Human Resource Blog

Verbal Agreement at Termination

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If an employer terminates an employee and states that it is due to lack of funds and further verbally states that if in the furure there becomes a need for work to be done on the terminated employees work projects that the employer would contract the terminated employee for that work - is there good cause to sue the employer for not following up on this promise and hiring someone else to do the work that the terminated employee was doing ?

Probably not. This is the type of polite thing that people say all the time when laying off an employee, whether they really mean it or not. It is like saying \\\”It\’s nice to meet you\\\” to your daughters new biker boyfriend with the tatoos, pierced eyebrow and leather chaps.

Even if the employer meant this at the time, business conditions may have changed. They may have found someone else to do the work more cheaply, or who is friendlier and more helpful, or who has a different kind of expertise. This statement probably was not meant to imply that the employer would never hire anyone else for any reason.

Still, in this country it is possible to sue anyone at anytime for any reason. The employee could hire a lawyer and sue the employer for breach of promise, or another reason. It seems unlikely that the employee would win, though.