Montana is the only state in the country where workers can't simply be fired at will once they're past a probationary period. That single fact reshapes every employment decision a Flathead Valley business makes — and it's why employers and employees alike need counsel who lives and breathes the Wrongful Discharge from Employment Act.
Montana is the only state in the country where workers can't simply be fired “at will” once they're past a probationary period. That single fact reshapes almost every employment decision a Flathead Valley business makes — and Cannon Breck serves both sides of that line with equal care.
MWDFEA · MHRA · FLSA · Title VII · ADA
The Montana Wrongful Discharge from Employment Act (MWDFEA), the Montana Human Rights Act (MHRA), and Montana's wage-and-hour rules are not federal carbon copies. They carry stricter protections for employees, tighter procedural windows for employers, and specific remedies — like up to four years of lost wages — that don't exist in most jurisdictions.
Whether you run a ranch, a seasonal hospitality business on Flathead Lake, a healthcare practice in Kalispell, or a construction outfit in Columbia Falls, the rules you operate under are genuinely different from the ones your out-of-state attorneys or HR platforms assume.
Up to four years of lost wages. A one-year statute of limitations. A probationary period with teeth. The MWDFEA rewrites the rules every Flathead Valley employer operates under — and the rules every Montana worker has to know.
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Managing Attorney · Employment Practice Lead
Chad leads the firm's employment law practice, representing Montana employers and employees from onboarding documentation through the hardest separations. He's spent his career in the Flathead Valley, which means he knows the industries on both sides of most matters — hospitality, healthcare, construction, ranch operations, retail — and the way Montana's statutes actually move through them. Clients come to Chad for straight answers about what the law requires, what it protects, and what a given matter is likely to cost in both dollars and time.
Our employer clients are typically small-to-midsize Flathead Valley businesses — roughly five to two hundred employees — who need counsel that scales with them. Our employee clients are Montana workers who have been treated unfairly and need to know whether what happened to them is actually actionable under state law.
From day one through difficult terminations, we help employers build the documentation, policies, and procedures that hold up under MWDFEA, MHRA, and Montana's wage rules.
We take on wrongful discharge, discrimination, harassment, retaliation, wage, and non-compete disputes on behalf of Montana workers — with honest early-stage assessments and a clear path forward.
Eight practice lanes that cover the matters Flathead Valley employers and employees bring through our doors most often. Each one is shaped by Montana's statutes — not a generic federal template.
After Montana's probationary period (typically one year unless your policy specifies otherwise), employers need “good cause” to terminate. We counsel employers on documentation, progressive discipline, and terminations that hold up under the Wrongful Discharge from Employment Act — and we represent employees whose terminations clearly did not.
A Montana-specific handbook is not a luxury. We draft and audit handbooks, probationary-period policies, discipline workflows, remote-work agreements, drug-testing policies, and anti-harassment programs that comply with MWDFEA, MHRA, OSHA, and federal overlays like FMLA and the ADA.
We handle workplace discrimination and harassment matters under the Montana Human Rights Act, Title VII, the ADA, and the ADEA — including claims filed with the Montana Human Rights Bureau. We advise employers on prevention and investigation, and represent employees who have experienced protected-class discrimination or retaliation.
Montana's wage payment rules carry stiff penalties for late or miscalculated pay. We handle misclassification (employee vs. independent contractor, exempt vs. non-exempt), unpaid overtime, final-paycheck disputes, commission and tip-pool claims, and compliance reviews for hourly, salaried, and seasonal workforces.
Montana courts scrutinize restrictive covenants more strictly than most states. We draft enforceable non-compete, non-solicitation, and confidentiality agreements — and we defend employees and new employers against overreaching ones. Our trade-secret work covers both the Montana Uniform Trade Secrets Act and the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act.
When a complaint surfaces — harassment, theft, retaliation, policy violations — how the investigation is conducted often matters more than the finding itself. We conduct neutral workplace investigations, advise internal HR teams on investigation protocol, and prepare documentation that protects the employer whether the matter settles, goes to the Human Rights Bureau, or moves to litigation.
When disputes can't be resolved at the counseling stage, we litigate. That includes defending and prosecuting cases in Montana state and federal courts, handling proceedings before the Montana Human Rights Bureau and the Department of Labor & Industry, and representing clients in EEOC charges and mediations.
We draft and negotiate executive employment agreements, equity and deferred-compensation structures, and severance packages — for both companies building key-person packages and executives reviewing what's been offered to them.
If yours isn't here, the answer is probably a short phone call away. We keep consultations focused so you leave knowing whether you actually have a matter — or not.
Only during the probationary period. Montana is the single U.S. state that has rejected pure at-will employment for non-probationary workers — under the Wrongful Discharge from Employment Act (MWDFEA), employers need “good cause” to terminate once an employee is past probation. This is the most important fact about Montana employment law and the one most commonly misunderstood, especially by out-of-state employers expanding into the Flathead Valley.
The statutory default is one year, but an employer can set a different probationary period in writing — longer or shorter — through a handbook or offer letter. If the employer is silent, the one-year default applies. Once probation ends, the MWDFEA protections attach.
Under the MWDFEA, a wrongfully discharged employee can recover up to four years of lost wages and fringe benefits, plus punitive damages in cases involving actual fraud or malice. Montana caps and channels these remedies differently than the federal-court common-law model, which is why the strategic analysis of whether to litigate is very state-specific.
The statute of limitations on a MWDFEA claim is one year from the date of discharge. For discrimination matters filed with the Montana Human Rights Bureau, the window is typically 180 days. Missing these deadlines is one of the most common — and most painful — mistakes we see, so we recommend contacting an attorney within weeks of the event, not months.
Yes, with limits. Montana courts will enforce a properly drafted arbitration clause in an employment agreement, but the clause must be conspicuous, mutual, and must not strip the employee of substantive statutory rights. We draft arbitration provisions that hold up and review the ones employees have been asked to sign.
Montana applies a reasonableness standard to non-competes that is stricter than many states — courts weigh geographic scope, duration, and the legitimate business interest being protected, and will strike or “blue-pencil” overreaching clauses. Non-solicitation and confidentiality agreements generally fare better than broad non-competes.
Montana does not impose its own state-level meal or rest break requirements for adult employees, so the federal Fair Labor Standards Act controls. That said, breaks promised in a handbook or policy can become contractually binding, and specific industries (like healthcare and transportation) have their own rules on top.
Ask for the termination reason in writing, and check the offer letter or handbook you received when you were hired to confirm the probationary period's length. If the probationary period differs from the statutory default without being properly documented, or if the discharge was for a protected reason (discrimination, retaliation, refusal to commit an illegal act), you may still have a claim. An initial consultation will clarify what you're actually looking at.
Yes — the firm represents both sides of Montana employment law, though never on the same matter. We run formal conflict checks on every new engagement, and Cannon Breck is direct with prospective clients about whether a conflict exists. Working both sides keeps the practice sharp: we know what good employer-side documentation looks like because we regularly see what fails on the employee side, and vice versa.
We're licensed throughout Montana and regularly take matters from Missoula, Helena, and eastern Montana when employment-specific expertise is needed. The Flathead Valley is our home base, but the MWDFEA and the Human Rights Bureau operate statewide, and so does the practice.
Based in Kalispell, Montana — representing clients throughout Flathead County and the surrounding Northwestern Montana region.
Whether you're an employer weighing a termination, a worker wondering if you have a case, or an executive reviewing severance, a focused initial conversation is the fastest way to know where you stand under Montana law.
