Legal Risk Opportunities

Legal Risk and Opportunity in Employment

University of Phoenix

Legal Encounter 1

Briefing: Pat Grey was offered a position with Newcorp which caused for relocation three hundred miles away in which his spouse would be required to leave her current employment , while their children enter new schools in which the Grey's would have to sell their home and start from scratch. Contingent upon Pat's acceptance of employment as manager of real property Pat acknowledged and signed a binding document outlining the terms and provisions of his employment deemed to be "at will". Pat was released after only three months (University of Phoenix Syllabus 2009).

Case: Wrongful termination and employee discrimination, Pat was released from his position as manager with no notice or record of there ever being a problem with an offering of thirty days severance pay. According to the employee handbook Newcorp has a policy of corrective action (CAP) in which to follow before the termination of any employee. The corrective action policy simply states: If the job performance of an employee is unsatisfactory, the employee will be notified of the deficiency and placed on a Corrective Action Plan (CAP). If the employee performance does not improve to a satisfactory level within the specified period of time, termination will follow (University of Phoenix Syllabus 2009). Newcorp directly violated the rights of the employee by failing to notify Grey of is unsatisfactory perform as well as failing to offer corrective action under the company CAP policy as a means to correct and improve employee performance. It is also believed that Pat may have not lost his job due to poor performance because there is no discourse of action records showing any verbals or written counsel for poor performance but, it is led to believe that alleged comments made outside of the workplace at the school board may have played a role in Grey's termination. The senior management has been noticeably rude and...