Do i need a lawyer?

by Stupid in florida
(brevard county fl)

I worked for a mom and pop business for 3 years. after the first year the owners bought a home and i rented it from them. The home was bought with the intentions of me renting it from them. When it was all said and done the morgage was 1200.00 a month a only took home 1400.00 After 2 years of roommates and livin in poverety i finally had no choice but to give notice, i could no longer afford the home. They were already letting it go for short sale and not paying the morgage.
At this the owner became verbal abusive to me. The relationship was very messsed up friend boss landlord.I owed them money and was making payments and planning on paying off the debt with my taxes. The owner would wait till no one was around and and start badgering me on how was i going to pay this off.Stated she would not fire me, she would make me walk. I moved in with an ex so i could save some money and she was upset about who i moved in with. Long story short i quit, her behavior was intolorable and i could no longer manage the stress. I spoke to hear husband on several occasions who statd i was her whipping post it should pass. That it was her inability to live on the budget. He knew i would repay the loan. I ask him on two different occasios can i come talk to you, before something happens and he stated yes. But when i requested him to be there she wanted to discuss me giving her my car tittle for the debt he was there all afternoon nothing was brought up until he left. She always waited till her husband and no customers were around to do this. I filed for unemployment i have an appeal hearing i felt i took the steps to retain my job.The whole thing is not right. ADVISE PLEASE


Hi,

You really should talk to a lawyer because you are mixing different issues and are not focusing on the reason you quit .. which was the verbal abuse.


Was the employer paying you your wages?

Did the employer ever do anything about the money owed to her besides blow hot aired threats?

Do you think the husband would testify for you? Talk about a stupid question.

I just revised my do I need an unemployment lawyer page because I've always thought if you have to fight for benefits you'd be better having a lawyer and the more questions I answer from unemployment claimants the deeper the belief goes.

Personally, I couldn't find one thing in your story that supports a quit with good cause, but what anyone would need to do is ask you more questions just to find out if you're withholding the magic key.

Otherwise, all you can do is explain to the hearing officer what this woman was doing to you when no one else was around and the fact that you tried to get her to stop by speaking to her husband .. which by the way, his answer that you were just a whipping post and that it would pass suggests "better you than him".

If you're the calm type, and you have any cross examining skills at all .. you might try to get her to show her real self at the hearing.

It's all he said, she said .. the problem is it's you who quit .. I guess you'll just have to wait and see if you're found to offer credible testimony and if that hearing officer thinks any "reasonable person" would have quit too.

I guess I'll ask one question to probe.

Were any communications between you and the employer ever conducted in written form or were there any "willing and helpful parties" that might have witnessed any of these exchanges that you could extract testimony from? This might afford you the opportunity to catch the employer in a lie and then damage credibility with testimony to rebut the lie.

One more I guess .. was the rental a part of your employment package?