QUESTION
Do I have grounds to sue for wrongful termination?
Asked on Dec 06th, 2013 on Wrongful Termination - Nevada
More details to this question:
Me and another employee were fired for gross misconduct and they sited a 2 month old Instant Message between me and said employee. No warnings, just termination. This instant message was not seen by any one at the time it was made. The instant messages are saved and can be reviewed by the company management at any time. I had worked there for several years and had used the instant message feature thousands of times, exchanging vulgar, offensive things with other employees in the past, but they only sited this one conversation and terminated me and this one other employee.
1 ANSWER
R. Christopher Reade
There are a multitude of issues which you have raised in your question. As far as keeping your job, Nevada is generally an at-will employment state where your employer can dismiss you for no reason at all, so long as it is not a prohibited reason. "Since employees in Nevada are presumed to be at-will, an employer can dismiss an at-will employee with or without cause, so long as the dismissal does not offend this state's public policy. State of Nevada v. Dist. Ct. (Anzalone), 118 Nev. 140, 151, 42 P.3d 233, 240 (2002)." While there are limited exceptions to the at-will employment doctrine, the Nevada Supreme Court has made clear that these exceptions are “severely limited to those rare and exceptional cases where the employer's conduct violates strong and compelling public policy.” Sands Regent v. Valgardson, 105 Nev. 436, 440, 777 P.2d 898, 900 (1989). Therefore unless (a) you have a contract which specifies a different protocol for dismissal or (b) believe that the dismissal was pretextual for some other prohibited reason, you would not most likely have a claim against your employer.
Answered on Dec 06th, 2013 at 8:10 PM