Leeson & Leeson would be my first stop for whatever legal issue I was encountering. Highly recommended.
Bethlehem Wrongful Termination Attorney
When Winning Is the Only Option
Employment Attorneys » Wrongful Termination
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Wrongful termination occurs for many different reasons, with workers facing discrimination, retaliation, or other various improper reasons for losing their jobs. When an employer terminates you – potentially by yourself or with a wave of firings – for an improper reason, they should not get away with that, and you could be entitled to damages for the monetary harm and the indignities the wrongful termination caused you.
Our attorneys help workers in Bethlehem and throughout the Lehigh Valley get compensation for wrongful terminations. We are not afraid to take employers to task so long as you are willing to stand up and let us right the wrongs you faced.
Call our wrongful termination attorneys at Leeson & Leeson today at (610) 890-6332 for a free case assessment.
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Client Testimonials
Highly recommended.
Abbe F.
He is the best attorney I [have] ever known.
Mr. Joseph was very knowledgeable and a pleasure to work with. Answered all my questions and was easy to contact and replied to all my questions in timely competent manner. Also his staff is very nice and polite. I would highly recommend Leeson & Leeson law office for any further needs . He is the best attorney I ever know.
Sunny Q.
...he is a good person as well as a good attorney.
“Most thought my case was too small to bother with but Attorney Leeson offered to help me because he is a good person as well as a good attorney… He kept me informed throughout the process and walked me through issues that were confusing… I’m very grateful that he agreed to help me and you can feel confident choosing him.”
Laura Accetta, PA
Theodore Roosevelt once said "speak softly but carry a big stick." The Leeson lawyers embody this principle to perfection.
“The Leeson & Leeson firm has a long-storied history of intelligent and sophisticated lawyers and aggressive and tough litigators. Theodore Roosevelt once said “speak softly but carry a big stick.” The Leeson lawyers embody this principle to perfection… I highly recommend Leeson & Leeson for anyone who wants an attorney who is of a high order of integrity and legal intelligence.”
Francis Macri, PA
Assessing Grounds for Wrongful Termination Lawsuits in Bethlehem
If you want to sue your ex-employer for wrongful termination, you need to be able to show why they fired you and why it was illegal. Obviously, this is not something you need to do alone; our wrongful termination attorneys can investigate your case and help you determine what grounds to base your claim on. What allegations you make about wrongful termination will heavily affect which statutes we use to claim wrongful termination and how the case needs to proceed.
Legal Grounds for Termination
In Pennsylvania, we use “at-will” employment laws, meaning that workers can quit their jobs and employers can fire them at any time, with no need to find “grounds.” This means you can be fired for no reason or for any legal reason, but you cannot be fired for an illegal reason – more on that below.
This means that legal grounds for termination can include “for-cause” excuses like excessive absences, tardiness, failing to follow instructions, inadequate work, missed deadlines, or customer complaints. They can also include “no-cause” excuses, like incompatibility or an employer not liking your “attitude.”
If your employer has a strong record of work issues, it is possible that their firing might be legal. However, employers often make records of these kinds of issues ahead of a wrongful termination so that they can use it as a pretextual excuse when their true reason for firing you is illegal.
Illegal Grounds for Termination
Your employer has so many legal ways to fire you that it seems absurd that any employer would fire someone for an illegal reason, but firings based on racism, sexism, and retaliation happen all the time.
Discrimination based on any “protected class” for the employee is illegal. Federal, state, and local laws create many different protected classes, including race, religion, color, sex, country of origin, gender, sexual orientation, disability status, pregnancy status, age, former military service, political affiliation, and more.
Additionally, labor organizing, joining a union, and trying to create a union are all supposed to be protected under the law. Being fired for using your rights to organize is illegal in many cases.
Whistleblower protections also help prevent firings. Employers often take frustrations out on a worker who reported the business or otherwise stood up against wrongdoing in their workplace, but whistleblower protection laws might have something to say about the legality of this.
Other kinds of retaliatory firings are also incredibly common. For example, if you reported a superior for sexual harassment or reported your employer for sexual harassment, discrimination, or some other wrong, and then they fired you for it, that should be grounds for a wrongful termination lawsuit.
There may also be other grounds that could form the basis of an illegal termination lawsuit, so check with our attorneys if the given or suspected reason for firing you is not on this list.
Pretextual Excuses
As mentioned, employers often rely on some made-up reason for firing you, typically referred to as a pretextual excuse. In these cases, the employer truly fires someone because they hate their race or sex or other protected classification, but they make up other excuses for legal firings, such as claiming you were late to work.
In some cases, pretextual excuses work, and there is sufficient evidence that there are legal, independent grounds to fire you. In others, it is apparent that the evidence of these pretextual excuses was only put together to protect an employer in a wrongful termination suit and that they did not go through the trouble of building cases against other workers outside your protected class.
Additionally, it sometimes becomes clear when investigating these cases that other unprotected workers may have the same sorts of disciplinary records as you – or worse – and yet they are not fired for those same problems. In these cases, the employer’s records can actually make it more obvious that their given reason for firing you was just an excuse, given that they did not fire other similarly situated employees.
Damages for Victims of Wrongful Termination in Bethlehem, PA
Wrongful termination laws typically allow for all economic damages related to the wrongful termination, along with additional non-economic damages and, in some cases, punitive damages.
Economic Damages
If you lose your job, you obviously face economic harm. Your lost wages, your lost benefits, the added expense of finding private health insurance, and other expenses to help find a new job can all be claimed in wrongful termination cases.
Non-Economic Damages
Being discriminated against for being who you are or being fired for doing what is right can affect you mentally and emotionally, too. The despair, humiliation, indignity of facing discrimination, and other mental and emotional effects can get you “non-economic” damages, too. This is akin to “pain and suffering,” though it usually is not physically painful to lose your job.
Punitive Damages
Employers who have a history of discrimination and employers whose discrimination in a particular case was egregious can face punitive damages for what they did. Sometimes paid as “treble damages” (i.e., punitive damages equal to three times your other damages), these damages are sometimes capped under various laws.
Call Our Bethlehem Wrongful Termination Attorneys Today
For a free review of your potential case, call our wrongful termination lawyers at Leeson & Leeson today at (610) 890-6332.