“Branch Closing” exemplifies how there is a right way to notify employees that they are losing their jobs and a wrong way. And, in case you were wondering, wandering around the office muttering “do your work – while you still can” and “we’ll all be gone soon anyway” is definitely the wrong way. That being said, it probably won’t cost Dunder Mifflin a whole lot of money. While employers can be sued for intentional or negligent infliction of emotional distress based on the manner in which they terminate an employee, these cases are very hard to win. Generally, employees must show that the employer’s conduct was so atrocious as to be utterly intolerable to the civilized community. So, what kind of things meet this standard? In one case, the court said that illegally wiretapping an employee’s home telephone line and then using the taped conversations to threaten an employee’s job might be enough. So was planting company checks on a employee to give the appearance that he was stealing the company’s money. Well, at least Michael hasn’t done that….. Yet.
That's What She Said
