There are some details you left out that could be significant here. Is the employer a government agency? Are you a member of a union that has a collective bargaining agreement with your employer? Are you an exempt employee? For the purposes of my answers below, I’ll assume the answer to all three of of those is no. If that’s not correct that could change things.

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Is being on unpaid suspension this long legal?
Yes. You could be on unpaid suspension forever, in theory. That would basically mean you were terminated. An employer does not have to say “you're fired” for you to be effectively terminated. Simply not ever allowing you back to work amounts to the same thing. You have been out of work for 3 week because your employer will not schedule you for work rather than a choice by you not to work. You may qualify to get unemployment benefits while you wait out the company to see if it will take you back.

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Since I have it recorded that I would be allowed to return to work, does that consitute a verbal contract?
You have not said what the exact conversation was and with whom you had it. But almost certainly the answer will be no. Very likely not all the elements of a valid contract were met. Even if they were, it doesn’t help you much because the employer can change its mind again and fire you in an instant unless you have an employment agreement that guarantees employment for some set period of time (e.g. one year, 5 years, etc).

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If they choose to fire me over the allegations could I sue the accuser for slander? Would I be able to use character witnesses to prove my case?
You may sue the accuser for slander if you wish. The question is whether you could win, and we don’t have the facts to make any good guess on that. A lot depends on exactly what she told the employer. And, of course, if what she said was true it would not be slander.

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If I were to win that case would I be able to sue my employer for wrongful termination?

No. The employer is free to terminate you for believing the other employee’s claim even if turns out the other employee was wrong. Most employment in the U.S. at “at will” which means that the employer doesn’t need a good reason to fire you. All that matters is that the reason for firing you is not among the relatively few reasons that the law prohibits. The prohibited reasons include firing you because:
  • of your race, color, religion, sex, national origin, citizenship, age, disability, or genetic test information under federal law (some states/localities add a few more categories like sexual orientation);
  • you make certain kinds of reports about the employer to the government or in limited circumstances to specified persons in the employing company itself (known as whistle-blower protection laws);
  • you participate in union organizing activities;
  • you use a right or benefit the law guarantees you (e.g. using leave under FMLA);
  • you filed a bankruptcy petition;
  • your pay was garnished by a single creditor; and
  • you took time off work to attend jury duty (in most states).


The exact list of prohibited reasons will vary by state. So unless you are terminated for some reason like those listed above, the termination is not “wrongful” in the legal sense.


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Do I need to let the other party know that I'm recording the call at the start of the conversation, let them know at all or does it not matter?
Michigan’s law on recording conversations is such that the details of the recording matter a lot. The statute with respect to in-person conversations has been interpreted by an appeals court in that state to allow recording without the consent of the other parties so long as the person recording is one of the parties to the conversation. But another statute makes it illegal to hook up a recording device to a telephone system without the consent of all the parties to the conversation, so it would appear that for a phone conversation you may indeed need the consent of the other people on the call. If so, you commit a crime in recording a phone call without getting that consent. Here, I would advise you to get advice from a Michigan attorney before recording any further telephone calls without first getting consent from the other person(s) on the call.

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Am I entitled to any backpay if I'm found "not guilty" of the accusations?
Not by law. An employer is only legally obligated to pay you for the actual time you worked. So you aren’t entitled to pay for the time you have been suspended and not working. An employer may, of course, have a policy to pay you for that, but that’s entirely up to the employer.

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Am I supposed to be placed on administrative leave or anything like that?
The law does not require anything like that. Again, the employer is not required to pay you for time you are not working.