> Yeah, it's pretty hard to prove you were fired for an illegal reason, especially if your employer has a paper trail In the case for which I was a jury member

> Yeah, it's pretty hard to prove you were fired for an illegal reason, especially if your employer has a paper trail In the case for which I was a jury member, a women sued her previous employer for wrongful termination, claiming she was fired for whistle-blowing. Her job was a safety inspector at a refinery and she raised some concerns about the safety procedures involved with cleaning some tanks. She even had documentation (in the form of emails), which showed that some of her coworkers raised a stink about her concerns. The problem is, no matter why a company actually fires you, they can always make a reason. And I don't think it's hard to come up with a pretense for firing someone. In the case that I served on, the women had hired one of the company's contractors to do work at her home using company machinery and provided reasonable evidence that her bosses knew about it. She was fired for "conflict of interest." Ultimately, we decided in the company's favor. It honestly wasn't even close. There were about 10 questions that would have had to answer yes to, and we only made it to the second one (and almost didn't make it that far). Still, I'm surprised that at-will employment never came up in this case. It seems relavent. And the company's lawyer definitely seemed worth his salt.