I am occasionally contacted by an employee who believes he or she was wrongfully terminated. While Tennessee is an “at will” employment state, there are still incidents a business cannot fire an employee for. One of those is retaliatory discharge, which includes firing an employee for filing a workers compensation claim. As you can see from the Tennessee law below, the burden of proof shifts during a case to the employer if the employee can show certain elements of the retaliatory discharge.
T.C.A. § 50-1-801. Burden of proof in case of retaliatory discharge.
In any civil cause of action alleging wrongful discharge in violation of Tennessee public policy, including, but not limited to a discharge in retaliation for the exercise of rights under the Tennessee workers’ compensation law, the plaintiff shall have the burden of establishing a prima facie case of retaliatory discharge. If the plaintiff satisfies this burden, the burden shall then be on the defendant to produce evidence that one (1) or more legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons existed for the plaintiff’s discharge. The burden on the defendant is one of production and not persuasion. If the defendant produces such evidence, the presumption of discrimination raised by the plaintiff’s prima facie case is rebutted, and the burden shifts to the plaintiff to demonstrate that the reason given by the defendant was not the true reason for the plaintiff’s discharge and that the stated reason was a pretext for unlawful retaliation. The foregoing allocations of burdens of proof shall apply at all stages of the proceedings, including motions for summary judgment. The plaintiff at all times retains the burden of persuading the trier of fact that the plaintiff has been the victim of unlawful retaliation or wrongful discharge.
Luke D. Bottorff
Nashville Business Lawyer
McNulty & Associates, PLLC
211 Printers Alley, Suite 400
Nashville, TN 37201
615-829-8250 x3
