San Francisco Employment Law Firm Blog
Suppose your boss engages in what’s clear to be a discriminatory conduct toward you because of your age, race, gender, or because the employer is really unhappy that you filed a workers comp claim or harassment complaint. You are not terminated yet, but you know that it’s only a matter of time before you are being fired for some bogus reason. In frustration, you decide to leave an angry voicemail or send an angry, rude e-mail to your boss, calling him names and telling him how much you hate him and your job. Then, as you expected – you are terminated. The reason for termination, among other things, is your rude communication.
At this point, if you bring a discrimination or wrongful termination case in court, your task will be no just showing evidence of discriminatory actions by your manager against you, but you will also have to show that the real reason for your termination is not your rude communication with the employer but all the other illegal reasons that you claim were involved. This is a much harder task, and it’s often impossible. Unless you can point at one or more other employees who weren’t disciplined by the same manager who terminated you, even though they were just as rude as you were, your chances of proving your case will be low.
You may think that your rude communication is justified because your employer has been so unfair to you and they have been treating you so badly for such a long period of time, and you might be right. However, this argument is completely irrelevant, and it is not going to help you in court. It is therefore critical that you never, ever leave any track of any kind of rude communication toward your employer, no matter what happens, and even if the employer is being rude to you. This will give your employer and their attorney less weapons to fight your wrongful termination case, which will translate into higher chance of successful settlement or resolution of your case, once the time comes for that.