

Engineer wins $1.9 million in "wrongful hire" suit against Seagate. - pavel_lishin
http://www.hirecentrix.com/can-an-employer-wrongfully-hire-someone-case-highlights-potential-pitfalls-of-the-hiring-process.html

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droithomme
"alleges Seagate knew that the position for which he was hired did not
actually exist, but falsely represented that it did so in order to use
Vaidyanathan’s credentials to better market one of its divisions to be sold to
another company"

Wow. This happened to me once, many years ago. Never thought of suing over it,
but I am still angry about it. I'd prefer not to get into all the details or
name names, but I had published some papers in a specialized hot domain that
was highly mathematical, and owned some modest but important IP. This company
hired me, and then trotted me out in meetings with suitably impressed clients
to get three multi-million dollar contracts. Once they had the contracts, they
dismissed me. They also tried to steal my IP despite our licensing agreement,
but that's another matter. They are now out of business, but they did so by
leveraging the existence of the development contracts to flip the company to a
bigger company that didn't realize it was buying a pig in a poke. The three
owners of the privately held company were sociopaths who then took off with
the acquisition money.

So details are a little different, but basic idea is I got shafted in the same
way as that guy. I was hired only to be a prop in a scam where my existence as
an employee was only used to screw over clients for money as part of a larger
scam to sell off a company to another company for profit and pocket the money.

It's very cool that Minnesota has a law prohibiting lying to people to get
them to come work for you. I wasn't in Minnesota and am fairly sure that I
wouldn't have had any case even if it had occurred to sue over this specific
aspect of it.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
> _a law prohibiting lying to people to get them to come work for you_ //

Isn't fraud a general prohibition in most legal jurisdictions? Why would it
matter that the company personnel committing the fraud were doing so in the
arena of employment as opposed to sales or whatever?

~~~
mfringel
[IANAL] Technically, there was no fraud. They made a job offer, he accepted,
and they (most likely) properly compensated him within the bounds of the
offer. So, in terms of that specific business transaction, there was no
intentional deception made for personal/business gain (they made good on the
job offer), or to damage a specific individual (they paid him according to the
employment contract). Employment being at-will in most of the US, Seagate was
completely within their rights to let him go anytime they wanted, for any
reason. There's no case, there. Seagate was not playing fair, but they were
still within the bounds of the law.

However, the actual intent of creating the job in the first place was done
under false pretenses, and MN has a specific (albeit old and obscure) law
against that.

~~~
pavel_lishin
> Technically, there was no fraud. They made a job offer, he accepted, and
> they (most likely) properly compensated him within the bounds of the offer.

Without having seen the job offer, or knowing what exactly he did for them, we
can't really say, can we.

~~~
tptacek
No, we can't, which is his point.

The parent commenter is simply observing that "fraud" is a harder case to make
than a specific violation of a statute narrowly tailored to exactly this guy's
case.

Given the obscure statute which won this guy his judgement, it seems
reasonable to assume he had better legal representation than is available on
an HN thread.

------
jroseattle
Normally I find a lot of these lawsuits frivolous, but on the surface this
sounds completely legitimate.

It's obvious he wasn't just another engineer, but rather someone with very
specific skills and credentials such that his employment caused other parties
to enter into business, sign a contract, etc.

Coupled with the fact that this wasn't a simple decision for the guy and his
family (up and move from Texas to Minnesnowda), Seagate obviously made some
short-term decisions that were quite underhanded.

Makes one wonder -- what was a reasonable threshold time that Seagate needed
to employ the engineer before this lawsuit didn't have merit?

~~~
quanticle
I'm not sure that a simple "months on the job" threshold is sufficient to
decide wrongdoing here. From what the article says, it seems like Seagate
misrepresented the position to the engineer. Given that, I think a better
standard would be to look at the job listing and the communication that
Seagate had with Mr. Vaidyanathan, then compare that with what he was asked to
do.

~~~
tptacek
I don't read him as arguing that there should be a simple "months on the job"
test, but rather observing that if he had been employed for, say, 24 months
before termination, he probably wouldn't have made his case; a reasonable
group of people being likely to conclude that 24 months constitutes a bona
fide employment relationship and not a parlor trick.

~~~
jroseattle
Yes, it does seem like timeframe is a key consideration here.

------
bmm6o
Great for Vaidyanathan and all, but what I really dislike about this article
is this "wrongful hire" neologism. Seagate committed fraud, and calling it
"wrongful hire" makes it sound so much weaker. And maybe I'm just paranoid,
but the author of the piece definitely operates on the employer's side of
these relationships (read his bio), so half of me wonders if this is
intentional.

~~~
forgotAgain
I agree and think it was intentional. It won't be long before politicians are
mocking "Companies have even been successfully sued for wrongfully hiring
someone." as a pretext for cutting employee protection laws.

~~~
pavel_lishin
Hopefully we'd be able to claim that they were wrongfully elected, and get
them recalled.

~~~
marshray
But then they could sue _us_.

------
rboyd
FTA "Vaidyanathan alleged that Seagate knew that the position for which he was
hired did not actually exist, but falsely represented that it did so in order
to use Vaidyanathan’s credentials to better market one of its divisions to be
sold to another company."

I wonder why his employment didn't transfer to the acquiring company if
Vaidyanathan was so important to the success of the division being sold.

~~~
angus77
Maybe the deal didn't go through.

------
kokey
Something similar happened to me during the dotcom era. I was poached from a
very nice job at an airline by someone I did work for on the side who always
paid well. The salary he offered me was about 20% higher, plus he offered a
massive cash payout over the first few months. I quit my job and joined this
company, only to find out that the cash was based on his businesses selling a
lot of equity to a large company, and I was part of the deal. The deal fell
through as I joined, probably because it became apparent to the investor that
the guy was a crook. I was paid a third of my salary for several months and
left with a lot of debt. I really should have sued when I was back on my feet
again, but I didn't really want to deal with this guy any more.

------
ck2
Forget 1-year warranties, if Seagate actually did this they are morally
bankrupt.

I wonder if he will even see $1 of that award though and how many years later.

------
GBond
The intention of this law is good for employee in spirit but I wonder if
companies will now be reluctant to have clear career paths in fear of a
lawsuit.

~~~
devs1010
In this case they wanted a "big fish" type of engineer, they have to compete
to get this type of employee because the guy has weight in the industry. I
don't see how a company can not present a clear, desirable path to a
prospective employee of this status and still expect to attract "high caliber"
(whether perceived or real) talent.

------
tomjen3
I don't get why he had to sue under that law: fraud is fraud and bait and
switch is fraud too.

~~~
jetti
" bait and switch is fraud too"

That doesn't make much sense....they offered him a job with a salary and he
got there and was given a job with a salary. Not like he got there and they
had a car with a sandwich waiting for him and a note that says "Sorry :(".

Bottom line, bait and switch is a consumer law not employment law.

~~~
marshray
If they knew at the time they the job was only temporary (i.e., they had
planned in advance to dispose of him after a short time) yet they presented it
to him as a "full time permanent" position ... obviously it's not the same as
the classic car dealership B&S, but it doesn't seem like honest dealing
either.

~~~
jetti
What about the flip side, an employee who takes a job knowing that it isn't
permanent and will jump ship giving the first opportunity (which could be in
as little as 6 months). Is that wrong? These situations are always possible
because most (if not all) states are at-will states.

~~~
marshray
I'm thinking in your scenario the employee probably didn't entice the employer
(under false pretenses) to terminate whatever their previous arrangement was
and relocate to MN, with a much smaller job market.

