Employment – At Will
Employment – At Will
BUSINESS LAW II
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Imagine you work for an employer, you are not in a union, your job is not protected by
tenure and you didn’t sign any kind of binding contract for employment. Your manager can let
you go at any time if they want to. Now some people say this is not fair. There is this term called
employment –at-will. According to the supervision text employment-at –will is a “legal concept
that employers can dismiss employees at any time and for any reasons, except unlawful
discrimination and contractual or other restrictions (Leonard, 193).”
This was first set forth in Payne v. Western & Atlantic R.R. Co. it was stated “… to
discharge or retain employees at will for good cause or for no cause, or even for bad cause
without thereby being guilty of an unlawful act per se…a right which an employee can exercise
in the same way… (Twomey, 584).” Meaning, an employee is under no obligation to continue
employment with an employer if they don’t want to; they are free to terminate their employment
at any time as well. More than eighty percent of the nation’s workforce is employed at will and
they don’t have the backing of a union, the government or individual negotiators to intervene in
“no cause” termination. “The National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws
adopted the Model Employment Termination Act, which individual states may enact to protect
the millions of at-will workers employed in the United States from being discharged without
“good cause (Twomey, 585).”
This paper will discuss the exceptions used to determine if there was a wrongful
discharge, look at cases for examples and the states positions on recognizing exceptions. It
does seem unfair for an employer to terminate an employee without cause. But our federal and
state governments have come up with policies and laws of their own to protect at-will employees
who have been wrongfully terminated. These laws limit the employment at will bond between
employees and employers. Human Resource staff have to know of these recognized exceptions
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to the EAW doctrine and what course of action employers should follow in order to defend their
EAW rights . The exceptions to the EAW doctrine can be broken down into three categories
public policy, implied contract, and covenant of good faith and fair dealing (Muhl, 2010). These
are all exceptions mandated by the federal government, but each state has their own jurisdiction
on how they recognize these exceptions. According to the public policy exception an employer
cannot terminate an employee for fulfilling legal obligations or for exercising their legal rights.
These include four major categories of conduct: “(1) declining to commit illegal or
unethical acts (2) performing a legal duty (3) exercising legal rights and (4) whistle blowing
(Mahoney).” Violation of this policy is recognized by most states, in which they have
implemented policies and torts of their own. Under federal policy, all states must adhere to
