Asked in Employment Law for Wisconsin

Q: Hello, My wife was wrongfully terminated and we are looking to see if we have a case with her previous employer.

My wife works in the Accounting department and was two months into her position before her termination. During this time she was trained by her Supervisor while logged into the system under my wife's credentials. The company received a check for deposit and was processed and approved by my wife's Supervisor. They found out that the check was fraudulent and had to stop the payment.

Her Supervisor, HR, and the Controller informed my wife that due to her mistake that she would be terminated even though the fraudulent check was processed and approved by her Supervisor. My wife contacted her previous co-worker the next day and was told that the Supervisor's job was on the line and they decided to let my wife go instead per the Supervisor's interaction with the co-worker.

HR nor the Controller investigated the issue and only brought up a few mistakes made by my wife during training. They accused my wife of not following procedures even though her Supervisor made all of the approvals.

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1 Lawyer Answer

A: Unfortunately, there is no liability here. While your wife's termination is unfair, you live in an at-will employment state, meaning both the employee and the employer may terminate the employment relationship at any time for any reason or no reason at all (as long as the reason isn't discriminatory). While it sounds like your wife had nothing to do with this error, your employer need not have a good reason (or any reason) to support its decision to terminate her employment.

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