Tobacco Case

At-will employment is a doctrine of American law that defines an employment relationship in which either party can break the relationship with no liability, provided there was no express contract for a definite term governing the employment relationship and that the employer does not belong to a collective bargaining group. Employment, according to doctrine, is an “at-will’ relation that comes into existence when two parties willingly enter into an agreement and the relation continues to exist only as long as both parties will that is does so. both employee and employers have the right to enter into any mutually agreeable arrangement without outside interference. Each parties is also free to end an arrangement at anytime without violating the rights of the other, as long as doing according with the term that they have agree on.

Answer 2. Exceptions to Employment at Will

There are notable exceptions to employment-at-will: subsets (minorities) of unfair reasons for termination that are both unfair and illegal, and thus could give rise to legal claims.  I lump the exceptions into three categories.

(1) Contract: If an employee has a contract with the employer, that contract may require legitimate “cause” for a job termination to occur.  For example, it is common for union-employer contracts (collective bargaining agreements) to define “cause” in specific terms that say an employee cannot be fired unless he or she has specific types of performance or conduct problems.  These contractual terms modify employment from employment at will into for-cause.  If the employer fires the employee without showing it was for “cause” as defined in the contract, then the termination could give rise to a legal action.

(2) Discrimination: Discrimination laws provide that an employer cannot fire an employee based on certain types of characteristics: race, religion, age, sex, disability, the fact the employee took a protected medical leave, etc.  Depending where you live, there are usually two, and sometimes more, bodies of discrimination laws that apply to you.  Federal discrimination law has its own laundry-list of protected characteristics for which an employer cannot discriminate against you, harass you or terminate your employment.  States have their own laundry lists for example which often duplicate, and add additional protected classes to, the Federal list.  While the laundry lists are long, they do NOT pertain to most of the “bad” reasons for which employers fire employees.  For example, an unfair personality conflict, or unfair performance expectations, are not discriminatory unless they were motivated by discrimination based on a protected characteristic (e.g. disability).  It is common for fired employees to feel “discriminated” against, before they are aware of what discrimination truly is, and what the protected classes are.

Whistle-blowing: I use