Legal Question in Employment Law in California
I work in the film industry, and was recently fired from a production. I was being paid through a payroll company, so I was considered an employee, not a freelance contractor. My crew deal with the production states that I am an employee for the production of the film, but I was fired one week into pre-production, because a new hire that they brought in wanted to bring in his own person to fill the job that I was already doing. Do I have a case for breach of contract and/or wrongful termination?
The work I did for them includes a breakdown of their script, and the schedule for the entire film. Do these constitute intellectual property? Can I bar them from using it?
2 Answers from Attorneys
Do I have a case...
No.
Unless an employee is civil service, in a union, or has a written employment contract, they are an 'at will' employee that can be disciplined or terminated any time for any reason, with or without �cause�, explanation or notice.
You were paid to do work on scripts or other things. That doesn't make you the owner of them, any more than someone working on a factory assembly line becomes the owner of what he is assembling.
Mr. Nelson is correct about your work product belonging to them, not you. Whether you have a case or not depends on the exact wording and intentions behind your agreement to work on the production. As Mr. Nelson says, if you have a written employment contract, the terms of that contract will govern whether you had a right to continued employment or not. If it does not cover that, then they were free to fire you at will. You need to take your agreement to an attorney for review.
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