Jameson Stone Law advises employers across Central Pennsylvania, and Daniel Jameson leads that work. Harrisburg Magazine readers have named him their Employment Attorney three times. Pennsylvania reaches smaller employers than federal law does, and most of the businesses that discover this find out through a complaint rather than in advance.
Eyebrow At-Will, With Exceptions
Pennsylvania is a firm at-will state. You can end an employment relationship without cause and without notice, and no statute requires you to explain yourself. That is genuinely the starting position, and it is broader than employers in many other states enjoy.
The exceptions are where every claim comes from. Discrimination and retaliation are statutory and sit outside at-will entirely. A narrow public policy exception applies where somebody was dismissed for doing something the law protects. And your own handbook can undermine the whole thing, because language promising progressive discipline, or describing termination only for cause, can be read as a contract you did not intend to make. A handbook is a document written by you and read against you, which is the reason it is worth having drafted rather than downloaded.
Four Employees
Title VII applies at fifteen employees, which is the number most business owners have in mind. The Pennsylvania Human Relations Act applies at four. A six-person company with no federal exposure at all can face a full state discrimination claim, investigated by the Human Relations Commission, with no statutory cap on compensatory damages.
The protected classes are broadly what you would expect, including race, religious creed, ancestry, age over forty, sex, national origin and non-job-related disability. What has changed more recently is the definition of sex, which the Commission expanded by regulation in August 2023 to include gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding. Complaints must be filed within a hundred and eighty days, which is shorter than the federal window, so notice of one tends to arrive fast.
Wage Claims
The Wage Payment and Collection Law is the most aggressive employment statute in Pennsylvania and the one employers underestimate most. Where earned wages go unpaid for thirty days beyond the payday without a good-faith dispute, the employee can recover the wages plus liquidated damages of twenty-five percent or five hundred dollars, whichever is greater, together with attorney fees. That fee provision is why these cases settle.
Two features make it worse than it sounds. Wages are defined broadly enough to reach commissions, vested bonuses and accrued benefits payable in money, so a disputed commission on departure is a wage claim rather than a contract argument. And the statute allows individual liability against officers, agents and managers who knowingly permit a violation, which means the company’s limited liability does not necessarily protect the person who made the decision.
What We Handle
Drafted so they set expectations without accidentally promising something that undermines at-will employment.
Advice before the decision is made, which is where it changes the outcome rather than explains it.
Non-competes and non-solicits drafted and timed so they are actually enforceable when tested.
Responding to a Human Relations Commission charge, a wage claim, or an internal complaint properly.
Our Process
01
Headcount, the roles involved, and which state and federal statutes are actually in play before advising on anything.
Dismissals, discipline and pay changes are cheap to get right beforehand and expensive to defend afterward.
Handbook, offer letters, covenants and pay practices, brought into line so the next question answers itself.
Employment questions arrive urgently, get answered by instinct, and become expensive months later. What makes them different from most legal problems is that the outcome is usually decided by what you did in the first hour, not by how well it is argued afterward.
Yes, and this is the most common misunderstanding among smaller businesses here. Federal discrimination law generally starts at fifteen employees, but the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act starts at four. So a five-person company has full state exposure with no federal exposure at all, investigated by a state commission, with no cap on compensatory damages. Workers’ compensation coverage is required from your first employee, and the Wage Payment and Collection Law applies regardless of size. Being small changes very little about what applies to you.
Generally yes, and that is the at-will rule. The risk is not the absence of a reason but the presence of a bad one, or the appearance of one. Where the dismissal follows a complaint, a leave request, a workers’ compensation claim or a disclosure about something unlawful, the timing itself becomes the argument. Where your handbook promises progressive discipline and you did not follow it, that becomes the argument. A ten minute conversation before the meeting is worth considerably more than the same conversation after it, and by then the position is usually fixed.
It depends on when it was signed, which surprises people. Pennsylvania courts enforce reasonable restrictions supported by consideration. For a new hire the job itself is the consideration, so a covenant signed on the first day is straightforward. Handing the same agreement to somebody who has worked for you for three years requires something new in exchange, a raise, a promotion or a genuine benefit, and continued employment alone will not do it. That single point invalidates a great many covenants employers are relying on. Healthcare employers also work under a separate set of restrictions.
Almost every employment matter we are asked to defend was decided in a meeting that happened before anyone called. The version of that conversation which comes first is short, inexpensive and usually changes the plan. Daniel Jameson leads the firm’s employment work, and the first conversation costs nothing.