My paralegal, Anne, buzzed me: “You have Mike on the line who just got fired from his job as an auto mechanic and adamantly claims that he did nothing wrong. He is very upset.”

I asked her to put him through. “So, Mike, what happened?”

“Well, Mr. Beaver, my boss was sued in small claims court by a customer who claimed that our repairs were inadequate and who took her car to another shop. I worked on the vehicle but was never allowed to testify, and the judge found for the customer. Then I was fired.”

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He insisted that was the entire story, but I had serious doubts. I recorded his verbal authorization to discuss this with “Ron,” the employer, phoned and at once heard, “My gosh, Dennis! I read you in Kiplinger every week and just love your column! How can I help?”

“Mike, your former employee, claims that he was fired because you lost in small claims court. I know that very often lawyers are only told a fraction of what really happened, so can you fill me in on the rest, and may I join him in on this call?”

Ron agreed.

The truth comes out

A friend of this column, Southern California labor law attorney Jay Rosenlieb, has a phrase to describe what I was about to hear: telling the truth slowly.

Our conversation went like this:

Me: From what Mike told me, I understand he was terminated only because Ron lost in court. Is there any other possible reason,...

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