Q: is firing for sending a personal text to a friend legal? Invasion of privacy? Nothing was posted publicly.
i had a VP ask me questions about a manager, so i answered his questions honestly. After i answered him he went to the cio and told him what i said. The CIO told my manager that i gave her a less than glowing review so my manager immediately retaliated against me. Writing me up for offenses that werent offenses at all. I sent a text message from my personal phone to a friend. this "friend" went and showed HR what i sent from my personal device to his device. I as fired that after noon and HR said it was because "they read my texts"(which werent sent to them). They then told the company that i was dangerous, unstable and forbid anyone from contacting me. they tried to keep me from getting unemployment, but Oregon did give me unemployment since it wasnt a work performance issue, only a personal issue. Since i didn't post anything publicly and only sent a text to a "friend", Oregon said that it wasnt a fire-able offense. Do i have a case?
A:
Oregon is an at-will state, meaning they can fire you for basically any reason, or no reason at all. They cannot fire you because you are say black, gay, Jewish, etc., but almost any other reason such as you wore a blue shirt.
Now, if you text was discussing work conditions with a co-worker, then you might have something since you are allowed to discuss conditions of employment with others.
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