Speaker 1: People get fired all the time from their job, and sometimes it's done in, well, a mean way. But that doesn't necessarily mean that the law was broken. This video examines valid terminations and unlawful terminations. It gives an overview of wrongful termination law, some very important considerations that you should think about, and how much a case might be worth if you're truly a victim. Before we get to the meat and potatoes of this video, I want to talk about two quick things. Number one, in this video I primarily discuss California law, because that is where I have a license to practice law. However, I don't intend for this just to apply to people in California, I want it to apply to everybody in the United States. So if you don't live in California, I highly recommend that you keep watching because this video will raise critical questions that you can then go get answers to according to your state's law. Or better yet, you can call a lawyer in your state and ask these questions too. Number two, I'm making this video for my ultimate guide to wrongful termination law page on my website. That webpage dives deep into California law on wrongful termination. It has multiple videos, uses an easy table of contents, no legal jargon, and is meant to help everyday people just like you understand your rights. If I might say so, it is the best online source for wrongful termination information. Let's first take a look at the fundamentals. To understand this complicated area of law, you must first understand two very important things. Number one, there is a significant difference between terminations that are unfair and terminations that are illegal. Just because you were fired for something that somebody else wasn't fired for doesn't mean that you were wrongfully terminated. For example, let's say you're a salesperson and you didn't hit your numbers this year. As a result, the company fired you. Let's also say that Joe is also in sales and he also didn't hit his numbers, but Joe is not fired. Does that mean that you were wrongfully terminated? It's definitely unfair. No, the company can fire you and keep Joe. There's nothing inherently unlawful about that. However, there are situations where this could be unlawful and we will get to those in just a minute. Number two, unless you have an employment contract that says otherwise, you're probably an at-will employee. The at-will doctrine says that employers can fire you for any reason under the sun except for things that the courts and Congress have decided are unlawful. For example, let's say you come into work wearing a yellow shirt. Unbeknownst to you, your boss absolutely hates the color yellow. He marches into your cubicle and fires you on the spot. The at-will doctrine permits your employer to fire you for something as silly as the color of your shirt, but again, there are situations where this could be unlawful. Keep watching because we're about to get to them. Let's next take a quick look at the legal definition of wrongful termination. There are two main types of wrongful termination that we need to define and examine. The first is contractual and the second, far more common, is public policy. Let's quickly take a look at contractual wrongful termination and get it out of the way. Contractual wrongful termination is where the employee has an employment contract with the employer that says he or she cannot be fired except for a good cause or when the contract says he or she will be employed for a specific length of time or a contract term. For example, a two-year employment term. If the employee's contract says he or she cannot be fired except for a good cause, the law says the employer cannot fire that person for reasons that are trivial, capricious, unrelated to business needs or goals, or pretextual. So in our yellow shirt example, if you had a good cause provision in your employment contract, you might have a case for wrongful termination if you were fired for wearing the yellow shirt. The other scenario is when the contract says that the employee will be employed for a certain amount of time, say for one year. If the employer fires the employee before that period of time is up, he or she can file suit. This usually applies to high-level executives, artists, and people with extremely rare and valuable skill sets. Now let's switch gears and look at the big kahuna public policy. In California and in many other states, most employees are legally presumed to be at will. Once again, that means their employer can fire them for any reason under the sun, even arbitrary reasons. However, if the employer fired or laid off an at-will employee for a reason that violates public policy, the termination becomes unlawful. Let me say that one more time. If you are fired for a reason that violates public policy, your termination becomes unlawful. So obviously, we need to define what public policy means. In California, the Supreme Court says that it's unlawful to terminate anyone if they refuse to violate a state or federal constitutional provision, a state or federal law or statute, or certain administrative regulations which inure to the benefit of the public. Now I know that's a bunch of legal mumbo-jumbo, so let's take a look at some examples so you can get an idea of what I actually mean. One, if you complain about an unsafe work environment and you're fired for your complaint, that would violate public