Legal Question in Employment Law in Oregon

Re: hostile work environment

In Oregon, as in many other states, employment is "at-will" which means the employer does not have to have a good reason, or even any reason, to terminate or to take other forms of adverse action against an employee, including creating a hostile environment. An action by an employer or its managers is illegal only if the decision breaches a contract of some sort, is discriminatory on the basis of some protected classification (such as age, race, disability, religion, national origin, sex, marital status, for example), is in retaliation for protected activity (such as whistleblowing, complaining about unpaid wages or overtime, bringing a claim against the employer, etc.), or is done in a particularly abusive way. (This latter category of particularly abusive conduct requires highly extreme and outrageous conduct. The claim rarely succeeds.)

The starting point to analyze a discharge or even abusive conduct is to identify the reason for the termination or adverse employment action (i.e., hostile environment). If the employer won't admit its reason, an employee must speculate about what might have been the cause, and then investigate. An Oregon statute gives employees the right to demand personnel records the employer has used to make the termination decision: ORS 652.750. A records demand might reveal the reason. If an illegal reason cannot be identified, however, the discharge may not be illegal, because under the at-will doctrine an employer is in fact free to terminate for any reason, even a bad or untrue reason, if it is not otherwise illegal. Same for creating an abusive work environment.

If an employee works under a contract of employment, either individually negotiated or collectively bargained (union), then employment is not at-will, but is governed by the terms of the contract. Also, contract rights may arise from policies, oral promises that are specific and upon which an employee specifically and reasonably relied, and possibly in other circumstances.

NOTE: The above does not constitute legal opinion and is offered for the purposes of discussion only. The law differs in every jurisdiction, and you should not rely on any opinion except that of an attorney you have retained, who has a professional duty to advise you after being fully informed of all the pertinent facts and who is familiar with the applicable law.