Legal Question in Employment Law in California
Dear LawGurus,
I was recently laid off from my company due to a necessity to terminate my position and I feel all the process was quite irregular. I have the following questions.
Termination Letter: First, they gave me a termination letter effective from that day and a severance of two weeks. However, I remembered that I had a termination notice period of 15 days for mutual parties and I mentioned it. We reviewed my contracted and they agreed and then they sent me a "Notice of Termination Letter". Is it legal to send me the first termination letter breaking our contract though they corrected it afterwards?
Notice of Termination Letter: In the notice of termination letter, they suppressed my severance and change it by my 15 days. Is this correct?
Legal content: The letter mention about protecting any knowledge or company information and in the event of any breach of obligations could result in serious legal consequences.
They suggested me to sign the letters but I refused because I don't really understand the consequences or what is the information they are talking about. Should I sign it?
Last Paycheck: after making corrections to my "termination letter" and renaming it as "notice of termination letter", they wanted to give me the check and they were really insisting. I started to become suspicious and I suggested them to send me by mail but they refused and wanted to give by hand.
I think all the process was quite irregular and I am quite confused about it. I hope you can help me to clarify it and take the right decision about how to act.
Thank you in advance,
1 Answer from Attorneys
1. Yes. The first letter is not a breach of the contract if they do not proceed with it. This amounts to nothing but an honest mistake that was corrected with no ultimate breach of the contract.
2. Second letter. Yes, according to what you say your contract said, that would be the correct thing for them to do.
3. You are under no obligation to sign it, but it sounds like the letter just contains a warning about the law of confidential business information and trade secrets.
4. The reason they want to give it to you by hand is that there are strict deadlines on when a final paycheck must be provided to a terminated employee, and monetary penalties for failure to give the check on time. Naturally they want proof they gave it to you and did so on time. Having you come in and get it is the safest way to do that. Perfectly reasonable.
So in short, there is nothing irregular in what they have done.
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