I called an employment attorney in Tulsa and was told that employers can fire employees for any reason, at any time, as long as it’s not involving discrimination based on a protected class. In our case we would need to prove that they discriminated against her. That they took her boss’s word over hers, show some discrimination, unless they consider his status giving him more credibility, which is really ludicrous in a situation like that.

I had no idea that the law left people so powerless in cases like this. Apparently her boss really knew how to manipulate the system to his advantage. It makes me wonder how many other women he has done this to. My wife knew of one other, married woman, he had an affair with while they both worked there. This other woman has since left, but it shows a disturbing pattern that this company seems to be willing to allow.

One alternative is to go through the Oklahoma Human Rights Commission. But another employee of the same company went through them several years back. Linda was involved since she worked with him. She said the process itself took over a year. That case involved an employee who was disabled due to an accident off work, but wanted to continue to work, and claimed discrimination because of disability. We will still pursue that, but if the outcome is that the company must hire her back, by that time she’d obviously have another job, so it would be a pyrrhic victory.

So we are left trying to find some employment that offers dependable insurance, which won’t be easy. It turns out Tulsa Public Schools might be looking for extra teachers for summer school, so Linda is looking into that.

I was told that even mentioning the company name could bring a law suit, even if everything I said was 100% true. I was surprised at that and asked if there were no provisions for preventing someone from brining lawsuits, simply to harass people. The attorney said yes, but they rarely if ever won. In the end whoever can more easily afford to pay the lawyers is free to cause as much financial damage as they want. It angers me that trial attorneys have left us with a court system so inherently biased toward those who can pay them more.

Pray for Linda to be able to find a job with insurance, and that the OHRC will respond quickly and appropriately.

We really appreciate all the emails letting us know who is praying. It means a lot.