I'm 100% sure I would be fired if my boss found out I punched a woman. Granted, I'm in an at-will state and my boss is so conservative that he worries about his son watching Andy Griffith reruns. It's worth noting that the outlets closer to the NFL aren't saying he got cut. They're saying that the Ravens terminated his contract. It sounds like he had some language in his contract that voided it in a situation like this.
In this day and age of social media, I can't imagine any contract for something so public as an NFL player wouldn't have some sort of "morals clause", basically an elastic clause allowing them to terminate on anything that might look like bad behaviour or reflect badly on the NFL or the team.
Yes I think Ray Rice should have knocked out that pimple faced fuck from Taco Bell too. What's the question again?
Hilarious. Anyone who knows anything about stats knows you can make them say anything you want them to. Show me the raw data sources and I'll be more than happy to discuss, otherwise I can just take 10 mins and make up my own shit. Take this, for example: http://keepingscore.blogs.time.com/2013 ... -surprise/
Michael Jackson didn't have problems selling records despite the rather popular theory he was a child molester. Ray Lewis may or may not have witnessed/participated in a murder, but he's revered in Baltimore as an upstanding role model. It is true...without pictures it never happened. If our theoretical accountant's fiance declines to press charges despite the video meaning our accountant avoids a felony conviction on his record I don't think he's immediately fired. Plus as an accountant, he's not the face of the company...as a starting running back, Ray Rice was. Shit, how many people per year instigate an altercation AT work and only end up in anger management classes? I'm clearly not a lawyer, but fire someone and tell them the reason why is for something they did during their off time that you can't prove had a direct negative impact on their work performance. Let us know how that works out. The onus is on you to prove his poor behavior outside the office had a negative impact on your business. The video certainly gives you a leg up, but still not open and shut. However, you're firing them for placing the company in a negative light directly impacting the bottom line and not for beating their significant other. Regarding your example of smoking pot on the weekend. You're fired because you tested positive for pot during a drug test you agreed to submit to as a condition of employment, not because you got high over the weekend. Replace pot with alcohol. The only difference between the two...you test positive for pot a lot longer than you do for alcohol. How would you react to getting fired on Monday because your boss heard you got drunk on Saturday? Get arrested for a DUI or instigating a bar brawl over the weekend. Unless you incur a jail sentence longer than your accrued vacation days, I doubt you'd get fired. Also if fired in the absence of a conviction, I'd look to file a wrongful termination case against your former employer. Regarding the Taco shells. Can Taco Bell prove those shells were thrown away? The kid was fired exactly for the perception it gave. I'm sure more than a few people don't buy the "he did it during a training event" line and wonder if he actually did it on a random Tuesday..."shit, I had Taco Bell last Tuesday!"
All the big sports leagues in this part of the world have a pretty blanket rule called 'bringing the game into disrepute' which they bust out for anything and everything involving a player doing something outside the game which makes it into the media. The NFL would surely have something similar.
Anyone becomes the face of the company during a public shitstorm. It doesn't matter whether they were or were not known before the incident. It's a pervasive myth that most employers need just cause to terminate employees. The vast majority of states in the US are "at will" work states, which essentially allows an employer to terminate you for any reason that is not some kind of protected discrimination. Even for states that are not, I haven't looked at my own employee agreement but I suspect that most of them have a clause about bringing harm to the reputation of the company or a similar line. You're making a distinction without a difference here. The reality is that I agree to not smoke marijuana as a condition of my employment - the existence of a test only makes that enforceable, it's not part of the condition. Even if it's legal where I live, or I travel to a place where it is, that's what I agree to. NFL players agree to a contract as well, and part of that contract stipulates that what they do off the field does matter. You'll forgive me if my heart isn't breaking for someone who agreed to a contract, got paid tens of millions of dollars, then got fired for violating his contract. He didn't have to sign it.
Its irrelevant. Most companies have an Employee Agreement or Acknowledgement of Company Policies that HR makes you sign on day 1. If something is in there that you don't like, then don't sign it and find employment elsewhere. When you sign one of those, as far as your job is concerned, its the law of the land.
