Montana stands alone as the only state with a general wrongful-discharge statute that overrides the at-will presumption. The WDEA provides statutory causes of action for termination without good cause after a probationary period, discharge for refusal to violate public policy, and discharge in violation of an express employer policy. Damages modeling in WDEA matters differs structurally from damages modeling under common-law or discrimination-statute theories.
WDEA damages framework
WDEA remedies are bounded by statute: up to four years of lost wages and fringe benefits, reduced by interim earnings and amounts the employee could reasonably have earned through mitigation. Punitive damages are available only where fraud or malice is proven by clear and convincing evidence. The model applies the statutory cap directly and calculates the mitigation offset with care.
Sectoral compensation
Mining and energy-sector plaintiffs face commodity-linked variable compensation that the model runs against realistic commodity scenarios for the loss period, not a single assumed strip.
Worklife & discount-rate notes
Montana's mining, energy, healthcare, and agriculture sectors produce compensation profiles with sectoral complexity. Mining plaintiffs face commodity-linked and seasonal pay; healthcare plaintiffs face regional-system structures; agricultural plaintiffs face commodity-dependent compensation with multi-year cyclicality.
