My question involves labor and employment law for the state of:
My question involves labor and employment law for the state of:
My question involves labor and employment law for the state of: Florida
I was terminated 60 days ago from a private university whose degrees mainly focus on the media entertainment field. In my position I was asked to take on many side projects including: managing an online department newsletter and producing videos for award banquets. These projects required me to download certain music/movies/photos off the Internet. My work was highly praised by company executives. In September our office moved locations. I backed up my entire desktop onto an internal server (this was a common practice). A few weeks later I was called into HR & was notified I was terminated for downloading illegal software into my computer. I asked for an explanation. I was informed during the backup of my data it was discovered I had a pirated movie on my computer (that they say carried a virus that almost crashed the network) and this act violated the companies no-tolerance of downloading pirated software rule. I argued that the movie did not fall under this category as software is a executable file used to preform a task for a computer and that this was plainly media. I asked for the form I signed stating this company rule. in reading it, I was able to show them that the form never defined software as also being media. I also advised that I had done this plenty of times before due to the media projects I had completed in the past for them. I advised I had never been told anything. HR gave me a blank look & said a decision had been made. I asked to see some proof of an IT report showing proof of a virus. They would not let me see it. I asked for a copy of my employee file to have copies of the documents I had signed, they refused that too. My question is do I have the a wrongful termination case? Thanks
Unfortunately, absent a contract that specifically states otherwise, this termination is perfectly legal under the prevailing at-will doctrine. Someone else will hopefully weigh in regarding whether or not Florida law requires employers to hand over personnel files upon enmployees' requests; given Florida's very employee-unfriendly stance I somehow doubt this. Access to your personnel file is probably a non-issue anyway given that you don't have any legal recourse here.
I know that the above is most definitely not what you want to hear, however, it is true and factual.
You're not going to win this one. They were within their rights to terminate your employment because Florida is an at-will state unless you had a binding contract or union protection.
For future reference, don't download movies. If you do, which I don't recommend, don't put it on a computer you don't own. The presence of a virus is a real possibility when dealing with pirated content.
Neither Florida nor Federal law requires that you be given access to your personnel file. It is entirely up to the company whether to provide it.
49 out of 50 states, including Florida, adhere to the at-will doctrine, and the 50th state follows at-will in some circumstances. Just to be clear.
No, this is not a wrongful term case. A wrongful term exists when there is a specific law that would otherwise have prohibited the termination. No such law exists here. There does not have to be a written policy (and if there is one, there does not have to be your signature attached) before you can be fired for the violation of said policy.
Thank you all that have replied so far. Please check my other question on the post entitled freedom of Internet speech. Thanks