Layoffs usually affect large numbers of people, thus appearing to be legitimate.
A layoff of one person, however, looks suspicious, especially where the reason given for layoff keeps changing, and where the company does not follow its policies in implementing the layoff. The California Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled on May 9 that a 22 year employee of Bechtel could sue for wrongful termination and age discrimination. The employee, Mr. Guz, was an excellent performer in the information services group. When Mr. Guz sued, the President testified that it was not a downturn in the workload, but rather his unhappiness with the performance of Mr. Guz's manager that led to the reorganization. The company admitted it did not follow its progressive discipline policy for handling the poor performance of Mr. Guz's manager.