At-will employment and its exceptions
At-will employment means an employer generally does not need a good reason to fire someone. Being dismissed unfairly, arbitrarily or on the basis of a mistake is not, by itself, unlawful. A wrongful termination claim exists only where the reason falls into a prohibited category.
The main exceptions are discrimination on a protected characteristic; retaliation for protected activity; breach of an express or implied contract, including many collective bargaining agreements; and dismissal that violates a clear public policy, such as firing someone for refusing to break the law, serving on a jury or filing a workers’ compensation claim.
Federal law protects race, colour, religion, sex including pregnancy, sexual orientation and gender identity, national origin, age from 40, disability and genetic information. Many states protect more, and some cover smaller employers than the federal thresholds reach.
The EEOC deadline is short and easy to miss
Federal discrimination claims normally require filing a charge with the EEOC before suing, generally within 180 days of the adverse action, extended to 300 days where a state or local agency enforces a parallel law. Missing it usually forfeits the federal claim regardless of merit.
Retaliation is the most common claim
Retaliation has become the single most frequently filed category of discrimination charge, and it is often easier to prove than the underlying complaint. The reason is structural: an employee can lose the discrimination claim on the merits and still win the retaliation claim, provided their original complaint was made in good faith.
A retaliation claim requires protected activity, an adverse action, and a causal link. Protected activity includes complaining internally about discrimination, participating in an investigation, requesting a disability accommodation, or reporting safety or wage violations. Close timing between the complaint and the adverse action is frequently the strongest available evidence.
Constructive dismissal and what claims recover
An employee who resigns can sometimes still claim wrongful termination, on the basis that conditions were made so intolerable a reasonable person would have felt compelled to leave. The standard is demanding — ordinary unpleasantness, a poor manager or a disliked reassignment will not meet it — and courts generally expect the employee to have raised the problem before resigning.
Recovery typically includes back pay from dismissal to judgment, front pay or reinstatement, and compensation for emotional distress. Federal discrimination statutes cap combined compensatory and punitive damages on a sliding scale by employer size, though back pay generally sits outside the cap. Prevailing employees can usually recover legal fees, which materially changes the economics of these cases.
Mitigation reduces what you recover
Claimants are generally expected to look for comparable work. Earnings from a new job are normally deducted from back pay, and a failure to search reasonably can reduce an award even where the dismissal was plainly unlawful.
Related Claims Elsewhere on the Site
These pages sit in other categories but turn on the same cause of action covered here.
- Dairy Queen Labor Lawsuit New York: Timeline and Major Allegations
- Lawsuit Against Employer: Your Rights & How to Sue Your Company
- Perry's Steakhouse Tip Lawsuit: Timeline and Major Allegations
- Publix Lawsuit: Employee Discrimination & Consumer Claims
- Qui Tam Lawsuits: How False Claims Act Whistleblower Cases Work
- Section 504 Lawsuits: Disability Discrimination in Federally Funded Programs
- Select Rehabilitation Lawsuit: Therapy Billing Fraud & Employee Claims