Slander against me and my unemployment

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Ambulance chasers will give you a free legal consultation.

Social Security Disability lawyers will give you a free consultation, and will only get paid if you win your case.

I doubt that the ACLU will be interested--but, no harm in contacting them.

An EEO lawyer will generally want to be paid up front, primarily because they know already that their chances of winning will be very slight.

One of the first things that the lawyer will ask is what outcome you are seeking. Try to think carefully about that, and try to be as clear about it as possible, hopefully before you contact a lawyer and pay a consultation fee.

The next thing will be what sort of documentation you have. If you have a letter from Walmart, stating that you were fired specifically because of your disability, that would be golden. Other things to have documented include what sort of accomodations you requested, and how Walmart responded.

I don't think it had anything to do with my diagnosis of Asperger's, but false accusations were levied against me and the policy mongers just thoughtlessly processed their policies.

The fact that you were being bullied, you put in a complaint, and Walmart didn't respond to that would have been an issue they would have had to address for accommodation, if they were aware you had Aspergers. You did inform them of it when you were hired, so it was their responsibility to make accommodations as needed.

But, after four years, if there is no documentation, and it was not contested, it will basically be your word against theirs. Walmart has enough sense not to go against the ADA; someone dropped the ball, on their part, in not putting your disability in their employment record.

I don't see effective legal recourse at this point, without documentation, but have you considered writing a tactful letter to Walmart upper management, explaining the situation, in detail and the relationship to Aspergers, to clear your employment record? There may be a slim possibility the employment record could be modified. I know it sounds remote, but you never know what the sentiment of someone reading the letter might be. These days most everyone knows someone on the Autism Spectrum and understands how difficult it can be in the employment arena.

If I remember correctly, a past employer with a record of an employee getting fired from work for a violent act, can release this information to a prospective employer looking to check your background. Otherwise, in my state all they can ask is would you hire this person again. If prospective employers are able to get that specific information, it is going to make it very hard to get another job.

One thing I can't understand is why Walmart didn't report the violent threat they felt you posed to law enforcement. Threats of Guns and Explosives are a law enforcement issue in the workplace, it is standard procedure to report this to law enforcement in a big corporation like Walmart.

It seems to me that they were taking one heck of a chance of being held liable for potential damages by not reporting it to law enforcement. You might mention this if you write a letter to Walmart; it seems like it might be evidence that they really didn't see you as a threat and used the allegations to get rid of you instead of dealing with your complaint. It might be a smoking gun for you. Something possibly worth mentioning if you do eventually go the lawsuit route.

It really makes me ill that someone would do this to you and put you in the category of a sociopath just because they didn't get along with you. I would also mention that in the letter.

The National Labor Relations Board will hear your case.

Be sure to have valid material evidence to back up your claims.

Deleted double post.

Last edited by aghogday on 21 Apr 2011, 12:51 am, edited 1 time in total.

My understanding is that NLRB covers this:

from Wiki:




Why would the NLRB hear a wrongful termination case based on a dispute of evidence for why someone was fired?

My understanding is there is a 300 max calendar day to go the discrimination based on disdability EEOC route and ACLU doesn't normally accept wrong termination based on dispute between employer and employee. And EEOC statutes apply to ACLU cases if the issue was discrimination based on disability.

The reason I bring this up, judging from everything I have read on this subject, I don't see an avenue of legal recourse.

I'm no lawyer, so don't take my word for it.

@iamnotaparakeet

I suggest you contact a lawyers office and ask the specific question is legal recourse based on issue and statute of limitations possible. I don't see why they would charge you for a simple question like that. I've called a law office and have gotten similiar information over the phone. No use in waiting and wondering what you can and can't do in the future.

Do you mind sharing the kinds of things you had actually said or discussed with the people you say had then given false reports about you? Without accusing you of anything here, I can easily imagine an employer being concerned about someone who might have been talking amidst his or her co-workers about guns and/or explosives ... and in my own experience, employment is simply "at will" and an employer does not have to given any reason at all for terminating employment.

I actually don't know for certain who the people who made the false reports against me were. I had not talked about guns or explosives with the coworkers who were bullying me. Of other coworkers, who were also gamers, I had talked about Halo, with a WWII veteran who was in the sporting goods department when I was on break I had talked about WWII, and with a US Army recruiter I had talked about Latin and Microwave Pulse Lasers (also when on break and in the video game section of electronics. He seemed impressed that I walked 15 miles to get to work on the weekends when the bus didn't run.) If people managed to abstract some bizarre notion of me somehow being a "terrorist", then it is because they are idiots.

I doubt an idiot could actually do that, but it certainly does sound like one or more other employees wanted you gone for some reason and then figured out a way to make that happen. I once had a similar situation that was all lop-sided and backwards, but my supervisor kept me around in spite of their continued complaints because she knew none of those other people could work as efficiently or as well ... but then the stress of having to deal with all of that finally led to my just walking on out one day anyway.

At a McDonald's I similarly had people who wanted me fired because they didn't like me personally, but the management kept me anyway because I was a good worker and the complaints were of the petty, ludicrous, or contrived nature and obviously so to the managers in charge. However, at a relatively small business with only a handful of managers it is more difficult for false accusations to have an effect since the number of people is minimal. However, in a business like Wal-Mart, there are literally "too many chiefs and not enough Indians" meaning that the chances of a bogus report reaching a member of management who knows nothing about the situation or the employee in question are increased. Add to that the almost OCD treatment of arbitrary policies and you have a recipe for inaccurate judgment.

Did someone allege that you were just talking about guns and explosives, or was it in context to a threat of somekind. If they didn't allege you threatened it what do they mean by fired for a violent act. Is talking about violence considered a violent act in the employee handbook?

