Expert Witness Blog

Expert Witness blog: 23/03/2012

witness blogWe’re all aware of ‘dress-down Fridays’ at work – even we homeworkers, who find that our regulation T-shirt and chinos uniform is a bit formal for the pre-weekend frenzy.

In Florida, however, dressing down in the same colour can get you fired. That is what happened to 14 workers at a law firm in Deerfield Beach in the state, according to a report in the South Florida Sun Sentinel. The 14 had all taken to wearing orange on pay days, to make them stand out as a group when they went out after work they said.

The new management smelled a protest (don’t they all?) and fired the lot, even refusing to back down when the ‘happy hour’ explanation was offered. The UK legal gossip site The Epilogue from Professionals in Law put forward the view it could be that the colour be associated with Guantanamo Bay, Northern Ireland loyalists or even easyJet. Personally, I’m wondering how the news was received in the Netherlands and whether there has been a diplomatic incident.

The reason the firm could get away with such a blatant breach of every employment law known to the civilised world is that it happened in Florida. Florida is an ‘at-will’ employment state, which means employers and employees can terminate employment without notice or any comeback, provided there is no contract.

An employee can be fired “…for a good reason, for a bad reason or even for the wrong reason, as long as it's not an unlawful reason,” according to Eric K Gabrielle and quoted in the Sun Sentinel. Mr Gabrielle is a labour and employment lawyer at Stearns Weaver in Fort Lauderdale. Given there doesn’t appear to be any employment law in Florida, his must be a pretty cushy job.

There is no truth to the rumour that Dale Winton and David Dickinson have turned down jobs in Florida.

Chris Stokes