An empirical assessment of employee theft lawsuits involving allegations of employer misconduct

This study explored state-level cases where employees sued their employers because of allegations of misconduct. Using the Lexis-Nexis legal database, employee theft cases from 1960-2004 were located and analyzed (n = 217). The descriptive analyses revealed that most of the cases originated from private corporations. While there were a variety of reasons why employees pursued lawsuits against their employers, the most frequent were to appeal a conviction, to allege slander or defamation, wrongful termination, malicious prosecution, Constitutional violations, and other unemployment-related issues. The employees were victorious in 60 percent of the cases. The research also revealed several patterns in case outcomes based on employee position and gender. Multivariate analyses revealed some of the most significant predictors of employee success in legal suits against their employers. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.