So, this happened yesterday. I got home from the pub at 3am. I was wearing sandals and a short sleeved shirt. I retired to my basement bar and by the time I made another bottle of wine my bitch, passed out in the lazy boy, slept it off and finally poked my head above ground, I had lost an entire season. Fuuuuuuuck. At least someone at Environment Canada has a sense of humour:
But there is a difference. The bottom line regarding drugs is you agree you won't test positive for a controlled substance, not a specific substance. Most employers stipulate you will submit to random drug tests as a condition of employment. Unless you're in a state where it is now legal, I doubt it specifically identifies marijuana. If it helps, change the example to Ecstasy or any other drug. Ecstasy rapidly leaves the body. Your boss could hear rumors about you getting high on E, but its hearsay until you fail a drug test or he has other evidence proving you use it. Regarding 'at will' employment. More often than not, for your average Joe it just isn't worth fighting. It's on Joe to prove wrongful termination and he probably doesn't have the means to see even a clear cut case all the way to the end. However, I still think that in absence of a conviction, firing the guy with the wife beater reputation opens your business to wrongful termination. He could accuse you of defamation, retaliation and possibly discrimination. Why defamation? He was never charged, tried or convicted. She declined to press charges, hell she still married the guy so you essentially fired him over hearsay and it hurt his reputation and good standing in the community. (This is where video evidence helps you) Since he was never tried or convicted, you retaliated and took it upon yourself to punish him when the court did not. Discrimination? He claims its a disability and he's in counseling for anger management, diagnosed with PTSD, etc or any number of reasons that 'caused' him to hit his wife. Bottom Line: in most states if an employer learns a worker has engaged in illegal or immoral conduct off the clock, the employer cannot ask the worker about it unless act has some concrete impact on the employee's work or the employer's business interests. I think we can all agree the NFL and pro sports in general is a much different animal than your typical ABC Company and will have 'catch all' stipulations in contracts you're average employee does not. Don't get me wrong, I have zero sympathy for anyone else crying foul when fired for actions in violation of a contract they signed and yes, I do think a video of one of your employees hitting his wife will have an impact on your business interests. However, in a civil court, the onus is on you to prove it has negatively affected your business.
Wife Life From Janay, What if following the incident in the elevator, Ray Rice's diversion program / counseling was working? And, what if Janay had also gotten counseling? And, what if together they worked things out? I find her statements interesting, because I feel like the NFL, the Ravens and others in cases like this, don't necessarily act or react with what is proper, but rather with what they can defend in court. Now, apart from Ray Rice's career, how is her life financially impacted by the NFL and Ravens retroactive decision making? It seems to me like she might have a case against them. "Hey, this happened, here's what the law / authorities did, here's what we did to move forward, and I've agree to make a life with him. And, now, after the fact, but for the same incident, you're going to make new decisions based on a video that was made public?" Janay is victimized, again.
Interesting statistics in this post. Re: her comments - Eh. Abuse like that doesn't happen in a vacuum - it's pervasive and happens in all aspects of her life. Verbally, psychologically, emotionally - the victim is a punching bag. Straight up - I'd rather be hit. Any fucking day of the week I wish my ex-husband had hit me. I could PROVE he hit me. I could take that somewhere and show it to someone and say LOOK AT THIS. And they'd take me seriously because they could see it. And, bruises heal. I've been hit enough that...I don't LIKE it but..I know I'll get through it. The other kind, the kind you can't see...proving that, substantiating it to people...they say "oh. Wow. Are you sure you aren't being a bit of a drama queen?" "Were you drinking? It surely wasn't meant THAT way..." and you start to doubt yourself. You start to believe the abuser when he says that you deserve it, and that's substantiated by everyone saying "Surely NOT...". That woman is the victim of abuse. ANY victim of longstanding, systematic, overwhelming abuse is fucked in the head. Literally doesn't know which way is up, doesn't know how to communicate with people normally, and is incapable of doing anything but what s/he feels is necessary to survive. Until one day you realize there's no hope for survival if you stay. Then...you hope and pray you can get out fast enough, neatly enough, to not get killed in the process. Don't look at her with anything but pity, and more than a little sadness. Because if ANYONE thinks that this video means that he's never going to punch her again - you're wrong. If his career tanks completely...and the press keeps talking about her, and we keep talking about her, the way we're doing...one night he's going to roll the blame over on her. And it won't be pretty. Clutch - divorcing in situations like this is terrifying. So...probably more toward not than you'd give credit.
Phew, I was worried there for a second that she swallowed it. Because everything else is completely normal.
I thought she uses it mostly for gobbling up power-pellets in a neon maze. Too bad Nicholson beat her out for that role in Batman. She wouldn't have required make-up.
I don't get grossed out easily, but that's disgusting. Hold up, you mean guys like it when you swallow? And not spit it out and rub into their stomach? Snot right? We're talking about snot? I mean, what else really?