Human Resource Blog

Can or can not sue?

A employee has been terminated for a valid reason, in a professional manner.
Day later, Parole officer calls in, talks to employee’s ex-manager, and wants the information on why that employee has been fired.
Manager does not reveal any personal information or the reason of the termination, but does admit that that employee does not work for the company, and tells officer to contact HR for more details…
Next day he(officer) calls again, and tries to get same information from another supervisor on duty-unsuccessfully.
two hours later, terminated employee calls in angry, saying that we have unlawfully shared the reason for his termination with his spouse. (Spouse was pretending to be parole officer)
Ex-employee mentions how a family member(lawyer) says what happened was illegal.
If sued, where is the law?
once again:
reason for termination has not been revealed, Parole officer was ex-employee’s spouse…
Thanks..

There are a couple of issues here. Unfortunately, in the U.S. anyone can sue you at any time, for any reason, justified or not. Whether or not they will win the suit is a different issue. Obviously, we cannot judge the merits of such a lawsuit based on the info in an online forum. Simply hiring a lawyer to defend yourself from a lawsuit can be very costly. Looking in our crystal ball, we would suspect that this ex-employee will not file suit. If he or she does, that is the time for you to hire an attorney to defend the case.

It is also possible that one of the two managers is being less than truthful with you, and did, in fact, share the reason for the employee being terminated with the caller.

However, this might be a great time for you to review your policies on giving information regarding ex-employees.

The best practices in HR for releasing info on an ex-employee are:

1) You should only release information when the ex-employee has given written authorization to do so. Normally, an ex-employee will be happy to provide written authorization to an interviewer or potential employer. This is a routine part of the job application process. Normally, no information at all is released until a copy of this form is faxed.

2) Only one person in your organization should handle communications regarding ex-employees. Usually, that would be the HR person, not the employees supervisor. This means the supervisor should not have even supplied the information that the person was no longer employed. You should instruct the other managers not to discuss former employees with anyone, but to refer those calls to the designated contact person.

3) Most employers have the policy that they do not give out information on current or former employees. The HR person (not the supervisor) will only verify the information given by the employee to the caller. There is no reason for any HR person or supervisor to ever share why an employee was terminated with anyone.

4) The best practice is for the HR person to independently verify the identity of the person requesting employment verification before giving any information. Suppose *Frank Smith* from the parole board calls for information. The HR person should promise to call *Frank Smith* back. Then, the HR person should look up the phone number for the parole board in the phone book, dial that number and ask for *Frank Smith*. This method is not foolproof, but it will go a long way in verifying the identity.

This answer does not constitute legal advice. For legal advice, please contact an attorney licensed in your state.