Wrongful Termination

Wrongful termination occurs when an employer ends employment in violation of a legal protection or contractual obligation — including discrimination based on protected characteristics, retaliation for protected activities (whistleblowing, filing a workplace safety complaint, participating in a discrimination investigation), violation of an employment contract, and termination in violation of implied good faith covenants in jurisdictions recognizing them. In US at-will employment, the category is narrower than employees often believe: an employer can terminate for almost any reason or no stated reason, as long as the termination does not violate anti-discrimination laws, retaliation protections, public policy exceptions, or express contractual commitments. The most common HR compliance error that creates wrongful termination exposure is poor timing: terminating an employee shortly after they filed a complaint, took FMLA leave, or reported a safety violation creates a strong temporal proximity inference of retaliation that employers must be prepared to rebut with clear, documented non-retaliatory reasons.