Legal Question in Civil Litigation in Oregon

Employment termination

My wife accepted a job at a top rated national brokerage firm 30 days ago. She replaced a long time employee who was not satisfied with her job. My wife was released today and her manager sited the reason for her dismissal as she didn't quite mesh. The former employee comes back to the firm replacing my wife starting Monday. Several calls by this former employee were made to brokers my wife was assigned to expressing her dissatisfaction with her new job and desire to return.

My wife worked hard and was quite fond of this position. My question, is there any legal recourse action that we can take?


Asked on 11/16/02, 2:18 am

1 Answer from Attorneys

Sam Hochberg Sam Hochberg & Associates

Re: Employment termination

You'd need to answer a lot more questions about the precise nature of your wife's relationship with the employer who canned her. But, I can explain some of the themes in the law involved. If you need a serious response to RELY on here, hire a lawyer.

The essential principal involved is this: In Oregon, absent an agreement (contract) to the contrary or a union agreement, or unless in some way your wife relied to her detriment on certain promises by her employer; in other words, if your wife was "fooled" into losing some OTHER opportunity that would have been much more lucrative (and those are WEAK grounds, usually), if none of those exceptions apply, then I think your wife probably has no recourse in Oregon.

IF, however, your wife thinks something improper has happened in connection with her termination from her job, she CAN ask for a FREE investigation from a state agency on this very issue for her. They're often MOSTLY interested in cases like discrimination based on race, ethnicity, gender-preference, gay, and sexual harrassment (which can even be "abusive" language or unwelcome and excessive sexual references in normal speech, for example). But they seem to investage an awful lot of complaints -- you should ask them questions about what their

Have her contact the Bureau of Labor and Industries, or "BOLI" -- it's a division of the state of Oregon, which you can find through the state of Oregon's website. It's fairly comprehensive. BOLI will do an intake form with you, and they will decide if they can pursue it for you. If they elect NOT to, they're usually pretty fair and thorough in explaining why. They're the good guys.

Good luck!

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Answered on 11/16/02, 6:45 am


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