Wrongful Termination: How you can protect your rights as an employer

Employers lose over seventy percent of all wrongful termination cases brought to court. That’s the harsh reality. As an employer you would not want to go to court as much as possible as there’s a good chance that you will lose and end up bankrupt. Hence, as an employer you could consider following this tips to avoid getting wrongful termination lawsuits.

• Prepare and follow your personnel policies
• Always treat your employees fairly and be consistent in your employment practices
• Make sure that your personnel manual and employment contract explicitly states the right to terminate any employee if you intend to reserve it.
• Make sure to post required notices of the laws against employment discrimination.
• Document all discipline issues
• Before deciding on terminating an employee, thoroughly review the facts and make sure all of the factors that could give rise to wrongful termination claims have been considered.

Nevertheless, even though employers make every effort to implement and follow the legal policies to avoid getting wrongful termination lawsuits, most employers are still at the disadvantage when these types of cases arise. These are probably for the following reasons:

First, the jury is oftentimes more sympathetic with the terminated employee. So even if your case against the employee is strong, you may still lose in court. The best thing you can do as an employer to stay out of court is to write a separation agreement with a release of claims and convince the employee to sign it.

Second, you have to build a case before you fire an employee. A jury would not believe you if you do not have satisfactory documentation. Say for instance, before firing an employee for bad performance and behavior, give him a fair warning first. Then give him time to improve. If after three chances the employee is still unable to live up to the expectations of his job, then you are justified in firing the employee.

Third, do not fire for illegal and unjustifiable reasons. The jury would only frown on your illegal reasons and feel sympathy on the reasons you have given them.

So what should you possibly do to avoid these costly lawsuits? The answer is simple: only fire employees for legitimate reasons. If you follow the tips mentioned earlier, your case will be much stronger and your chance of losing will be lessened significantly.