Legal Question in Business Law in Oregon

Re: Management Talking

I presume your question has to do with whether it would be a violation of some law to discuss your termination with another coworker -- rather than the fact that you are about to be terminated.

Employment law is very specialized so you need to seek out an employment attorney (one that represents employees rather than employers) and provide the full specifics of what happened.

Personnel matters tend to be confidential and allowing them to be made public can harm someone's reputation unnecessarily.

However, in my mind, even if it was inappropriate to discuss your termination, there is still the question of what your damages would be, other than not finding out directly from the employer but through the grapevine so to speak.

So there will be a big difference whether what was said was something like "We can't afford to keep Bob on any more" vs. "Bob has to go because he's been helping himself to the cash in the register and he's been sexually harassing our customers" or even "Bob just isn't cutting it" (performance oriented termination).

These would be just my questions for you to properly frame your information if you decide to consult with an employment lawyer. Not sure if you can afford to pay one (if you're losing your job), so they'll naturally be very careful what they take on a contingency. You may want to check with BOLI which is the state agency in Oregon that has been setup to assist employees.

Also keep in mind there are short statute of limitations that may bar your claim if you wait too long.