Employment at Will Legal 500

Employment-at-Will Doctrine

Professor Augustine Weekley

Legal 500

Law, Ethics & Corp. Governance

April 28, 2014

Abstract

Employment at Will is a legal rule that developed in the nineteenth century, giving employers’ unfettered power to “dismiss their employees at will for good cause, for no cause, or even for cause morally wrong, without being thereby guilty of a legal wrong.” The economic philosophy of laissez-faire provided theoretical support for employment-at-will. Its legal underpinnings consisted mainly of “freedom of contract,” the idea that the individuals are free to choose how to dispose of what they own, including their labor, as they see fit, and that the voluntary contractual promises they make are legitimately enforceable by the discussion of the importance of the problem followed by its evolution and current status. Employment at Will is defined as the right of an employee to quit the services of the employer, for whatever reason, is the same as the right of the employer, for whatever reason, to dispense with the services of such employee. In more simple terms, the common law rule that holds that whenever an employment relationship is of an indefinite duration either party—the employer or the employee—may terminate the relationship at any time, for good cause or bad, in good faith or with malice. With a few exceptions to the rule, the earliest adjustments to the doctrine of employment-at-will were made as workers fought for the right to organize and form unions. In 1935, they were guaranteed these rights, and not long after, the U.S. Supreme Court announced that an employer could not use employment-at-will as a means of “intimidate[ing] or coerc[ing] its employees with respect to their self organization.” In other words, employees could not be fired as punishment for attempting to organize themselves into unions. Although at this writing only a fairly narrow slice of the U.S. workforce is...