Q: I was fired for violation of harassment free workforce. We have no policy around employee relationships.

A: Listen, and I say this from a place of love, but part of being a lawyer is giving people tough advice. Based on what you are saying above, the behavior may have been highly inappropriate.

First, unless you belong to a union or have an employment contract like a tenured professor, you are probably an at-will employee. Thus, unless you are terminated for an unlawful reason, such as race, gender, religion, disability, or reporting a violation of the law, there is no recourse for the termination. Just because a company doesn't have a specific policy on something, doesn't mean they can't fire you, unless a contract (i.e. a union contract) says otherwise.

That aside, even if you could only be fired for cause, it seems like there is ample cause. Employer-employee romantic relationships are always a bad idea, and highly suspect. Why? Because a boss has power over their employee, and it's much more difficult for them to say no than in a normal social setting. What you might see as consensual (and may very well be consensual) at the time, could begin to feel like a hostile work environment if the employee loses interest. Additionally, if the employee feels they need a relationship to get ahead, it can also constitute a quid pro quo. And on top of this, when an employee having an affair with the boss gets ahead, it tends to kill morale and harm retention in the work place. Put bluntly, who wants to work in a place where only people who sleep with the boss get ahead?

Compounding all of this is the fact that the employee was addicted to meth when you started the relationship. You might have had the best of intentions, but the fact she was struggling with addiction made her susceptible to your advances. This, compounding by the fact you were her boss, creates a situation where there is a credible argument that consent was blurry, and that you took advantage of your authority.

Even if the above is not true, and you really cared about her, companies are not social clubs. They care about their business, and this whole situation creates huge potential liability for the company. It also probably harms morale, and creates a distraction. Because of this, they likely decided it was in their business judgment to terminate you.

I'm sorry you find yourself here, and I'm sure you might not have meant harm. But rather than looking to blame the company or the woman, I kindly suggest that you look at what you could have done differently, and avoid relationships with employees in the future.