phone in order to make an emergency call. Now we have a specific Texas law, Penal Code §42.062 which says in part that it is a crime when one knowingly prevents or interferes with another individual's ability to place an emergency call or to request assistance, including a request for assistance using an electronic communications device, in an emergency from a law enforcement agency, medical facility, or other agency or entity the primary purpose of which is to provide for the safety of individuals Here is a lawyer's talk-through of this law, which does not address to $64,000 question whether the law creates a &quot;duty to assist&quot; rather than a &quot;duty to not interfere&quot;. The answer is tied to the basic lawsuit question of whether the employer is at fault. Under the common law, if a party has created a harmful situation, they have a duty to assist in mitigating that situation. So if you were horsing around on the job and you're at fault for the injury, then the employer is not liable and you have to shoulder the burden for treatment. If they are at fault, they also have to assist you in seeking emergency medical treatment. I doubt that the courts would find it to be a crime to refuse to call 911, but the employer could be civilly liable.
If you could successfully prove constructive dismissal (you probably could) then you have been terminated and would be entitled to the pro-rata bonus. Of course, if the company is not in a financial position to pay your wages, it probably can't pay the bonus either.
The fact that the employer has vicarious liability for acts of its employees "within the scope of employment" does not mean the employees are not also liable for their own acts. In reality, however, the employer is more likely to have insurance for such "acts or omissions" of employees. The plaintiffs can "sue everyone in sight" and let them figure out who actually pays when they are found liable. That way, when the employee's actions are (for instance) ruled a "personal frolic" or otherwise outside the scope of the employer's liability (in tort or contract), the case doesn't get dismissed for failure to name all the proper parties. One policy goal is to place financial liability as close as possible to the person most likely to have been able to avoid the harm, thus discouraging such risks, without placing the entire burden on individuals employed in hazardous occupations and without artificially limiting potential sources of compensation.
It's probably not unlawful to ask, but an answer cannot be required immediately. Per the Department of Labor, Susan has 60 days to elect COBRA coverage (the qualifying event here being the termination of Susan's employment): Your plan must give you at least 60 days to choose whether or not to elect COBRA coverage, beginning from the date the election notice is provided or the date you would otherwise lose coverage under your group health plan due to the qualifying event, whichever is later. It would be unlikely for an employer to discourage an employee from electing COBRA coverage due to costs to the employer, as you suggest: Susan is still employed and thus could be treated differently in her last two weeks depending on how she responds because the company is struggling financially and is looking for every opportunity to save money. Susan electing to use COBRA coverage is unlikely to cost the company money, because the employer is permitted to charge her the entire cost of the coverage, plus 2 percent to cover the cost of administering it (additional DoL source). As far as privacy goes, I don't think anything illegal has occurred here. The most prevalent law regarding privacy of health information, HIPAA, generally does not apply to employers. Susan could, of course, request a private discussion, and any response from Emily could not rise to the level of illegal harassment or create a hostile work environment.
UK: For all I know you cannot be fired unless you are hired. They must hire you. Once a job offer is made and accepted, they must hire you. If they don't, call a lawyer. I personally know someone who got hired, and when he arrived for his first day's work at the new company, he found that the whole department that he was supposed to join had been laid of. The company had to hire him. PS. "Financial difficulties" means you call a lawyer urgently. Once they are bankrupt your chances of extracting money are not good.
Financial institutions in the US are subject to regulations that restrict what sorts of things non-licensed employees can talk about with clients and advice they can give about structuring accounts and payments in ways that might avoid triggering money laundering alarms. I think this employee was being cautious about getting into a gray area and phrased the reason they couldn't talk about it poorly. The reason they were restricted from giving you an answer could be a legality, but not necessarily because they are giving you legal advice.