Employment Legal Assistance??

i have been working somewhere for 3 and a half yrs now. my mother is very sick at home and i have to take care of her. i have been finding it hard to concentrate at work and made many mistakes which my boss has warned me about. i accidentally shredded an important document and he fired me. could i claim for unfair dismissal? shouldnt he have considered my sick mom???

Are you in the UK - the reference to 'mom' threw me a bit?

The answer to your last question is that there is no legal obligation upon the employer to consider your sick mum - anymore than there is to consider a sick child when measuring work performance.

If your home-based care role is so onerous it is affecting your work, you should be taking time off.

The obligation under employment law tis to dismiss only after warnings have been given and with a fair procedure.

On the basis of what you've said, it seems that the employer did this, but you should raise a grievance and appeal as a matter of course. He may relent.

i doubt if you have an UD claim, but you really need an employment specialist to sift through the facts and see what they can come up with. he may be able to find a breach of procedure which makes the dismissal wrongful, if not unfair.

He does not have to. Most states are at-will and you can be terminated for any reason or no reason at all.

You can try filing for unemployment, but if your former employer contests it, you may not get because you indicate as you indicate in yourself that you made mistakes at work and even accidently shredded an important document and it would appear that the termination was justified.

What you could have done, provided it was not a very small business with a just a few employees, is applied for FMLA and you could have taken up to 12 weeks off unpaid to care for you Mom.