Quote:
Originally Posted by VetGirl
I live in florida and have been working at an animal hospital for 10 months now. I found out I was pregnant two weeks ago and let my boss know. He was fine w/ my pregnancy, he just told me no heavy lifting or x-rays. A week later I started spotting so i went to the doctor to make sure everything was okay. I had to be out of work for a little over a week, so the doctors could run test and things. The whole time my boss and manager was asking when could i come back. Well the doctors gave me the OK to go back to work, so I informed my boss that he could put me back on the schedule. Two days before I was to return to work I get a call from the manager. She tells me that they are goin to go ahead and let me go, b/c if anything were to happen to me or the baby while I was working there that I could sue them and they can't have that kind of a liablilty. So, is that not being wrongfully terminated?
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Wrongful termination in Florida can be a tricky thing. Unless you have a contract with your employer specifying terms of hire and termination, you can be considered an "at will" employee. That simply means your employer can "hire or fire" at will. On the other hand, you
are afforded certain rights under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, (regarding Equal Employment Opportunity.) That act was ammended to include the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, which does prohibit (among other things) discrimination based on "(gender) discrimination on the basis of pregnancy."
Before you consider filing legal action, you should at least call or contact either the Florida Commission on Human Relations (FCHR) or the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC.) There's a certain procedure involved in this type of situation. You may be able to find out more information by contacting your local labor board, but in my opinion, you might have greater success by contacting either agency I listed above. Either agency has a specific timeframe that you need to file your complaint; again I can only suggest a call to either to get more information.
You may also want to give your department of unemployment compensation a call as well. While those benefits usually aren't available in those situations that you were either terminated or voluntarily left, you may have certain appeal procedures available there as well. They
may be able to pay you unemployment compensation if you can adequately prove you did nothing to cause the termination and, of course, if you were employed long enough to qualify. (I don't know if that's a concern with you, but it may be worth a follow-up.) As unorthodox as it may sound, it has worked on more than one occasion in some states. Again, a suggestion here.
Hope these suggestions help. Of course you can always contact an employment lawyer there in your area; the ideas above are just other possibilities you may want to explore.
Good luck.
06-18-2007, 09:16 AM
Do I possibly have a case?
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