LEG 500 Employment-At-Will Doctrine Assignment#1

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Running Head: Employment-At-Will Doctrine1Employment-At-Will DoctrineAssignment#1LEG 500Assignment 2: Employment-At-Will DoctrineImagine you are a recently-hired Chief Operating Officer (COO) in a midsize companypreparing for an Initial Public Offering (IPO). You quickly discovermultiple personnel problemsthat require your immediate attention.1.John posted a rant on his Facebook page in which he criticized the company’s mostimportant customer.2.Ellen started a blog to protest the CEO’s bonus, noting that no one below director hasgotten a raise in two (2) years and portraying her bosses as “know-nothings” and “out-of-touch”3.Bill has been using his company-issued BlackBerry to run his own business on the side.4.After being disciplined for criticizing a customer in an email (sent from his personalemail account on a company computer), Joe threatens to sue the company for invasion ofprivacy.5.One of the department supervisors requests your approval to fire his secretary forinsubordination. Since the secretary has always received glowing reviews, you call herinto your office and determine that she has refused to prepare false expense reports forher boss.6.Anna’s boss refused to sign her leave request for jury duty and now wants to fire her forbeing absent without permission.

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Running Head: Employment-At-Will Doctrine2IntroductionSince the 19th century, America’s employment philosophy has traditionally been what isreferred to as employment-at-will.It basis is found on two of America’s enduring foundingstructures. For example, the laissez-faire concept of the free market philosophy, and thetraditional principle of democracy—of personal liberty as embodied in the constitution. As twosides of the same coin, the free-market and the constitution, each in its own way views theemployer/employee relationship to be on equal a footing. By definition, "employment-at-will is alegal rule…giving employers’ unfettered power to 'dismiss their employees for good cause, nocause, or for cause morally wrong, without being guilty of legal wrong (Ingulli, 2012).’” By thesame token employees also have the free will to choose to terminate their employments withtheir employers for no cause, or for good cause, or for cause morally wrong without anyobligation.But the seemingly unfettered power at the disposal of employers to terminate the employment ofemployees at will, which some people particularly the trade unions, had variously characterizedas exploitative, inhumane and unfairly stacked against employees has not been so unfettered afterall. Overtime, some major exceptions to employer’s right to fire at-will have since beengradually introduced into this arrangement. As of the 1950s, at least four major exceptions toemployment-at-will which are deemed to be adversely disparaging to employees have been putin place by way of America common law tradition, and tort law. Most notable and adopted in all50 states among these exceptions is the one which prohibits termination actions taken against anemployee for either not participating or reporting a violation of a state policy or local ordinance.Then there is the exception which prohibits as a basis for termination, race, age, gender, nationalorigin and disability. Another exception that is enforced nation-wide is the one that places a

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Running Head: Employment-At-Will Doctrine3prohibition on termination in which an implied—orally, by employer handbook, or a concretelystipulated contract has been reached. Finally although not all, but majority of the state’s projectinto employment-at-will, an implied covenant of good faith to the effect that terminations couldbe only for good cause—not done in bad faith.At this point, I now proceed to deal with the myriad of personnel problems that await myattention as a recently hired in my hypothetical position as Chief Operating Officer (COO) of amidsize company. Before reacting to any of the problems on hand I would first undertake acareful study of what the company’s policy stipulates as to what course of action could be takenin the breach of company’s policy in reference to the cases before me. In addition I would take athorough look at the specific law that pertain to each case to avert the possibility of law suitsfiled against the company for wrongful termination.1.John posted a rant on his Facebook pagein which he criticized the company’s mostimportant customer.Clearly, whatever his reason is, John’s behavior in regard to publicly criticizing the company’scustomer irrespective of the customer’s status or the medium he uses to level his criticism at thecustomer, is unprofessional, counterproductive and unbecoming of his status as company’semployee. But before I come to a decision regarding John’s fate with the company, I wouldconduct an exhaustive investigation as to what drove him to take the action he took howbeitunjustifiable as it is. To this end, let us assume that John has some clout in the company probablyan expert of sort. In that case we can also assume that John may be privy to information ofimpropriety involving this particular customer. If that is the case, it may be reasonable to furtherassume that he may have broached the matter to senior management to no avail, and probably as

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