Seagate To Pay Former Worker $1.9M For Phantom Job

Lucas123 writes "The jury in a Minnesota-based wrongful employment case delivered a verdict ordering disk-drive manufacturer Seagate to pay $1.9 million to a former employee who uprooted his family and career at Texas Instruments in Dallas to move to Minnesota for a job that did not exist. The man was supposed to be developing solid state drive technology for Seagate but was laid off months later. 'The reason that was given is that he was hired to be a yield engineer but the project never came to fruition,' the former employee's attorney said. 'They didn't care what effect it had on his career.'"

Details

[cappp]

The Summary seems to skirt around the more salacious details. TFA says

"It was beneficial for [Seagate] to have a yield engineer on staff to give the appearance of a complete organization with a project that was further along in development. They were not able to sell or find a partner for the ATG group despite having him on board as the placeholder yield engineer."

The inference was that SeaGate bought Vaidyanathan on as a little corporate theatrics, manipulating appearances while they looked for a partner organization.

He was able to sue under a Minnesota law [mn.gov] that makes it illegal for

any ... company...doing business in this state...to induce, influence, persuade, or engage any person to change from one place to another in this state, or to change from any place in any state, territory, or country to any place in this state, to work in any branch of labor through or by means of knowingly false representations

bigger than seagate

[girlintraining]

Minnesota is a "At Will" [wikipedia.org] employment state, which is a misnomer. Basically it means they can fire you at any time, for (almost) any reason, without any warning or compensation, unless otherwise covered by federal laws (for example, mass layoffs). Most states have laws similar to this. In this case, they caught Seagate on a technicality -- the jury believed that Seagate willfully misrepresented the job to him, and thus was in violation of a state law.

Without knowing the case specifics, I can't say with authority how likely this is to be overturned, but if Seagate can demonstrate that the project fell apart for business reasons that could not be reasonably anticipated, it'll die on appeal. And it is very likely that it will.

Promissory Estoppel

[ShiftyOne]

Liability was based off of a contract term called reliance or promissory estoppel. Because he relied on a promise of a job, and it cost him a bunch of money, he is given damage for what he went through. I am not a lawyer but that is the basic premise of the term. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promissory_estoppel [wikipedia.org]

Re:Too Much

[Charliemopps]

They broke Minnesota law by lying to him. The job did not really exist, simple as that. The verdict was for Punitive Damages "compensation in excess of actual damages - a form of punishment awarded in cases of malicious or willful misconduct" not Liability damages "compensation for actual damages"

Re:Liability

[fiannaFailMan]

From TFA:

The basis for the case is a Minnesota statute that makes it illegal to induce "any person to change from any place in any state, territory or country to any place in this state to work in any branch of labor through or by means of knowingly false representations."

Re:bigger than seagate

[Billly Gates]

Employment at will does not mean you can make false promises to someone where they are hurt financially. It is not the laying off but the promising of something they knew was not real or would not happen before she started employment. You can't fire someone because he is black whether you are an at-will employer or not. It is the same thing and something needs to be done to protect workers for once.

Re:Just shows how far HR is from people doing the

[alvinrod]

Sometimes I think the BS B.S. requirements are just to thin the applicant pool a little. You might miss out on some quality people, but it gives you an early short list. It's not feasible to interview every single person, especially for some low-level job. There's always some arbitrary line in the sand used to cull the pack. Why should a non-necessary degree requirement be any different than tossing any resume that has some minor grammatical error?

If you or anyone else has a better system, I'd love to hear it. After seeing the results of the current hiring policy, anything would be better.

Re:Liability

[Loadmaster]

It's the Erie Doctrine. Basically, Federal court applies the laws of the state.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erie_doctrine [wikipedia.org]

Re:bigger than seagate

[Lloyd_Bryant]

Without knowing the case specifics, I can't say with authority how likely this is to be overturned, but if Seagate can demonstrate that the project fell apart for business reasons that could not be reasonably anticipated, it'll die on appeal. And it is very likely that it will.

First, if Seagate could have established that the person was hired for a perfectly valid position, which went away as a result of business conditions they couldn't have forseen, then they wouldn't have lost this trial in the first place.

Second, the "At will" issue is irrelevant - the lawsuit was based on a law that says employers are not allowed to lure people into relocating unless there's an actual job waiting for them.

Finally, appeals are generally based on issues of law, not issues of fact. So unless Seagate can come up with a good legal argument why that state law doesn't apply in this case, it's unlikely they'll get a reversal on appeal. At best, they may get the award reduced.

Re:Respectfully, I disagree

[tixxit]

What an American college degree says is debt.