South Carolina Employment Contracts Legal Questions

In South Carolina, as in the rest of the United States, employment is on an "at will" basis. That means that your employer may terminate you at any time for any reason or no reason at all. Your employer need not have a good reason for your termination and you are not entitled to a "trial" or to disprove the charges against you. If you have exhausted opportunities to plead your case to top management, then you are likely done. You might want to discuss the matter with a local attorney.... Read More

You should not sign a contract with which you don't agree, but you need to know that, unless you have a current contract in place, you are an employee at will and can already be fired without cause or notitication (including for refusing to sign the offered contract) and your pay can be cut without cause or notice.... Read More

It doesn't state in the original contract that you have to repay the severance compensation, but it also doesn't say that you will be employed at a different position.  Your former employer is doing something it is not obligated to do - offering you a new position.  It has every right to condition that offer on you doing something for it - for example, requiring that you acquire additional training or, in this case, that you repay your severance package.  However, of course you can negotiate the amount, or any other term, until and unless you have reached an agreement.... Read More

1.  Liquidated damages just means that the amount of damages are certain.  For example, if someone breached a contract to put up a bullboard advertising your business, you may claim that, due to that breach, you lost profits from sales  you would have made had the billboard been erected.  The amount of such damages is unliquidated.  If someone breached an agreement to pay you a specified sum of money, however, as in your case, the amount of damages from that breach is liquidated.  2.  There is nothing in your question to indicate any basis for you to receive double damages, and at any rate the Court cannot award you more than the jurisdictional limit on its authority.  3.  Wages and bonuses, whether paid as earned or awarded as damages in a lawsuit, are taxable income.  In other words, the income would be taxable if your employer paid it as he/she/it was supposed to.  The income doesn't become non-taxable just because it's awarded by a Court, although you may be able to deduct any expenses you incurred to obtain and enforce the award (like Court filing fees, etc.)... Read More

As a general matter, a private sector employer may terminate (or suspend) an employee at any time for any reason or no reason at all. Courts will usually not involve themselves in weighing the quality of the "evidence" that supports an employee termination, since the employer was privileged to effectuate the termination without evidence.... Read More