Is it legal to retaliate against an employee who answered falsely when asked an illegal question? Oftentimes due to public policy considerations or for a multitude of other reasons employers can not ask particular questions during an interview or just in general in the workplace. Suppose that an employee or a perspective employee (in an interview) lies on one of these disallowed questions. Suppose the interviewed employee was hired. Can the employer fire for lying on such a question? Can an employee fire a current employee for falsely answering? Does this count as cause for firing? Can an employer retaliate by firing the employee for such a lie if they found out it was a lie later? Is lying in such circumstances illegal or otherwise fraudulent?
Is it legal to retaliate against an employee who answered falsely when asked an illegal question? It depends. It is important to ensure we understand the distinction between (1) questions which are illegal in and of themselves, and (2) the illegality of hiring, discharging, or failing to hire based on a candidate's/employee's answer(s) or attributes. You yourself might have been aware of the difference beforehand, but your question is a good occasion for clarifying a general misconception. In instances of the first category, it would certainly be illegal to retaliate against the employee insofar as the falsehood is traceable to the employer's violation of the law. Examples of this category are sections 432.3(b) ("An employer shall not [...] seek salary history information, including compensation and benefits, about an applicant for employment") and 432.7 ("An employer [...] shall not ask an applicant for employment to disclose, through any written form or verbally, information concerning an arrest or detention that did not result in conviction") of the California Labor code. Scenarios of the latter category are more intricate, since an employer might prove that his decision to discharge the employee falls outside of conduct sanctioned by statute. For instance, 42 USC § 2000e-2(k)(1)(A)(ii) does not outlaw --at least at a federal level-- questions about the individual's protected categories (such as sex, religion, or national origin). It only outlaws the decision making that is influenced by the protected categories which are the subject matter of the interview questions. The example you gave ("what would your husband do if you got this job?") serves to illustrate the difference, putting aside that questions of that sort might be intended to indirectly ascertain the candidate's marital status. Let's assume that the employer seeks to hire a waitress, and that the jurisdiction at issue outlaws discrimination on the basis of employee's marital status but not the questions about it. The employer has a cognizable interest to avoid employing any waitress whose husband is an overly jealous person with propensity to attack male clients. The waitress's lie when answering that question (for instance, by fraudulently representing that she is single or that her husband is ok with her employment as waitress there) contravenes the employer's legitimate interest to protect its clients. In that context, the employer's discovery that the employee lied during the interview gives reasonable grounds for discharging that employee. After all, the employee's intentional misrepresentation only strengthens the employer's suspicion of being at greater risk (of liability toward clients) than the employee is willing to admit. For the employer to prevail at law, it would need to be proved that the reason for discharging the female employee was not her marital status itself, but the employee's concealment of a risk that is a matter of employer's lawful concern.
You can ask nicely, but there is nothing you can do legally to prevent your former employer from making disclosures related to your former employment so long as they are true.
There are a very few government surveys which it is a crime to lie in responding to, most notably, census related surveys. Proving that a representation is false with respect to some questions (e.g. race or nationality) are challenging to prove and the subject of lots of hypothetical discussion. But proving misrepresentation with respect to other matters (e.g. how old you are) could be easy. This kind of survey is probably the only one where there could be criminal consequences. In the context of an employer-employee relationship, proving causation of damages from an inaccurate survey response would be almost impossible as a practical matter, but a proving an instance of lying on a survey could constitute generalized evidence of dishonesty that could constitute grounds (at least in part with other evidence) for denying an unemployment benefits claim or terminating an employee who has civil service protections or who can only be terminated pursuant to an employment contract for cause. A similar analysis could apply if the person lying on the firm sponsored survey was (or was an officer or manager of) an independent contractor or agent or business partner of the firm of some type in a case seeking to terminate that relationship for cause (and possibly triggering liquidated damages under a contract between the parties). In the context of a generalized public opinion survey, at most, the firm asking the survey questions might have a right to sue for any amount that the person was paid to participate in the survey (this would also be true for employer/firm sponsored surveys and while the amount might be small, this dollar amount could be important to showing that there were &quot;some damages&quot; caused by fraud and thus preventing a fraud claim from being dismissed on a motion for summary judgment). Conceivably, taking money to complete a general purpose survey with an intent not to answer truthfully could give rise to a criminal mail or wire fraud claim under federal law, but even then, showing that the matter misrepresented was material in a survey context beyond a reasonable doubt would be hard and the FBI has a non-binding policy of not prosecuting mail and wire fraud cases involving private parties in cases where less than $75,000 is at stake absent extraordinary reasons for doing so.
