An employee complained that his manager made racially offensive comments. The company investigated and fired the supervisor.

But about a month later, the employee was fired — according to the company, because he threatened to make up  accusations about his new boss if he didn’t approve a paid vacation request. The employee said he never made the threat.

The company fired him before conducting an investigation. He sued, claiming it was retaliation for the complaints against his former supervisor.

The primary piece of evidence against the company: an e-mail from the HR manager recommending the termination.

After saying the employee should be fired, the HR manager reminded decision-makers that the employee had recently filed a complaint about discrimination. Therefore, the employee’s lawyers claimed, the firing and the complaints were connected.

The result: Unable to fight the case in court, the company settled for $175,000.

Cite: EEOC v. Maverick Tube Corp.

Read the facts of this real-life case and decide: Who won?

The facts:

A company got an anonymous tip about an employee’s policy violation: Allegedly, she was using her office computer to do work for a personal business she ran on the side, spending a significant amount of the work day performing duties for her other venture.

The company searched her computer and found that a “substantial portion” of the hard drive contained files related to the personal business. The woman was fired for breaking a policy against moonlighting during work hours with company-owned equipment.

The problem: A few weeks before the investigation, she had filed a gender discrimination complaint. She sued, claiming the investigation and termination were in retaliation for her complaint.

The employer said:

The employee was fired for a non-biased reason — a blatant violation of company policy. The timing of the firing and the complaint was just coincidence.

Who won the case?

Answer: The employer.

Why: Since the company showed it had a good reason to fire the employee, it was up to her to prove the decision was biased. The best she could do was point out the suspicious timing.

Though terminations that closely follow a complaint often look bad, timing isn’t everything. In this case, the company conducted a thorough investigation by searching her computer files and interviewing the woman’s co-workers about how she spent her time. There was no doubt the firing was appropriate.

Also, the policy was applied consistently. The employee couldn’t point to any instances where someone else broke the same rule and didn’t get fired.

Cite: Loggins v. Kaiser Permanante

The facts:

An employee was involved in a class action suit against the company involving a pay discrimination claim. The attorney representing the plaintiffs asked the employee to send any and all documents related to the case so they could be submitted as evidence. For some unexplained reason, the docs the employee sent included confidential information about the company’s customers. When the company found out, it fired her for violating its privacy policy. She sued for retaliation, claiming she was fired because of her involvement in the equal pay suit.

The employer said:

The termination wasn’t retaliatory. The documents she turned over had nothing to do with the lawsuit, and by releasing them, she posed a threat to the customers’ privacy.

Who won the case?

Answer: The employer.

Why: The court ruled that just because she was participating in a lawsuit while she turned over the documents didn’t mean she was protected from discipline when breaking the company’s privacy policy.

Since releasing them was completely unnecessary and unrelated to the lawsuit, firing her for doing it couldn’t have been considered illegal retaliation,

Cite: Niswander v. Cincinnati Insurance Co.

Jane Price, a waitress in England, felt she was sexually harassed by her boss. She took her complaints to the restaurant’s owner (who happened to be the accused manager’s brother-in-law). He did nothing to address the situation.

Instead, a few days later, the woman got a text message that read: “I think it is best you don’t come back to work. I did not like the way you conducted the situation. It left a bad feeling and it won’t be long before you do it again.”

That’s right: She was fired through text message.

Not surprisingly, an employment tribunal didn’t look too kindly on the circumstances or the method of the termination. The company had to pay the woman the equivalent of about $120,000.