Legal Question in Civil Litigation in Tennessee
Unfair review by previous employer
My husband works as a jailer for a local police department in Texas. He recently completed the police academy and has passed his TCLEOSE certification which will allow him to be a basic peace officer. He has no criminal background, never done drugs of any kind and is very honest person. A high-ranking officer or at the jail has decided he does not like him for whatever reason. When an area police department asked for a background check, he told them he was immature and male chauvinist. Also, there is something written in his personal file that my husband is unaware of. He was not given a written reprimand that he has had to sign letting him know there is a problem. If he needed improvement, he was never told. Now, that is making it difficult to fulfill his dream because this one person keeps giving him a bad review when everyone else around has always been happy with his work. Is this allowed, this is causing us extreme distress and I am concerned for our future. We have 2 children and one on the way. Any advice would be very helpful. I�m so angry I would love to sue them.
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Unfair review by previous employer
First, let me start off with a caveat. I am a Tennessee attorney and not licensed in Texas. Many of the issues I see in your situation are issues of Texas state law and would require a Texas attorney to answer. With that said, generally an employee's personnel file is going to be a public record and your husband should be able to view his complete file and determine what its contents are. If your husband is a civil service employee and/or a member of a union, he may have additional rights to challenge anything inaccurate contained in the file.
In addressing his bad references, you are faced with a much more difficult situation. In Tennessee, for example, an employer is going to have a limited privilege to tell any prospective employer virtually anything related to any aspect of the employee's job duties in response to a reference request. This is a statutory law in Tennessee and may be different in Texas. The approach your husband may want to take is to find a friendly reference within the department and direct all inquiries to that person. It has to be someone with enough standing in the department to give an employment reference and must be someone with whom or for whom your husband worked.
What you have is a very difficult situation. I would recommend contacting a Texas attorney directly, sitting down with him or her and explaining your situation. The attorney should be able to guide you through areas of Texas law that can be of assistance to your situation.
If you have additional questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.
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