I worked for public defenders office and our attorney intentionally turned over a memo I had written as a joke to him. In it I mentioned tur...

Question

I worked for public defenders office and our attorney intentionally turned over a memo I had written as a joke to him. In it I mentioned turning in a report minus a confession. This memo was confidential, not for discovery, and reviewed by my supervisor, two attorneys, and a paralegal. I violated no policy in writing the sentence, however I was fired when our attorney gave it to doctors and the DA's office. I was fired, when my office decided, no court, no jury, no DA's office, my credibility was damaged. The attorney did not lose his license to practice, even though fired. This same attorney, three years after I had interviewed this witness, had another investigator interview the witness obtained a different statement and turned this new interview along with my old memo, all without my knowledge. The attorney acknowledged he read my statement before turning the memo over, but did so anyway.

Can I hold him and the County of Riverside liable for negligence, since he knew or should have known my credibility was in danger, when he turned the memo over? I had 30 years in investigations and never once had my credibility questioned, never disciplined, and always had excellent evaluations. (20 years with a Sheriffs department.) I've lost my job and will never find work in this field again, all because of one sentence in a confidential memo, that should never have been given to the DA's office.

Answer

If your employer truly loses confidence in an employee for whatever reason, it has every right to dismiss that employee. The exception is when the the claim of "lost confidence" is a pretext of some sort of unlawful discrimination based on race, gender, or other classification. The employer also has every right to disagree with an employee as to whether something is a joke or an example of poor judgment.