Legal Question in Employment Law in Texas

Re: Pre-employment background check

Most employers will simply provide dates of work and perhaps position. Some will respond to whether an employee is "eligible for rehire." There is, however, no requirement that an employer limit its responses in that fashion.

An employer cannot, contrary to what many employees and some employers seem to think, be successfully sued for any truthful response to a question as to whether someone was fired or not, or if they give their opinion about an employee's job performance, or comment accurately on any other aspect of the employee relationship.

You are on sound ground, however, to reply that you resigned. It is truthful and it is probable that this is as far as it goes. Your previous employer could, however, say that he was going to fire you because of your mistake on the project and offered you the choice of resigning.

By the way, employers often do that as a way to beat employees out of unemployment compensation, so employees should be wary of "resigning" in lieu of termination if they will be without a job when they leave.