Is it possible for a witness to backtrack and claim that their previous statements were wrong because they misremembered? ... Is the witness now allowed to say something along the lines: &quot;Huh. That's odd. I clearly remember it differently. But it's such a small detail and it was so long ago...&quot;? Yes. Or is it now considered a deliberate lie? A judge's assessment of a witness's credibility and reliability is much more nuanced. See &quot;How is a judge to evaluate a witness's credibility?&quot;
There are no such laws that are specific to rape, but there are general laws about false statements. In every state there is some law against making a false statement to a government official, e.g. Washington RCW 9A.76.175 which says that one who "knowingly makes a false or misleading material statement to a public servant is guilty of a gross misdemeanor". To shift context slightly, if you report to the police that Smith stole your lawn mower when in fact you gave it to him, that is a false statement. However, there would have to be clear proof that you lied in your report, and not that there was a misunderstanding. If Smith stole the mower but the evidence did not support a theft conviction, that does not mean that you can be prosecuted for making a false statement (whereas, if someone has a video of you telling Smith "Here's a mower, which I give to you because I like you", then you could almost be prosecuted for making a false statement, were it not for the fact that the video is illegal in Washington). Perjury is the other related crime: RCW 9A.72.020 "a materially false statement which he or she knows to be false under an oath required or authorized by law". [Addendum] About the video of the mower being given away... Washington is an all-party consent state, meaning that you can't just record people, you have to have their permission (everybody's permission). RCW 9.73.050 says that information obtained by illegal recording shall be inadmissible in any civil or criminal case in all courts of general or limited jurisdiction in this state, except with the permission of the person whose rights have been violated in an action brought for damages under the provisions of RCW 9.73.030 through 9.73.080 which is to say, "unless the person(s) who did not give permission to be recorded now give permission for the evidence to be admitted". Since "you" would be the one making a false statement, "you" would have an interest in suppressing the video, thus "you" could withhold permission for the video to be introduced.
I do not believe that Idaho has such a law. This is not the end of the analysis, however. It isn't clear that saying you do not have a conviction, when in fact, you have a conviction that was dismissed, is a permissible ground for an Idaho employer to, for example, justify the termination of your employment for an improper reasons (e.g. national origin) when the employer, after the fact, discovers that you have a conviction that you did not disclose because it was dismissed. An Idaho court could easily rule that the non-disclosure of a conviction which was dismissed was not a material fact upon which an Idaho employer could justify terminating your employment when it was discovered after the fact. Likewise, fraud prosecutions generally require a misrepresentation to be made regarding a &quot;material&quot; fact, and not just any fact. In the same vein, while misstating your middle name might be a misrepresentation, it might not be an actionable misrepresentation of a material fact.
In law, there is a distinction between mistake of fact and mistake of law. If the law prohibits X, and you think you're doing Y, that's a mistake of fact. If the law prohibits X, and you know you're doing X, but you think the law prohibits Y, that's a mistake of law. Mistake of fact is generally a defense (although that principle is being eroded), but mistake of law is not. In your hypothetical, you clearly had the intent to sell coffee, so you had mens rea. Mens rea refers to the intent to perform the act that is illegal, not the intent to break the law. If you intend to follow the law, but intentionally perform an act that is against the law, it is the latter that forms mens rea; mens rea refers to your intent regarding the act you are performing, not your intent regarding the law.
Is it unethical to file a claim against an attorney who lied? No. It is actually encouraged if the claimant can submit proof of attorney's misconduct. The grievance is to be filed in the claimant's jurisdiction rather than with the American Bar Association. An attorney's lies may be severe enough to constitute fraud on the court and possibly warrant disbarment. See Matter of LaRosee, 122 N.J. 298, 311 (1991). The real question from a practical standpoint is whether the Disciplinary Review Board and related entities will follow through or be unduly lenient about that attorney's misconduct. What if the Judge ultimately rejected the attorney's claim? That does not reduce the impropriety of the attorney's misconduct. The so-called &quot;zealousness&quot; with which lawyers advance their clients' position does not justify indulging in dishonesty devised to result in miscarriage of justice. Is it wrong to bring it to the attention of the judge or do judges frown on such things (since the attorney is representing the other party)? No. Judges generally are not up-to-date about attorneys' misconduct. Putting them on notice might frustrate a crook's further attempts to mislead the court in that and other cases the judge presides. By not reporting a crook, the public remains exposed to risks from that lawyer's pattern of misconduct.