Generally speaking, when a wrongful demotion happens to an employee, it was retaliation for something he or she did. If you’ve been involved in a wrongful demotion and you’re wondering if you can do anything about it legally, you’ll want to continue reading below!

Employed At-Will

Most of the employees in the USA are employed at will. This really just means that at any time you can be demoted from your position.

If your employer thinks that your performance is sub-par or that your performance is lacking in any way – they have the right to demote you, give you less pay, or even reduce the amount of time you are receiving for your job.

Is Anyone Safe From Demotions?

While most of the jobs in the US are “at will” there are a few instances where the employee is, in fact, semi-safe from demotions. This includes:

• People that are contracted: When a person has a contract through a business they might be protected from a demotion. And if they are demoted they can appeal it.

• People that were discriminated against: If you were demoted, not because you were doing a bad job, but because of your genetic information, religion, race, gender or age, you cannot be demoted legally.

• People that filed a sexual harassment claim: Likewise if you were involved in a sexual harassment claim (you were the one that filed it) you cannot be demoted. If you were, you can fight it!

You also cannot be demoted if you previously informed authorities of illegal activities going on in the workplace. That includes whistleblowers.

How To Handle A Wrongful Demotion

Even if you aren’t pegged into one of the aforementioned categories above, but you do think that you were demoted wrongfully or treated unfairly, you can contact HR. When speaking to HR, you’ll want to follow these tips:

• Don’t be defensive, rude or immature.

• If the company does have a formal appeal process – ask HR to see your demotion and why it happened.

• You can also consider writing an appeal letter and ask that your demotion be reconsidered. If you have any previous positive experiences or documentation ie; performance reviews, accomplishments in the company, emails from your manager that showed positive praise, etc include these in your appeal letter.

Hiring A Lawyer For Wrongful Demotion

If you truly believe that you were demoted wrongfully and/or you wrote your appeal and it was denied, you can seek legal action. Or if HR was of no help or not willing to help, you can seek out a lawyer that specifically deals with wrongful demotions.

When you hire a lawyer for the alleged wrongful demotion, they will investigate the matter and figure out if it was done legally or illegally and if the case is valid to continue on with – or not.

Chances are when you hire a lawyer, they will talk to other people in your office to see if they have had any issues with the company. Sometimes you might have a handful of employees that had the same thing happen to them, but they simply chose to not move forward with a lawyer. If a lawyer can talk to them, it’s even more proof that what you are going through is a legitimate issue in the company that should be investigated further.

 

 

Photo Credit: Shutterstock fizkes/George Rudy