As an employee in Virginia, unless you have an employment contract, you are “at will,” which means you can quit, or be fired, at any time for any reason or no reason. The only exception is that the employer can’t fire you for an illegal reason. The main ones are race, gender, religion, ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, and complaints about violations of the law. But a company isn’t required to supervise you or give you orientation about jack policies. “Any reason or no reason” really does mean what it says. I like to say that in Virginia, you can be hired to do data entry, and the company can refuse to give you a computer or any data to enter, then fire you without warning for not doing your job.
It’s a different situation if everyone is breaking the jack policies and only you got fired. Then, we look at whether the company used the rule violation as an excuse to fire you when their real reason was, say, gender discrimination. If you’re a woman and the employees who broke the rules but didn’t get fired are all men, that can suggest a discriminatory reason for firing you.
Also, the question is different when you’re applying for unemployment benefits. The company will have to show that you knew about the policy (or should have known about it) and still broke the rules. Otherwise, you should be entitled to benefits.
Answered on Apr 03rd, 2013 at 1:00 PM