OP here, and let me begin by saying THANK YOU to the OPTIMISTIC souls who took the time to try and cheer me up. You are the reason we aren't all miserable scrooges in this world, so I hope you have a fantastic day and even better weekend. :) Now, I'm about to rant. Yes, it is an at-will state. No, it wasn't for retail or food-related job. I'm not actually the one who this happened to, so I don't want to say all the details, but let's call the victim "A." I can tell you this: they worked 5+ years at that job, over 15+ years in the industry (after years in trade school), and had never been fired like this, and by 'this,' I mean lying in order to be pressure A into signing papers A never could have understood (just a tip, never assume English is a person's first language or that technology is understood by all people). The whole situation is just mind-blowingly anger-inducing because it doesn't matter that a previous judge found the employer's witness about as reliable as a wet noodle propping up a rock, that we suspect they've been investigated by the government and forced to pay back wages before (history of playing fast and loose), or the company basically goes through inexperienced employees like tissue paper and forces the experienced ones to shoulder double the workload then reams all of them for doing a bad job. The company has basically stolen thousands and thousands of dollars with these shenanigans and we little people can't even be let in the door to be heard by a judge unless we have evidence to prove they broke a contract in order to even talk about this stuff because an honest man's word is not enough to do battle with a liar's ill-begotten penned words... Ugh, and now they've stalled so long, many alternative options to seek justice are not open anymore (time limits for EEOC and such). If anyone has any legal ideas, I'm open to them, but honestly, I've lost hope on finding justice for poor A.

What do you care? How is that your fml unless you were the one wrongly fired. Just saying

happened to me a year and a half ago... a week before Christmas too

I think you're better off not working for a company like that. Unethical and liars. Not good people to work for.

Yep. I've lived this FML too. Companies and managers can tell any lie and their version will stick as the official one. Don't be so shocked when someone shoots up their job. Looking to kill management first. There may be a good reason.

One door close and new doors open. Maybe you will find good and ethical coworkers on your next job.

Hopefully it's somewhere you can leave a bad Yelp review on

That's what we call an "at-will" termination. I've been there. Hope you find something much better!!!

Does this happen to be about a director at a college....?

Demand a trial by combat!