When someone is terminated from employment, they naturally wonder if they may have been “wrongfully terminated”. To determine if an employee has been “wrongfully terminated”, the starting point to analyze a case begins with a legal doctrine in Texas known as “employment at will”. If think you have a case, then feel free to contact a San Antonio wrongful termination lawyer at the McKinney Law Firm.

Employment At Will and Wrongful Termination

In Texas, employment at will is the primary reason that employers use to terminate employees. An employer in Texas may terminate an employee “at will”. This means the company does not need a good reason or a valid reason to terminate an employee. In fact, an employer may terminate an employee with no reason at all, even though that may not make much sense. Additionally, employee bullying by the employer only illegal if it is based on a protected EEO category (age, race, sex, etc).

But while “employment at will” is the default in Texas, employees do enjoy certain legal protections from being terminated for certain reasons. Those protections come from federal and state laws that provide employees with protections from “wrongful termination” in certain circumstances.

Our San Antonio Wrongful Termination Lawyer is Here and Can Help You

“Wrongful termination” is a generic term. Legally speaking, it doesn’t mean very much. Anytime someone is terminated, they naturally feel as though they have been “wrongfully terminated”. A Board-Certified Labor and Employment attorney will be able to explain to you how wrongful termination has a more specific meaning based upon specific laws that protect employees from termination.

State and federal laws are designed to protect employees from being demoted, discriminated against or terminated because of protected traits and characteristics. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, The Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Texas Commission on Human Rights Act, for example, protect employees from being terminated because of:

• Gender or Sex

• Pregnancy

• Age

• Race or National Origin, or

• Disability

• Making a Workers Compensation Claim

• Reporting EEO Discrimination Within the Employer

• Reporting Safety or Legal Violations in a Health Care Facility

• Reporting Fraudulent Medical Billing to Medicare or Medicaid

• Reporting Fraud Within a Publicly Traded Company

These Texas state and federal laws also protect against retaliation. An employer may not retaliate and terminate an employee because the employee may have complained about or reported discrimination in the workplace. There are several protections in Texas state and federal laws designed to protect employees from such retaliation and termination.

Protections For Employees in San Antonio and Austin, Texas

In addition to these Texas state and federal laws that provide protection to employees, there are additional laws that protect employees who refuse to commit an illegal act on behalf of the employer if that illegal act carries a criminal penalty. If an employer uses that refusal as the basis to terminate the employee, then the employee has been wrongfully terminated.

There are other protections for employees from being terminated at will. You can learn more about these protections against wrongful termination on our website.

Summing It Up

Although Texas is an “at-will” state which allows the employer, or the employee, to terminate the employment relationship at any time, for any reason or no reason at all, there are a number of legally recognized protections under Texas state and federal law that act to protect the employee from “wrongful termination”.

Free Case Evaluation

You’ve taken the first step to protecting yourself and your family. We hope you find the resources on this website useful to learn more about your rights under the law. That’s the first step.

Then, when you’re ready to take the next step…