Maybe another employee or customer overheard you talking about blowing something up in Halo, and missed the Halo context. But, I guess, if that employee took offense to talk of violence in a video game, they might have found it offensive and reported it; it doesn't seem like something a person would get fired over. If the potential other employee or customer took it out of context, the allegation of talk of violence would seem more serious. It might be possible that someone made a mistaken allegation instead of an attempt to slander you.

Another scenario would be a customer who didn't realize you were on break in the sporting goods department and took offense that you were wasting company time talking about Video Games. Customers are like that at times; it's not fair but it happens.

I had a job at a Bowling Center and had an electronic piano behind the counter that I had purchased earlier in the day to show fellow employees. A customer assumed I was going to play it at work and reported me. Fortunately, my supervisor listened to my side of the story.

It's getting a little fuzzy now for what you could do as a recourse. Hopefully, if future employees find out about it, you can provide an explanation that they will accept. If it is against Walmart's rules to talk about violence, guns, or explosives, context may not even matter.

I don't really know. The leading questions I was being asked seem to be attempting to imply that I somehow had made a threat, but I know that I didn't.



"Violent act" is just the checkbox that the general manager checked. They never told me what my "violent act" was suppose to be. I kinda would like to know someday what exactly it is that I was accused of, but as of then and through now they never answered any of my questions. They only asked leading questions and if I didn't provide an answer to their liking I was provided snide remarks about my integrity, which seemed to indicate to me that they had already made up their mind that whatever I was accused of that I must somehow be guilty on the basis of the accusation alone.



Is talking about video games, history, or mere weapons the same as talking about violence? There is not really an employee handbook so much as there is just computer based learning modules that each employee has to take. As such, they have rules against harassment, bribery, etc, but if taking about video games or weapons is against their rules I feel really sorry for employees who have either electronics or sporting goods as their primary departments as it kind of would be one of the worst Catch 22s in the history of the universe if so.



That was actually one of the primary scenarios running through my head while I was suspended, that some random customers probably took a video game reference out of context, or perhaps that they hated video games and didn't like that another person liked them and noticed that I was an employee and so might have decided to be a jerk or something of that sort. Or perhaps more innocently on their part miss the video game context entirely, even with references to plasma rifles and sentinel lasers and whatnot, and actually think that people were taking about weapons and fighting aliens in real life.



I made certain to remove my vest anytime I was on break. I did not want my time spent being asked questions about where the produce department is or what aisle has furniture. You're right though, customers are not fair and quite often assume that anyone working at a general service business is somehow subhuman and often treat the employees in that very manner. It's not every customer who's like that, but it stinks when the cruddy ones show up to act nasty just because they can.



Yeah, that sounds like the general public. A lot of them just full of assumptions, quick to speak, and slow to listen.



Right now, I just want to talk about it. Four years ago, from April 20 to 23, I was suspended after they asked me their leading questions and then fired with "violent act" checked on the "reason for firing" checklist. During that time I kept running through my head all the possible scenarios as to how anything I had ever said could have been twisted into the meanings implied by the management's leading questions. I still haven't figured it out completely but at least now I no longer feel as angry about the whole situation as I had for the time up until now.

Yea, I know how you feel. I had another customer take my register drawer off the counter, and took it home, when I turned my head to answer a person's question to make a point that I wasn't paying attention to my job. He was a friend of the boss and an employee of the larger organization; if anyone else had done it law enforcement would have been involved. That upset me for quite a while; it helps to talk about it and relate to others that have experienced similiar things.

I was lucky to work for the government; there is much more protection there over discrimination and foolishness like this. There was no way I was going to lose my job over these things, because a supervisor had to provide proper documentation and proof that someone did something wrong. And, if they didn't do their job properly in enforcing rules they would have been in trouble as well.

There is good and bad in government work and unions, but they can help avoid these kind of situations that aren't an employee's fault.

Sorry about that happening 'Keet, sounds like you weren't dealt with fairly.

I wonder what Walmart would have made of me; here is some of the "equipment" I used to carry on me a few years back when I worked as a late night delivery driver in Seattle:
[img][800:768]http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh116/dox47/EDC.jpg[/img]

Note the 1st generation Samsung Blackjack and Jawbone headset, perfectly dates about when I took the photo. The weird shank looking things in the lower right corner are ColdSteel nylon reinforced composite knives, I used to carry them past the metal detectors when I delivered to hospitals or the King County jail... My boss at the time was a real piece of work too, but I was both competent and menacing enough that he never really tried to mess with my employment or anything. His being a jerk actually worked in my favor since few people could stand to work for this guy, which as a driver meant more money in my pocket than at another place.

The NLRB, and other federal agencies, have had their staffs and budgets cut to the point where they can't keep up with the backlog of cases. Expect to wait several years.

The Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) is a judicial system set up specifically for employees of the federal government, where employees may appeal things like wrongful termination.

The supervisor has to provide quite a lot of documentation, and if the supervisor slips up (in my case, by telling me that I had "ass burgers"), you can potentially use some of the documentation to your advantage.

HOWEVER, the MSPB almost always decides against the employee in wrongful termination cases.

So, I don't see how a Walmart employee taking Walmart to court for wrongful termination would stand any chance at all.

Also, keep in mind that there have been several cases in the news of people taking guns and shooting a lot of people, so employers are going to be hyper-sensitive to any perceived threats of violence. And, employers are going to use this as an easy excuse to get rid of people, even if the accusation is completely false.

And, our society basically works under the assumption that "The Boss is Always Right." The burden of proof is going to be upon you, to prove that you didn't do anything that could be perceived as violent or threatening. Of course, your boss was smart to keep things vague and non-specific, to make the accusation impossible to disprove.

Last edited by pandabear on 21 Apr 2011, 9:26 am, edited 1 time in total.