The Termination I Handled Correctly That Still Ended in a Lawsuit.

Sabrina walks through a real case: a role elimination executed while the employee was on paternity leave. Every step was legally defensible. He sued anyway. The client settled, not because they were wrong, but because trial risk on a paternity-leave termination isn't worth the exposure regardless of the underlying facts.

What this episode covers:

The timing decision: execute during leave or wait for return, and the reasoning behind choosing to act during leave

The documentation gap: redundancy analysis completed before the leave, elimination decision finalized after it began, and why that gap is exactly where plaintiff's attorneys plant their flag

Aligning internal and external narrative: why what you tell the team has to match what you can defend legally

Severance negotiation as signal: what it means when someone negotiates terms up, then doesn't sign or take the money

Why the client settled despite strong documentation, and what "settlement isn't an admission" actually means in practice

Three real lessons: separate analysis timeline from decision timeline in writing, document decisions in real time rather than after the process wraps, and treat any leave-adjacent termination as litigation-probable from day one

Not legal advice. Consult employment counsel before executing any termination involving protected leave.