Thank you for visiting the new Truecourse Ltd website. Over the coming weeks and months I’ll be periodically updating this section with interesting news, stories and explanations of US law and business practice.
Until this portion of the website is more fully developed, please have a look at a recent story from Florida about an extreme example of the doctrine of “at will” employment and the ironic twists it can take.
The following was taken from Yahoo, originally reported in the Florida Sun Sentinel newspaper:
LAW FIRM FIRES 14 EMPLOYEES FOR WEARING ORANGE SHIRTS
They weren’t wearing sagging pants or revealing clothing. But dressing in an orange shirt is apparently enough to get fired at one Florida law firm, where 14 workers were unceremoniously let go last Friday.
In an interview with the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, several of the fired workers say they wore the matching colors so they would be identified as a group when heading out for a happy hour event after work. They say the executive who fired them initially accused them of wearing the matching color as a form of protest against management.
Orange is widely considered to be one of the most visible colors to the human eye. Orange vests are worn by most hunters as a safety precaution and by school crossing guards. Most prisoners are required to wear orange jump suits. The color orange is arguably Florida’s defining color. The self-described “Sunshine State” is widely known for its orange juice exports.
The law offices of Elizabeth R. Wellborn, P.A. offered “no comment” to Sun-Sentinel reporter Doreen Hemlock, but four ex-employees tell the paper they were simply wearing their orange shirts to celebrate “pay day” and the upcoming Friday group happy hour.
“There is no office policy against wearing orange shirts. We had no warning. We got no severance, no package, no nothing,” Lou Erik Ambert told the paper. “I feel so violated”.
“Ironically, had the employees been wearing orange as a form of protest, it would have been illegal to fire them, ABC News reports. After the 14 employees were fired, an executive said anyone wearing orange for an “innocent reason” should speak up. At least one employee immediately denied any involvement or knowledge of a protest and explained the happy hour color coordination. Nonetheless, they were still fired.
“I’m a single mom with four kids, and I’m out of a job just because I wore orange today,” Meloney McLeod told the paper. And there’s really nothing anyone can do about the terminations since Florida is an at-will state, meaning employers can fire an employee who doesn’t have a contract “for a good reason, for a bad reason or even for the wrong reason, as long as it’s not an unlawful reason,” Eric K. Gabrielle, a labor and employment lawyer at Stearns Weaver, told the Sun-Sentinel. Gabrielle said there was no apparent violation of the law in this case.
. . . . . . . .
In a follow-up to this case, it was reported, somewhat unsurprisingly, that several of the employees later hired a lawyer, claiming that in fact they had been wearing orange shirts as a form of protest, which is arguably an unlawful basis upon which to fire an employee and which the law firm in question may not have considered beforehand:
. . . . . . . .
Six of 14 orange-shirted employees recently fired by a South Florida law firm have hired an attorney to represent them.
The workers are seeking an unspecified “resolution” with their former employer before pursuing a case with the National Labor Relations Board, said their attorney Donna M. Ballman of Fort Lauderdale.
The 14 were fired March 16 at the Elizabeth R. Wellborn P.A. law firm in Deerfield Beach. An executive told the group that he understood there was a protest involving orange, the employees were wearing orange, and they all were terminated, four in the group told the Sun Sentinel.
Ballman said some employees wore orange that day because they were heading together to happy hour, while others wore orange because it is the color of some prison jumpsuits; they wanted to express their concern over recent changes in work rules.
“Some were upset with those work rules,” said Ballman. “For example, they were not allowed to go to the break room to get coffee when they were on the clock. And they weren’t allowed to speak to their co-workers over cubicle walls, even for work reasons. They had to get up and walk around.”
Ballman, who has worked in employment law for more than 25 years, said the National Labor Relations Act protects employees engaged in “concerted activities” regarding work conditions. “Because they were fired with the assumption they were protesting, they are all protected,” even the ones who were wearing orange shirts for happy hour, Ballman said.
A spokeswoman for the Elizabeth R. Wellborn P.A. law firm declined to comment on Tuesday.
Meloney McLeod, 39, of North Lauderdale, who was fired, said she has hired Ballman. Another former employee, Yadel Fong, 21, of Miami, said he is looking for a job and has not yet decided what to do.
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