Georgia recognizes the doctrine of employment at will. Employment at will means that in the absence of a written contract of employment for a defined duration, an employer may terminate an employee for a good cause, bad cause, or no cause at all, so long as it is not an illegal cause . An employer cannot terminate an employee for discriminatory reasons, a breach of employment contract, or in retaliation for exercising their employee rights. Discriminatory reasons include race, color, sex, religion, national origin, etc. In order to better understand how at-will employment works, I will provide three different scenarios to describe how the at-will employment applies and how it can also result in wrongful termination.
In this first scenario, a department supervisor requests your approval to fire his secretary for insubordination. This secretary has always received glowing reviews, so you call her into the office to talk and determined that she had refused to prepare false expense reports for her boss, thus his reason for wanting her fired. Legally, this employee cannot be fired because it would violate the public policy violation policy. The public policy violation states that employers cannot terminate an otherwise at-will employee if the termination would violate the “public policy”. Some examples of wrongful termination under public policy include the firing of an employee for refusing to commit a crime, firing an employee who obeys the law, and firing an employee for reporting illegal conduct. The public policy clearly outlines this specific example of firing an employee who refuses to commit a crime is illegal and grounds for a wrongful termination lawsuit against the company. Being aware of this policy, I cannot fire the secretary for obeying the law and protecting her right not to willfully break it. She deserves praises not punishment. The pertinent exemption that is suitable for this scenario is the public-policy exemption. According to this policy that applies to employment at will, the discharge of an employee is wrongful if the termination is against clear and well established policy of a state. The view of the majority in most states is that public policy is found in the constitution, administrative rule, or the states’ statutes, although some states extend the public policy beyond these boundaries. Thus, if the firing of the secretary was not violating the established public policy, it was right to fire her. Since the organization was aware of the intended crime by the departmental supervisor, the best thing to limit liability was to resign and end the contract and re- apply. To prevent such incidence from hurting the business, the supervisor with intention of executing fraud and other senior officials should be given stern warning and employees being encouraged to be reporting any threats of dismissal to the authority.
This scenario is a perfect example of the Virtue Ethics Theory. Virtue ethics directs our attention to what human beings are capable of being, on how they can cultivate the habits of good character that will naturally lead them to their fullest potential . The secretary was not comfortable committing a crime so she did not falsify the reports for her boss. She possesses morals and values that she allows her to do the right thing regardless of the situation.
In the second example, John posted a rant on his Facebook page in which he criticized the company’s most important customer. In this case, it is legally okay to fire this employee for this actions. John is considered an employee at will and this means he can be fired at the discretion of the employer for any stated reason, at any given time without notice. John accepted employment at this company, he became a representation of this company and his negative rant about the customer on Facebook is a reflection of the company as a whole. Also, John’s view of the customer is a direct reflection of the business that the customer has with the company. Is raises the question that if John did not work for this company, would he still have the same opinion toward this customer? The customer is the first priority and being publicly embarrassed by an employee of a company that you trusted your business to, is not an ideal situation for any customer.
This is an example of Utilitarianism Theory. According to the principle of utilitarianism, the right way to behave in a given situation is to choose the alternative that is likely to produce the greatest overall good . John’s termination would benefit the overall greater good of the company because it could restore the faith of current and potential customers. Having an employee publically criticizing a customer can cause a company to loss current customers and stop them from potentially new customers because of the fear of being publically humiliated by an employee within that company. In order to maintain order with the company, it is in the best interest of the company to make sure their customers know that this kind of behavior will not be tolerated by any means. According to the employment at will doctrine, it was right to fire an employee for posting to the public anything malicious concerning an organization. Such a person should also be sued for violating the confidentiality terms of employment. An appropriate exemption to this scenario is the implied-contract exemption. If an implied contract existed between John and his boss, he could avoid being sued by denying any relationship with the company and resigning immediately since under this contact, no written agreement exists. The best action to prevent such action from being done by another employee is to restructure the terms of employment and ensure that every employee signs an agreement of attachment with the company.
