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Brian Owendoff has been relieved of his duties as managing director of the Portland office of CB Richard Ellis, Portland’s largest commercial real estate firms.

Owendoff made headlines last week when the Northwest Examiner, a Northwest Portland-based community newspaper, uncovering Owendoff’s online posting habits. The article includes the names Owendoff had been commenting under, as well as the exact comments he’d posted that were critical of Northwest Examiner Publisher Allan Classen, Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber and Portland Mayor Sam Adams. The article also includes an apology from Owendoff in which he admits to making the comments.

Robert McGrath, a corporate spokesman for CB Richard Ellis confirmed this afternoon that Owendoff is no longer with the company. In a statement released to news outlets after several media inquiries McGrath said, “Brian Owendoff is no longer with CB Richard Ellis. (CB Richard Ellis) has already begun the process to quickly identify a new market leader for the Portland area.”

Owendoff first came to Portland in 2007 from Ohio to take the lead at Opus Northwest. When Opus was hit hard by the recession in late 2009, Owendoff left for the position at CB Richard Ellis, which has 71 brokers in Portland.

Classen said it was never the paper’s intention to get Owendoff fired, but rather to tell an interesting story.

鈥淚t’s been quite a ride since this broke,鈥� Classen said. 鈥淲e’ve never received this type of attention from anything we’ve done in all our years combined.鈥�

While the firing was somewhat shocking to some in the industry, it would be hard for Owendoff to win a wrongful discharge case considering Oregon is an employment at will state. This means employees can quit a job whenever and for whatever reason. But it also means that in most cases employers can relieve an employee of their duties for whatever reason or no reason at all.

“First, I can’t imagine a lot of people would have sympathy for the guy after what he said,” said Rich Meneghello, a managing partner of the law firm Fisher & Phillips. “But even with that said, it’s not much different than him going down to Pioneer Square, standing on a soapbox and yelling those same things.

“If management didn’t like him doing that, they could fire him.”

According to Meneghello, that doesn’t mean he won’t file a suit, and it doesn’t mean he couldn’t win the case.

“With the unemployment rate as high as it is in Oregon there is probably at least five wrongful discharge cases filed each day,” he said. “These cases are not cut and dry.

They are kind of like business transactions. It’s about how much you are willing to fight the claim.”

Owendoff could not be reached for comment.