It’s Now Easier to Sue Tennessee Employers Over Illegal Firings

The Tennessee Supreme Court has reversed precedent and made it easier for workers to sue their employers when they believe they were fired illegally.

The court ruled 3-2 that employers must prove that workers’ claims of discrimination or retaliation are false or else face a trial. Decades of precedent had held that workers had to prove they were not fired for legitimate reasons before they could take a case to trial, often a difficult task.

“Rarely do you have somebody who says, ‘I’m firing you because you’re black’ or ‘because you’re over 40,”‘ said Wade Cowan, the attorney for the plaintiff in the case, Gossett v. Tractor Supply Co. Inc.

Cowan said the absence of such evidence has kept many legitimate suits from reaching trial.

According to the American Bar Foundation, in federal court more than 40 percent of employees in these type of cases never go to trial because their cases are dismissed. Before this decision, Tennessee courts followed the federal model.

Business groups and their attorneys like the federal model and predict the decision will lead to frivolous suits and increase the cost of doing business in Tennessee.

“The initial reaction from some folks in our community is this is egregious,” said Jim Brown, Tennessee director for the National Federation of Independent Business. “Big businesses will likely settle, but many small businesses will likely go out of business. The consequences of this will be significant.”

Larry Eastwood, a lawyer at Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz in Nashville, said the decision will probably double the cost of lawsuits for businesses and deter businesses from relocating to Tennessee.

Others said such concerns are overblown.

“It doesn’t mean they (workers) win,” said Tennessee Employment Lawyers Association president Doug Janney. “It means they get to present their case to a jury and judge and not have their case dismissed. It’s the way the law ought to be.”

Bryan Pieper, an attorney at Drescher & Sharp in Nashville said, “Employers hire based on needs. If they need employees to get work done or make widgets, they’re not going to refrain from hiring people just because the law changed a little bit.”

In the case in question, Gary Gossett, a former inventory control manager at Brentwood-based Tractor Supply Co., claims he was fired for refusing to manipulate the company’s inventory mix to improve its quarterly earnings statement, which he believed would be illegal. Tractor Supply Co. says Gossett was fired because it was reducing its work force.

Topics Lawsuits Commercial Lines Business Insurance Tennessee