Serious Question... need Lawyers point of view?
My husband was (until today) employeed by a franscised company. A Couple weeks ago the owner of the store pulled his aside and told him "I don't like you (husbands name) I don't know why but i just don't like you." My husband then apologized and walked out of the office and continued his work. On Wednesday, my husband was again called into his office and the owner got after him for his paper work that is 99.9% of the time perfect and this one paper had a number that had been scratched out and replaced with the correct number along with a coupon that had gone with the paper work had fallen off the clip board on to the floor by the trash can. The owner got very upset and my husband stood there and just aplogized. Once the paperwork had been taken care of and my husband had found the coupon the owner then proceeded to tell my husband that he didnt like it when my husband answered him back. (puzzles me why ask?) The owner told him to get out of the shop. Yesterday he called to see if he
Answers:
Unless your husband had a contract, his employment was what's called "at-will". The law with respect to at-will employment is that your employer can fire you for good reason, bad reason, or no reason at all. The only exception is that you cannot be fired on account of race, religion, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc.; but, that is just that -- an exception, and it is very narrowly construed by courts. Your employer can fire you because he thinks you are not attractive enough, because he wants to replace you with a relative, because he doesn't like the way you chew your food, etc. The overarching legal principle here is that courts will not interfere with how private companies conduct their business unless ABSOLUTELY clearly authorized by the legislature.
So the bottom line is, your husband's employer was within his rights to dislike him "just because" and to fire him for it. Unless, of course, you can actually prove that this happened because of your husband's race, ethnicity, etc.
If your husband was a unionized employee, I'd take it up with the union, but that's about the extent of his remedies.
UPDATED: If your husband was "contracted", then his contract should spell out how and under what circumstances he may be fired. Typically, from the employee's point of view, the only reason to enter into an employment contract is to limit the employer's ability to fire or demote him. However, if the contract is silent on that issue, then the same at-will rules I discussed above apply.
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