policy. Two, if you refuse to participate in unlawful harassment and you make your opposition to it known and then you get fired for it, that would violate public policy. Three, if you report your boss for doing something unlawful and you get fired for your report, that would violate public policy. Four, if you're in sales and the company fires you to avoid having to pay you commissions that are due to you, that would be a violation of public policy. Five, if you refuse to violate FAA regulations, that would violate public policy because it's an administrative regulation that is for the public's benefit. You know, safe airplanes. Six, if you complain about not getting paid proper overtime, minimum wage, or mandatory breaks, and then you're fired for your complaint, that would violate public policy. Seven, if you're a healthcare worker and you complain about patient safety issues and you're fired for your complaint, that would definitely violate public policy. Last but not least, if your boss asks you to fire someone because of their race, religion, gender, discrimination, pregnancy, age, or any other protected area, and you refuse to do that, and you get fired for insubordination, that would violate public policy. This is just a short example list. There are literally hundreds of reasons. If I didn't mention the reason that you believe applies to you, go to my ultimate guide to wrongful termination law on my website. You can scroll through all the reasons to see if your employer violated the law. I'll leave a link at the bottom of the video. Before we go on, I want to make sure you picked up on something really important. In all eight of these examples, the termination was substantially motivated by the employee complaining, reporting, or refusing to do something. This is very important. Now there are definitely some limitations and drawbacks to wrongful termination. First, it's highly unlikely that your employer is going to leave smoking gun evidence or admit that they fired you for one of these unlawful public policy reasons. Your lawyer's job will be to prove that the reason they told you was for your termination is a lie, and the real reason was a violation of public policy. This is called pretext, and I've made an entire video about it, which I'll link below. Second, you need to be terminated. We get a lot of phone calls from people who just quit their job because of one of these reasons. Now, in some rare situations, you can file a wrongful termination lawsuit even if you quit. These are called constructive terminations. I won't get into the details here. If you want to know more, go to my wrongful termination guide. There's a lot of detail there. Third, and interestingly, wrongful termination law doesn't apply to employees of public employers, even though it's all about public policy. I know it's weird, and there is a reason for it, which I won't get into in this video, but don't worry. If you work for a public entity and you think you were fired in violation of public policy, there are a lot of overlapping employment laws which probably still apply to you, so you might still have a case. Call a lawyer for a consultation. Finally, let's talk about money. If you are terminated and you file a wrongful termination lawsuit, there are certain types of remedies that you might recover. We'll talk about that first, and then we'll talk about the amount that you might recover. First on the types, number one are economic damages. These are your lost wages and benefits. If you were making $100,000 a year and you were wrongfully terminated, you're not making $100,000 a year anymore. That's a very tangible economic loss that a jury can measure. Second are emotional distress damages. This is for the pain and suffering that somebody goes through after a wrongful termination. These damages are very real and can't be faked, and in significant cases, these are much larger than the economic damages. Third, punitive damages. These are the damages meant to punish the company for acting really bad with malice, oppression, or fraud. They're very hard to get, but can be done with the right facts and a good lawyer. Finally, attorney fees. In a pure wrongful termination case, you're not going to get that, but if you can piggyback a claim where you are able to recover that, then you potentially can. How much? How much can we get for these types of cases? Some cases settle for millions of dollars, but the far majority settle for much less than that. How much will your case recover? That depends. I made an entire video on how lawyers value wrongful termination cases, and I put that video on my Ultimate Guide to Wrongful Termination Law webpage. If you want to know what these cases settle for, I highly recommend that you go watch that video there because it'll explain everything on how we value them. Obviously, this video is just meant to be the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the topic of wrongful termination. If you want to learn more, I highly recommend that you visit my Ultimate Guide to Wrongful Termination Law on my website. I'll leave a link below. Now, if you are in California and you think that you have a case and you want to get it reviewed by a lawyer, my office would be happy to review it. Here's my contact information. Other than that, thank you for taking the time to learn about wrongful termination. I hope you have a wonderful day. Take care.