In the third scenario, Anna’s boss refused to sign her leave request for jury and now wants to fire her absent without permission. Legally, this employee cannot be fired because it would be a violation of judicial proceeding. It is actually illegal to discharge, discipline, or penalize an employee for being absence from work for attending judicial proceeding in response to a subpoena, summons for jury duty, or other court order or process. I would check into the actions of Anna’s boss to see why he refused to sign her leave of absence knowing that she is legally obligated to attend court ordered jury duty. It would seem as if the boss has a personal agenda against this employee. The most appropriate exemption pertaining to this scenario was the public policy exemption. According to this policy, the termination of an employee is right if there is no well established policy that would prevent the employer from discharging an employee. Anna’s boss would limit the liability of being sued for attempting to fire Anna against the provision of the public policy by introducing issues that would make the situation fit in public policy exemption or by extending the established policy outside its scope to justify his action. To prevent this from occurring again, the boss should refrain from attempting to fire a junior employee for doing what is legally acceptable. He should always admit his faults and understand that he is below the established authority regardless of his position.
The deontology theory would best fit the situation. The deontological ethics is marked by steadfastness to universal principles—for example, respect for life, fairness, telling the truth, keeping promises—no matter what the consequences . The employee is legally obligated to attend jury duty when summoned and there is nothing an employer or employee can do about it. Maybe the boss wanted the employee to be at work for production purposes, maybe he felt as if the employee was lying about her reason for being absent or maybe the boss was exerting his authority over the employee. Whatever the case may be, right is right and wrong is wrong. Anna had to go to jury duty, she had no choice. She was trying to do the right thing by informing her boss and trying to get her request approved but that did not happen.
A real-world example of an employer utilizing Georgia’s employment-at-will doctrine would be the 2013 court case of Fareed v. Cobb County School District, Inc. Gary Fahreed worked as a school patrol officers for the Cobb County Public Safety Department. He was employed from October 2012 until May 2013. During the summer break, Fahreed was informed that his position was moved from the Public Safety Department to the Cobb County School District . He was advised to complete an application for the Cobb County School District. After completing the paperwork, Fahreed was informed by human resources that his criminal background disqualified him for the position. Fahreed claims that he revealed his conviction to former employers as well as on the application. He filed an action in court alleging intentional infliction of emotional distress, breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing, wrongful termination, and violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The defendant, Cobb County School District, filed a motion to dismiss under 12(b)(6), failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted .
The courts granted the motion of dismissal in favor of the defendant because Fahreed had to fail to prove that he was being treated differently from other individual in similar cases, that he was being discriminated against, or that there was a breach of contract being that he was never employed with Cobb County School District. Georgia’s at-will employment doctrine states if there is no contract in place then employment is at will of the employee and the employer and the employer may terminate an employee for a good cause, bad cause, or no cause at all, so long as it is not an illegal cause. In my opinion, Fahreed’s case was correctly denied because he was not discriminated against in anyway. Just because one company will hire you with a criminal record, does not mean another company will. It was at the discretion of the Cobb County School District whether or not they would hire him and they chose not to. Honestly, Fahreed felt entitled to the position just because he previously held it. There was not breach of contract because a contract was never established. He was disqualified before employment was offered the employer and accepted by the employee. There was no wrongful termination in this case.
References:
Halbert, T., & Ingulli, E. (2012). LAW & ETHICS in the BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT (7th ed.).
M. (2014). Federal Court in Georgia Dismisses Employee’s Wrongful Termination Case. Retrieved August 15, 2016, from http://www.atlantaemploymentattorneysblog.com/2014/08/federal-court-georgia-dismisses-employees-wrongful-termination-case/
What is Wrongful Termination in Violation of Public Policy? (n.d.). Retrieved August 14, 2016, from http://employment-law.freeadvice.com/employment-law/firing/state_public_policy.htm
Yee, M. (2016, July 5). Wrongful Termination in Georgia. Retrieved August 10, 2016, from http://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/wrongful-termination-in-georgia.html
