Legal Question in Employment Law in California
wrongful termination?
After successfully completing my 90 period -with compliments, a new GM came into my store. In casual conversation I told him that I was seeing a doctor due to back spasms (never on company time -always on my days off) -accupuncture, etc. He told me in great length about his ex wifes history of problems. I had similiar and said so. I've had a couple of back surgeries but nothing to keep me from doing my job so I never disclosed this information. For a week he kept telling me I reminded him of his ex wife who was a ''mess'', ''a nightmare''. One week after disclosing my history I was given written notice of unsatisfactory work -this was on 9/21/06. They gave me until 10/08/06 to correct the long list of specifics. I gave my all to correct the ''problems'' knowing it was a means to get me out due to my back history. I was terminated before the date specified on the review.
I was walked out with pay up to the day before I left.
Q: Do they owe me more as a salaried employee.
Q: Can they cancel my health insurance? (I've received nothing about COBRA after asking for the past month).
Q: Can they fire me before the date specified? They gave cause but didn't need to -did they paint themselves into a corner?
Thank you!
4 Answers from Attorneys
Re: wrongful termination?
If you have a claim it would be that you were fired for being viewed as disabled by your company boss, or for being retaliated against for the disclosure -- there would be two important areas of inquiry -- how strong is your proof that your boss was told about your back problems (do you have documents or witnesses), and how strong is your proof that what they wrote you up for was pretextual -- meaning, they made it up -- were the performance problems real, or not, -- how good were your past performance reviews, did you get raises, etc.
Given the facts you present, you arguably have a case -- how strong that case is depends on answers to the above two areas.
Re: wrongful termination?
I need more facts before I can answer your question. I am not clear whether your back pains were work-related or not and I am not clear whether you were trying to report your injury to your supervisor. Call me at 213.388.7070 for a free consultation.
Re: wrongful termination?
I think you might have a claim for gender discrimination, since his ex-wife was a "mess." You might explore whether he took out his marital hostilities on you.
Re: wrongful termination?
Your burden is in proving to a legal standard that your back problems amounted to a disability, and proving they discriminated against you. You already said you withheld info on your actual problem and basically denied a disability, so how would you propose to do those things? You also have to disprove as 'pretext' all the things they said you did wrong.
You ARE entitled to notice of your rights to COBRA conversion of your insurance, within 30 days, so they may have liability for any medical bills you incur that would have been covered. If it is worth it to you to pursue the insurance, feel free to contact me to discuss what your rights and remedies are there. With that actual problem for them, you may be able to leverage them into a severance/settlement package, rather than be sued.
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