Were You Fired for Abandoning Your Job?

If you have a job and you no longer want to work where you are, it is always good practice, legally and ethically, to tell your employer that you are quitting or plan to resign. But sometimes, you don’t go to work, but you want to keep your job but you are not in a position to speak with your employer, to tell him or her what is going on in your life that is preventing you from coming into work.

Assuming You’ve Quit

In these cases, employers often just assume that you have quit. They will take your absence, or their inability to reach you, or your failure to tell them where you are, as a signal that you have abandoned your job.

But legally, your employer cannot do that, and must make some level of inquiry or investigation before assuming you are quitting. Many employers, angry at not being informed of your absence, or not having their texts or calls immediately returned will resort to immediate termination.

But imagine, for example, you have a medical episode that puts you in a hospital, where you are unable to call or text or email. If your employer were to take that as you resigning, and your employer were to fire you because of that, your employer could be violating the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA).

Similarly, many people with family medical emergencies, or domestic violence situations, may not be in a position to immediately tell their employer where they are, and an employer’s punishment of an employee in these situations would be illegal.

Payment of Wages

In California, if your employer fires you, it must pay your owed wages immediately. Contrast that to situations where an employee resigns, where the employee’s final paycheck does not have to be paid immediately.

If the employer wrongfully assumes you have quit, and thus, the employer terminates your employment, the employer cannot delay final payment of back owed wages. The employer might assume that you “resigned,” but if it turns out you had good reason for not informing your employer, especially for a protected reason for not being able to communicate your absence, your termination would be involuntary, initiated by your employer, and thus, full wages due to you would have to be immediately paid.

What an Employer Has to Do

To avoid liability and wrongful termination claims, your employer generally has an obligation to make a good faith effort to locate you and find out why you have not reported to work.

Note that none of this means that you can just not show up to work, not communicate with your employer, and have a claim for wrongful termination. All this means is that the mere fact that you did not show up to work without informing your boss, doesn’t automatically give your employer the immediate right to terminate your employment.

Were you wrongfully fired? Contact the San Jose employment attorneys at the Costanzo Law Firm today for help.

Sources:

workforce.com/news/job-abandonment-what-it-is-how-it-happens-how-to-handle-it

sbshrs.adpinfo.com/newsletter/no-call-no-show-and-job-abandonment