Don’t Panic Over Fired for Cause: Your Rights, Severance Negotiation, and How to Fight Back

Speaker #0 Hey, it’s Mark here, and welcome to the next edition of the Employee Survival Guide, where I tell you, as always, what your employer does definitely not want you to know about, and a lot more. Welcome back to the Employee Survival Guide. I’m Mark Carey. Today, we are dismantling one of the scariest terms in corporate dictionary, termination for cause. It sounds final, doesn’t it? It sounds like you did something terrible. You stole money, you punched a co-worker, or you burned the building down. When an employer uses those words, they want you to feel shame. They want you to feel lucky that they aren’t suing you. And most importantly, they want you to walk quietly away without asking for a goddamn dime. But here’s the reality check. In my practice, I see employers use the for-cause label as a weapon, not a description. It’s often… a financial strategy designed to block you from getting unemployment benefits and deny you a severance package that you deserve. If you’ve been fired for cause or if you’re being treated or threatened with it, do not panic. The game isn’t over. It’s, in fact, just beginning. First, we need to clear up what the term cause means legally. Most employees are at will, meaning you can be fired for any reason. But for cause is a specific legal standard. It usually requires willful misconduct. This is a distinction employers try to blur. Here’s scenario number one. You missed your sales quota for two quarters in a row. That is a performance issue. That’s not a cause basis. Situation number two, you embezzled client funds or sexually harassed a subordinate. That’s for cause basis. Here’s the trap. Employers love to stress or dress up the scenario. Number one, to look like scenario number two, they will claim that your failure to follow a specific protocol was insubordination or a violation of company policy. Why do they do this? Money. It’s always about money. If they fire you for performance, they have to pay out accrued benefits or stick to the severance policy in your contract. If they fire you for cause, they don’t owe you shit. So you’re sitting in that cold conference room or looking at a Zoom screen and HR tells you you’re being terminated for cause. You feel like you have zero leverage. But here’s a secret. A burden of proof for cause is on your employer. If they want to deny your benefits based on misconduct, they have to prove that misconduct happened. And surprisingly often, they can’t. Believe me, they can’t. Did they follow their own investigation procedures? Did they apply the rules equally? For example, if they fired you, your female, for being late, but Dave in accounting is late every day and still has a job, that’s not cause. That’s discrimination or pretext. Is the policy violation actually just a minor error that they are blowing out of proportion? I recently had a client fired for cause for sending a personal email from a work account. Technically a policy violation, maybe, but grounds to deny a 10-year employee their severance? Absolutely not. We fought for it and we won. Now let’s answer the big question. Can you still get a severance package? The answer is yes. We get severance in four cause cases all the time. How? By attacking the validity of the cause termination. We go to the employer and say, this wasn’t. willful misconduct, this was a performance issue or a misunderstanding or a lack of training. We show them that their definition of cause won’t hold up in court or before the Department of Labor. Suddenly, the employer has a choice. They can spend $50,000 to $100,000 fighting my office to prove that you were bad, or they can pay you a severance package to go away quietly and sign a release. Nine times out of 10, they choose option two. They don’t want the headache of dealing with my office. I’m not joking. Don’t want to risk a wrongful termination suit. And there’s public notoriety of that, bad PR. They just want the problem solved. We essentially trade the cause label for cash. We can often get them to change the termination status to resignation or job elimination in your file, which protects your reputation and secures the payout you need to bridge the gap on your next job. So if you’re facing a trap right now, and here’s your survival checklist. Number one, don’t sign anything immediately. If they slide a separation agreement across the table that says you admit to wrongdoing. Don’t sign it. Take it home. Give it to me, the employment attorney. Number two, demand the file. Ask for your personnel files. You have a right to see the evidence they have against you. In most states, you can get the file. In some states, you can’t. In Connecticut, you can. In New York, you can’t. That’s called a personnel file. Number three, document the inconsistencies. Write down every instance where other employees did the same thing and weren’t fired. Usually, that starts to demonstrate a pretext for some basis of discrimination that you can bring against. the employer. Number four, call an employment lawyer. Me. We can look at the facts and tell you very quickly if their cause, the company’s rationale for cause is legit or it’s a bluff. Bottom line is this, the for cause label is a label. Not a verdict is often just an opening negotiation tactic by a company trying to save a buck. Remember, employers are cheap. Don’t let them bully you out of a compensation you earned. And as always, have a great week. And thank you for allowing me to be of service. Hey, it’s Mark. And thank you for listening to this episode of the Employee’s Fiber Guide. If you’d like to be interviewed for our podcast and share your story about what you’re going through at work and do so anonymously, please send me an email at mcary at capclaw.com. And also, if you like this… podcast episode and others like it, please leave us a review. It really does help others find this podcast. So leave a review on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you very much and glad to be of service to you.