Second, the court can order that the employer reinstate you, or give you your old job back. In other words, the employer’s argument will be that part of your damages are your own fault and shouldn’t be paid by the employer. If you failed to look for other work, or turned down a job that was offered to you, the employer will try to persuade the court that you failed to mitigate your damages, meaning that your damages should be reduced because you didn’t make a good-faith effort to find new work. If you were able to find other work after being fired, your damages will probably be reduced by the pay you receive in your new job. Back Payįirst, the court can award back pay-that is, the pay (including the value of benefits) that you would have received if you had not been terminated and stayed in your old job, up to the date of the court’s judgment. This goal is often called “making you whole.” 1. If a court concludes that you were terminated in violation of public policy, the court can award you various remedies, with the goal of putting you in the same financial position as if you had not been fired. What Remedies Are Available When a Firing Violates Public Policy? So the court held that the workers had a claim for wrongful termination because they said that they had been fired for doing what the law required them to do. The court noted that Wisconsin law requires nursing-home workers to report resident abuse and neglect-in fact, nursing-home workers who knowingly allow abuse or neglect to occur may face criminal penalties. Under the second category, the Wisconsin Supreme Court considered two nursing-home employees who said that they had been terminated in retaliation for filing reports regarding neglect and abuse of nursing-home residents. The court held that the employee had a claim for wrongful termination because the credit union’s order to repay the amount of the check went against the public policy found in a Wisconsin statute that prohibits employers from making deductions from employees’ wages for their mistakes. The public-policy exception doesn’t protect a worker who was fired for voluntarily doing the right thing, such as filing a complaint about plant safety or suggesting ways to improve workplace efficiency.įor example, under the first category, the Wisconsin Supreme Court considered the case of a credit-union employee who was fired after she refused to repay the credit union for a forged check that she had cashed. she was fired because she did something that public policy required her to do. she was fired because she refused a command by her employer to do something that went against public policy orī. Second, the employee must show either that:Ī. The basic idea is that the public policy of the state must be found in state law-that is, the Wisconsin constitution, state statutes passed by the legislature, and administrative rules written by state agencies.Ģ. ![]() 2d 561, 573, 335 N.W.2d 834 (1983).īut what is “public policy”? It’s not just what an employee-or even a judge-thinks is a good idea. First, she must identify a “fundamental and well-defined public policy” at issue in her termination. To have a claim for wrongful termination under the public-policy exception, an employee must do two things:ġ. ![]() if you work in a unionized workplace with a collective bargaining agreement, your employer might be able to terminate you only for “just cause” or “good cause”īut even if you’re not protected by a statute like the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or the Wisconsin Fair Employment Act, and even if you aren’t protected by an individual employment contract or a collective bargaining agreement, you might be protected by what courts call “public policy.”. ![]()
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