How do I defend myself for falsely accussed and being fired? Michigan

Hi I am writting this on behalf of my boyfriend, David who works as an assistant manager at a tractor supply. As he came into this job his boss (the store manager) had a terrible attitude and so did the employees there. They were treating him badly because they were upset that one of there group members didnt get the position David got. The store manager had a problem with it too because the district manager was the one who hired him in this position to be trained to become a store manager.

Anyways the store manager uses David to do jobs like stocking and loadouts while all the other associates sit and do nothing, he never seems to be trained any of the manager skills that he should be using. He will not allow David to even act as a manager and is constantly telling him to leave his people alone. Note that these associates occasionally meet at the store managers home and drink and party quite a few times. The store manager would also work him to death, making him work 13 days straight for 10 hours each day while he would come in and leave early as he pleases everyday.

Almost a year into David's training one of the employees started talking very rude to him on the sales floor. She said **** you quite a few times to him when he would ask her to help them out. He sent her home once and the store manager was mad at him because he did this, until she admited that she was disrespecting him and he told him to send her home if she ever did this again, then a few weeks later she did this again and David sent her home and she got so mad that she went on this rampage telling all her girlfriends at work and yelled at him that he will be sorry and that she was going to call corporate. A few minutes later the store manager showed up yelling at him that she called him crying and quit and that he was in trouble. The store manager then took each female employee in the office to ask them about David. He wrote him up for something like disrespecting the associates and that was later (about a couple days) taken off by the district manager after he had seen it and talked about what this girl did.

Then about a week later the human resources showed up telling him that there were sexual harrassment complaints from more than one female. Note that these females were all of that girls friends. None of these accussations were true. One girl called and said that he was rubbing her thighs and he never worked with the girl. And a couple others wrote letters twisting some of the stories to sound like sexual harrassment. Like he was talking one day to the associates explaining how he lost his dog and he got stopped by the police in his PJ's in the cemetary behind his home looking for the dog. They took this story and twisted it making it sound like he said it was a kinky place to be and somehow that was sexual harrassment which I dont get at all. A week later the store manager told him that he had to take a sexual harrassment test which David denied to take because he never did anything.

Today the store manger told him that the district manger is coming tomorrow to fire him....He doesnt know what to do and it's stressing us out so much. All he wants is to just go to work and come home. Someone please help, he doesnt know how to get them to believe him and to me it sounds like this store manager is trying to get rid of him. He's afraid that if he says something about how his manager treats him and what has been going on that he will then be accussed of retaliation which is exactly what these girls are doing because he sent that girl home, but they dont seem to see that. He also doesnt understand why they dont see why his own manager wasnt backing him on sending this girl home from disreaspecting him like that.... What can he do about this?

What state? It's important to always list a state since wrongful termination laws vary greatly from state to state.

MICHIGAN

I've been mostly getting, "there's nothing you can do, they can fire you for no reason even if it is wrongly accused." But this is insane, these girls are still calling with complaints and he doesnt even work with them. They won't stop until he's gone and it was all because of this girl that cussed at him on the sales floor and he sent her home. He never fired her at all, because he figured it was the store managers place to decide that and he only did what he was told (she ended up quitting) and that same day this all happened with the harassment complaints when 2 out of the 3 complaints wern't even in the category of sexual harassment yet this HR women is doing everything she can to make it that way because she doesnt like him at all. She doesnt even know who he is. She was yelling at him because he said that he told his girlfriend about what was going on at work and what she thought of it....what does that matter, so now all the sudden you can't talk about your work life in your personal life. WHO DOESN'T!? This lady is a nightmare from hell. She's being very discriminative toward men as well.

I've been mostly getting, "there's nothing you can do, they can fire you for no reason even if it is wrongly accused.

In Michigan contact an attorney, I don't know who is telling you that none sense but Michigan recognizes several exceptions to the "at-will" presumption you are getting advice from either ignoramuses or pro-employer lackeys. Two of the several exceptions include (1) Implied contract: Toussaint v. Blue Cross & Blue Shield, 292 N.W.2d 880 (Mich. 1980) see also Lytle v. Malady, 566 N.W.2d 582, 590 (1997), vacated in part on other grounds, 579 N.W.2d 906 (Mich. 1998) (oral assurance of job security must be clear and not equivocal to form a just cause employment contract); Linzy v. St. Mary's Med. Ctr., No. 228627, 2002 Mich App. LEXIS 810, at *7 (June 4, 2002).


Michigan also recognizes (2) the tort of Intentional infliction of emotional distress in the employment context giving rise to common law remedies: Polk v. Yellow Freight Sys., Inc., 801 F.2d 190, 195 (6th Cir. 1986); see also Mattis v. Massman, 355 F.3d 902 (6th Cir. 2004) (in order for a plaintiff to prevail on a claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress, the plaintiff needs to establish: (1) extreme and outrageous conduct; (2) intent or recklessness; (3) causation; (4) and severe emotional distress). Prysak v. R.L. Polk Co., 483 N.W.2d 629, 635 (Mich. App. 1992).Mahrle v. Danke, 216 Mich. App. 343, 350 (1989). Langrill v. Diversified Fabricators, Inc., No. 225001, 2002 Mich. App. LEXIS 969, at *8 (June 25, 2002) (quoting Dzierwa v. Michigan Oil Co., 393 N.W.2d 610, 613 (Mich. App. 1986).
Either theory of law may apply so contact an employment law attorney if your boyfriend is terminated. Also file an unemployment claim if he is terminated.
JoeC

Many states do have violations to the at-will doctrine. The two that McGruff listed are the ones for your state.

Did your friend get fired?