Can You Sue Someone for Sabotoging My Chances for Getting a Job

Employer Sabotaging Your Chore Search? What Y'all Demand To Know

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Having a hard time at work is bad enough. It's even worse when your function troubles are the result of your employer acting unlawfully towards you. Maybe you're the victim of sexual harassment or age bigotry. Perchance you blew the whistle on your employer's illegal behavior and now you're the victim of retaliation.

Whether y'all're still working for this employer or have been recently fired, you lot're going to need a new job. But as if things couldn't get any worse, your current/former employer has learned of your job search and has taken steps to prevent you from finding new employment.

Is at that place anything yous can exercise about your employer's efforts to demolition your attempts to work somewhere else? Potentially. However, your precise legal approach volition depend on the facts surrounding your case.

Legal Arroyo #ane: Your Underlying Employment Merits

If you decide to take legal action against your employer, your primary crusade of action will probably relate to your employer'due south underlying behavior that led to you lot getting blackballed. For case, if you got fired because y'all complained nearly how you believe y'all were passed over for a promotion because of your sex, then your first cause of activity volition probably be sex discrimination.

But a current or onetime employer that chooses to badmouth you to prospective employers during your chore search can modify this sex discrimination lawsuit in 2 big ways.

Outset, it can heighten an already existing retaliation claim or create one where no retaliation claim existed. The existence of retaliation can greatly heighten your chances of obtaining some sort of legal recovery, similar when yous bring a lawsuit under Championship VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII).

Evidence of retaliation is important because it can outcome in a legal recovery even if your principal discrimination merits is unsuccessful. At present that you have evidence that your employer is taking steps to get revenge against you during your job search process, an existing retaliation claim just became that much stronger. Alternatively, you at present accept a retaliation claim when didn't have 1 earlier.

One caveat to this is that not all employment laws volition have an anti-retaliation provision that applies to every situation. For case, in some federal circuits, the Imitation Claims Act'due south prohibition on retaliation does not protect old employees. In other federal circuits, the reverse is true, and onetime employees tin can merits retaliation fifty-fifty if the retaliation occurs later on they were fired.

Second, it can increment the amount of potential damages you can recover. Under Championship Vii and many other federal employment laws, plaintiffs have a duty to mitigate amercement. This means whatsoever back pay impairment honor can be reduced by "amounts earnable with reasonable diligence." In other words, if yous get fired, you need to accept reasonable steps to try to detect another job to supervene upon the earnings y'all just lost.

Withal, if your former employer took steps to prevent you from finding new work, and so they tin't expect you to mitigate your amercement by finding a new job. Therefore, any impairment accolade in the form of lost wages could be college than information technology might otherwise be if your employer wasn't trying to sabotage your job search.

Legal Approach #2: Sue for Defamation

Suing your employer for defamation is another potential cause of action you might bring. This can be helpful if you don't have a retaliation merits or your employer is saying bad things about you to potential employers for reasons that aren't protected by law, such as a personal grudge.

Each land has its own defamation laws, but by and large speaking, there are four elements to establishing the tort of defamation:

• The accused makes a fake statement nearly the plaintiff;
• The false statement is communicated to a 3rd political party;
• The accused makes the false statement intentionally, recklessly or negligently; and
• The plaintiff suffers damage every bit a upshot of the defamatory statement.

If your employer is talking to your prospective employers and saying things to ensure y'all don't become hired, y'all could have a defamation merits. But there is a key chemical element that may not necessarily be present in your situation: your employer must be making fake statements nigh y'all.

Permit'due south say y'all had a history of tardiness at work and you once got in trouble because you made a fault on a report that cost your employer a new customer. If your employer conveys that information to your prospective employer, even with malicious intent, so y'all will not succeed in your defamation lawsuit.

Another consideration when suing for defamation is the amercement y'all tin can recover.  Once more, what'due south available for recovery will depend on the state laws that apply to your instance, merely y'all can potentially recover:

• Compensatory (or actual) damages, including emotional distress
• Punitive damages

Ordinarily, punitive damages are hard to recover in a defamation suit because you need to show that the defendant acted with "bodily malice." This ways your employer knew they were making false statements about you or acted recklessly in regards to determining if the statements they were making were truthful or non. But if you're getting blackballed by an employer who'southward making imitation statements near you, information technology will probable be fairly evident that your employer acted with actual malice.

One affair to continue in heed is that attorney'south fees are often non recoverable in defamation cases. In some situations, they can be, especially if the defendant acted egregiously. But there's ordinarily no statutory or contractual ground for awarding attorney'south fees to a successful plaintiff in a defamation case.

Legal Approach #3: Sue for Tortious Interference of Your Task Search

Another possible cause of action volition be to sue your employer for interfering with your attempts to discover a new job. Depending on the steps your employer takes to forestall yous from finding piece of work, too as how shut y'all were to finding a new task when your employer stepped in and caused you to lose it, yous may have this additional tort claim.

Depending on the land, this merits can go past many names, such equally:

• Intentional interference with prospective employment
• Intentional interference with prospective contract
• Tortious interference with prospective/anticipated contractual relations
• Tortious interference with employment

Depending on the applicable police force, you may only have this cause of activity if yous already got a job offer or were hired subject to an employment contract. Additionally, if your prospective job was terminable at volition, y'all may only have a cause of action if yous can show the interference was through improper methods. This includes using fraud, misrepresentation or deceit.

So if your former employer tells the truth when it tries to prevent you from getting a new chore, it may be far more than hard to bring a claim for tortious or intentional interference with prospective employment.

Bottom Line

A current or former employer who takes steps to foreclose you lot from finding a new task after y'all're already the victim of illegal employment action is trying to make your life as miserable as possible. Merely accept solace in the fact that if y'all take legal action confronting them, yous may have a much stronger instance, not just in proving your claims, but increasing your potential damage award.

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Source: https://www.spigglelaw.com/employer-sabotaging-job-search

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