Internal Investigations for misconduct

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In doing an investigation for misconduct we'd pre-determined we would be letting the individual go before we even interviewed him thus, before completing the investigation.
Did we just open ourselves up to a lawsuit by violating the employee's rights to a fair & impartial investigation? Thoughts??

Hatchetman

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 04-25-03 AT 10:11PM (CST)[/font][p]I assume that the employer is not in a union environment with the employee covered by a collective bargaining agreement; nor is the employee covered by any individual contract that adresses grounds for termination. Further because you're in Washington and not Montana, the employer may terminate an emplyee for any reason or for no reason that is not discriminatory (under CRA, ADA, ADEA, similar state laws, etc.), or violative of a public policy (e.g., whistleblowing or reflective of retaliation for practicing a protected right, such as voting). Further I assume the employer is not a public sector employer (state or local or federal government).

If the employer has a policy or recurring practice to investigate allegations of employee misconduct BEFORE coming to a conclusion on "guilt" or "innocence" and if the former what the appropriate discipline should be, the employer may have some problem.

Short of those considerations, the employer is free to terminate the employee without having conducted a fair investigation. However, it should not state the cause for the discharge as being what he or she is accused of doing if it did not conduct an investigation. Thus, there would be no stated reason for termination. The employer may wind up paying UI as a result in that case.

Of course, the fact that the employer did not at least hear the employee's side of the story, does reflect poorly on the employer and still may result in some type of employee legal suit or an inquiry by the state labor department. But if there was sufficient, irrefutable evidence demonstrating the employee committed the wrongdoing tha warrants immediate discharge, I can see where the employer may want to move to discharge despite not having heard the employee's side (it's not a good move to do, but I can see it happening).