Offer letter before background/drug check a way to avoid severance

[Warpqueen]

My area is getting outsourced. The options are we will either still be retained by the company, get an offer from the outsourcer, or be laid off. The order of events is that we will receive offer letters from the outsourcer prior to having a background/drug check. If we turn down the offer we are technically quitting and no severance/unemployment. If we fail the background check are we considered fired or would we become eligible for layoff/severance.
Prior outsourcings had people go through the background/drug check prior to getting an offer and if you failed, severance was granted. Is this a way of getting around paying severance?

 

[cbg]

Severance is not required by law in 47 states, and only required in limited circumstances in the other 3. Assuming that you are not in Maine, Massachusetts or Hawaii, it is entirely up to the employer who is and is not eligible for severance, and under what circumstances.

If you are in one of the above three named states, please identify which one and we can go from there.

 

[Warpqueen]

Nope, not in one of those 3 states, and that pretty much confirms my suspicions.

So, even if the company has a posted severance policy that specifies lay-offs, and you fall in the lay-off bucket, they can still not pay severance.

Lovely....

 

[cbg]

It is standard practice for severance to be denied to anyone who turns down available work. That's not even remotely unusual nor, in my mind, is it unfair. What an employer will do about severance if the employee accepts the job but fails the background check/drug screening is up to them, but you seem to be taking it for granted that it will be denied. Has that actually happened?

I don't know that I'd pay severance to someone who failed a drug screen, either. As for failing a background check, I think it would depend on why they failed it.