Employee rights when caught or accused of stealing

Ok at my work place recently have been a string of thefts.Money from purses,a pair of shoes...
I narrowed it down to a time frame.Weekends and around times school kids worked.
There are no cameras in the building.
So A manager took it upon himself to "set up" the thef,and took some money,put a 3 on the bill and left it kinda in a purse to be seen and possibly temptation.It worked.
When the manager went back to the crew room to clean up the $ fell out of an employees jacket pocket.He called the employee over and asked if it was his and the employee said yes,and the manager knew he was lying.Sent him home.
Was the manager in the wrong???Can the store be sued???

1 answer  |  asked Mar 16, 2007 6:05 PM [EST]  |  applies to Pennsylvania

Answers (1)

Harold Goldner
Employment At-Will

Please recognize that information received over the internet is not a substitute for a face-to-face meeting with a lawyer. No lawyer should ever give you 'legal advice' over the internet without entering into an attorney-client relationship, so that the entire discussion is privileged and protected from public disclosure.

Pennsylvania is an at-will state in which one can be fired at any time for a good reason, bad reason, or no reason at all. An employee can be terminated for stealing even if the employer learns later that the employee wasn't actually stealing.

Courts do not review employer's 'human resources' practices and procedures unless the issue is employment discrimination, that is violation of state or federal laws protecting people from being treated differently in the workplace because of age, sex, nationality, religion or race.

Here the employer may not have used the best method for sniffing out employee theft, but the courts will generally not second-guess, and the fired employee will probably have no recourse.

posted by Harold Goldner  |  Mar 17, 2007 09:36 AM [EST]

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