Girl's Facebook Post Costs Her Dad $80,000

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "BBC reports that when Dana Snay learned her father had been awarded an $80,000 cash settlement in an age-discrimination lawsuit against his former employer, she couldn't resist bragging about it on Facebook. 'Mama and Papa Snay won the case against Gulliver,' the teen posted to her 1,200 Facebook friends. 'Gulliver is now officially paying for my vacation to Europe this summer. SUCK IT.' Trouble was her father had signed a confidentiality agreement so the school refused to pay a dime and a Florida appeals court has found in the school's favor. 'Snay violated the agreement by doing exactly what he had promised not to do,' wrote Judge Linda Ann Wells. 'His daughter then did precisely what the confidentiality agreement was designed to prevent.' Snay's father said in depositions that he and his wife knew they had to say something to their daughter because she suffered 'psychological scars' from issues during her enrollment at the school and was aware that they were in mediation with Gulliver attorneys. Attorneys say it's unlikely confiding in Dana Snay would have jeopardized the settlement — it was the facebook post that did them in. 'Remember when all you had to worry about was your daughter posting naked selfies of herself on Facebook?' writes Elie Mystal at Above the Law. 'Now, things are worse.'"

Re:Teenagers will do stupid things?

[mmell]

Yeah. "We screwed up. We should've known better, but we decided to do it anyway. Here's our penalty money."

"Oh, you screwed up. Your daughter didn't play by our rules. We take it all back...for teh win!"

Who's the batch of asshats who are reaming her dad out like this anyway? Sounds like it's time to shine a Slash dotlight on 'em.

Re:So why is this here?

[Buck Feta]

So why is this here?

Two words: Hugh Pickens. Remember the article about the "magical" ctrl-shift-t combo ("It's like ctrl-z for the internet!")? Hugh Pickens. Organic chemistry is hard? Hugh Pickens. The Christian Science Monitor is warns Congress not to cut food stamps? You guessed right, that's a Hugh Pickens. The guy is fucking clickbait/comment-bait. He's a scourge on slashdot, and they keep printing his inane copy-paste submissions. That's how I see it.

Re:So why is this here?

[erroneus]

It's here as a reminder that Facebook is a REALLY dumb idea and that people should realize it's not private.

Re:So why is this here?

[gnasher719]

OK... then.... her daughter violated the terms of their settlement. Time to proceed with the lawsuit, then, since there is no longer a settlement.

Unlikely. A settlement is a form of contract. "We pay you $80,000. You give up the right to sue us. You also promise to keep silent about this agreement, and return the money if you don't". Neither side's lawyers would allow a settlement agreement where either side could effectively just pull out.

Re:So why is this here?

[tlambert]

Can they still do that? After all, they were the ones who broke the deal.

It depends on the specific details of the confidentiality agreement; for it to be a legally binding contract there must be agreement and consideration (U.S. Law prevails in this case, as it took place in Miami, FL).

The normal mechanism here is that there is an exchange of "$1 and other valuable considerations", and that the settlement is considered and "additional consideration", and if the agreement is a negotiated agreement, which is typically the case, then the jude dismisses the original case with prejudice, which means it can not be legally re-raised, as (A) the separate consideration keeps the contract valid, and so (B) the dismissal with prejudice remains valid, even if the disclosure voided part of the contract, due to implied severability of contract terms.

Typically, a good lawyer on your side would prevent this type of estoppel, and you'd be able to reopen the case, but if the father in the case was very happy with the settlement amount, it might have been signed with that type of clause present, and the case could not be reasserted. A good lawyer on their side might "sweeten the pot" on the settlement to get the clause into place over your lawyers objections, if they could get you to fall for it.

So to answer your implied statement, it's likely that there is still a settlement, but it's probably $1, and it's probably already been paid, so there is no basis for reasserting the original case claims. Otherwise, this would likely not have hit the news.

Re:What?

[Zero__Kelvin]

No. You aren't thinking about this at all. It has nothing to do with what the daughter agreed to. The Father agreed to tell nobody, then violated that agreement by telling the daughter, which would have been a violation that never came to light if the daughter didn't subsequently blab to the world about it. You see, the violation was the father telling the daughter, not the daughter telling the world. It was the fact that the daughter told the world that made it obvious that the father told the daughter.

Re:Gulliver Preparatory School in Miami Florida.

[shentino]

They paid $10K in back wages, and $60K in legal expenses, which he gets to keep. It was the $80K in punitive damages that were forfeited by the blabbermouthing.

Re: So why is this here?

[Camael]

Read the article.

Snay, however, immediately told his daughter that he’d settled and was happy with the results. He said in depositions that he and his wife knew they had to say something because she suffered “psychological scars” from issues during her enrollment at the school and was aware that they were in mediation with Gulliver attorneys.

Man flaps mouth, man loses money.