Unjust, unfair and dishonestly laid off
My employer laid off 1 senior flight attendant using discipline. They laid off 4 pilots and myself, a dispatcher, and said that since we all scored the same on evaluations, they had to use seniority for the pilots and dispatchers. I was the least senior, had a excellent work record, performance and skill evaluations and no disciplinary problems at all. One fo my other co-workers has had disciplianry problems in the past, but were never documented, as I told they would be, or the documentation disappeared, for several reasons I can think of. Everybody denies there were disciplinary problems, but I have current and former employees who will testify differently. The pilots never had any disciplinary issues, so therefore, seniority was the right thing to do. I think it is unfair, unjust and dishonest that they used disciplinary issues against the flight attendant, which she will testify is true, and not my co-worker. Do I have any kind of legal recourse here?
1 answer | asked Nov 1, 2003 4:47 PM [EST] | applies to New York
Answers (1)
When you are dealing with a situation where an employer is laying-off people for economic reasons, courts are very hesitant about second guessing the basis on which the employer selects employees for termination. If an employer uses a criteria like seniority for termination, the courts become even more hesitant about second guessing the employer, because a criteria like seniority is viewed as being objective. (It is also usually easy to determine and verify.)
Courts will definitely not be receptive to an argument that basically goes "I'm a better employee than they are." Determining "better" is very difficult to do, and courts know they are not very good at doing something like that.
Besides, there is the employment at will doctrine, which would allow the employer to fire an employee even if everybody agrees an employee is the best. The law permits employers to make bad decisions. Employees don't get any protection simply because an employer makes a bad decision.
To have any chance of succeeding on a case involving a lay-off, you will need to show that the selection criteria was infected by some motivation made illegal by law. That is, the employer says one thing, but the evidence actually shows the employer wanted to do something else.
One example might involve race discrimination. That is, the employer says employees were terminated based on seniority, but, if you gather the evidence and look at it, the employer's real reason was that someone wanted to get rid of as many employees belonging to a particular race as possible.
That is one example. Many others can be raised. But you see what we are talking about. Maybe you have something if you believe the employer is lying, and has an ulterior motive in selecting certain employees for termination.
posted by David M. Lira | Nov 3, 2003 09:10 AM [EST]
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