Employee at Will - Case Study Example

Wal-Mart is dedicated to its customer satisfaction and employee safety and well-being. In this regard, therefore, it cannot allow any of its employees to endanger or compromise the lives of its employees or its customers through a show of certain symptoms and behavior that are characteristic of using marijuana medical or otherwise. The labor laws provide for employee protection as well as maintenance of workplace safety by the employers. By having an employee working in this company who uses marijuana, the company would be breaking the labor laws mentioned above (United States Department of Labor, 2014).

We however admit that there are questions we should have asked Mr. Casis before termination of his employment. One of these questions is how long he has been using medical marijuana and what time he has been using it. The other questions that should have been asked should be what the side effects he experiences when he used this drug and how long they usually last. He should be asked to document evidence of his use of the drug as well as how often he uses it. All these should have been compared with his workplace performance and behavior since he first started using the drug to collect enough evidence that he is a risk factor to the well-being and safety of the employees and customers.

Casias’s AttorneyThe termination of Mr. Casias's employment was rather sudden, rushed, and unjustified. The correct channels normally used before an employee is fired were never used. The first question to ask the employer was how they got to know about his use of medical marijuana which was prescribed by his physicians and employee health records are rather confidential. The other is on what evidence they had of his use of the drug. Did Mr. Casis portray any erratic behavior or other negative symptoms normally associated with the use of marijuana medical or otherwise?

If so, what is the evidence of that behavior and how did the behavior affect his performance at work. Before any employee is fired he needs to have breached workplace code of performance and in this case, Wal-Mart did not provide the evidence of the breach of contract and they should portray evidence to this regard. Mr. Casias was never given any warning verbal or written which is what is supposed to happen prior to an employee’s job is terminated. He should have been provided with the two forms of warnings but there is no evidence of either of them being provided.

ConclusionThe case of Mr. Casias based on the questions above is clearly out of discrimination and not any evidence that the plaintiff committed any breaches of the contract through endangering the employees or the customers and he should be compensated (ACLU, 2012).