[sjethro00]

My old supervisor quit her job, and now the company is talking about taking legal actions against her. She was not under a contract which bound her to stay with the company for XX amount of time.


The company had been talking about demoting her by taking away the company vehicle away from her, but she would still retain most of her old job duties at a lesser salary (due to financial difficulties). She refused to continue the job without the company vehicle, because all of her jobs were out of town, this would easily amount to 100+ miles of driving time a night. So, instead she quit.

Now, she got a long letter from the company, claiming she retailiated against the company, and forced several workers to quit with her, and she shouldn't have told the customers it was her last day. The letter also states they plan on taking legal actions, because she quit they lost a lot of business (The company had several days to remedy this, by hiring people, or doing the work themselves, or even sending in other workers until they found new workers, but they didn't, so no work was performed for several days, and the contracts were terminated)

Do they have grounds to sue for damages?

[excon]

Hello again, jethro:

Here's more than enough evidence that these people are schmucks. Keep pursuing your claim against them.

In this other matter, as long as all she did was tell the truth (that it was her last day), then they don't have squat on her.

She should write them back and say, "If I was so valuable, then you should have bought me a better car, instead of taking away the one I had. Sue me!!!"

excon

[J_9]

Also, just to add a little. If they are saying things about her that are not true that is called slander, if they are putting these things in writing it is called lible. She can, therefore, counter-sue for defimation of character.

[mr.yet]

She should let them sue her, she can file counter complaint against them FOR slander, defamation . If she had no employement contract, they have no case.

[sjethro00]

I know she told the customer that I used to work for, that she was going to quit.
The only thing is, I think she may have notified that customer she was going to be done the night before she even officially notified the company. I'm not sure if that's actionable?

As far as slander/lible, the letter from what she read to me accused her of failing to return several items, and all of her keys. She turned in the keys, because she turned them over to my friend who still works for the company, and he left them for the owner to pick-up. I think they are claiming they never got the keys, because it would give them some kind of excuse for not servicing the buildings for several days, but that's just my theory.

As always, thanks for dishing out some good advice. I'll pass this on to her.

[Fr_Chuck]

They may sue her for company property she did not return, she is free to tell anyone and everyone she is quitting or did quit, and she can tell everyone else before she tells her boss if she wants to.

She can talk the entire office to quit ( this is done often when people are formng unions, they all just walk off the job)

They are doing this to try and scare her and also try to scare other employees still working there.

If she has the money, I would love to see her hire an attorney to go visit them in person, and explain to them the law, The in person so everyone still at the office knows about it.
But heck that is just me, love the dog and pony show.

But she needs to always get a receipt for items when she returns them.
As long as this other person will tell in court that they received these items, there should be no issue.

No case but she may have to get an attorney to fight it, if they keep trying

She actually has a better case against them at this point

[sjethro00]

She returned the majority of the items when she turned in the vehicle; the only item she failed to return to was an extension cord and a couple other items she found after she had returned them. Once she got the letter, she returned the rest of the items.

Yes, I agree with you chuck that it is a scare tactic, to scare people who are contemplating quiting (which are a lot of them), and the ones who are still associated with us, as talks of her being demoted arose shortly after she refused to give false statements in regards to our unemployment benefit case.

~~~ Also, I appologize for being unable to rate all of your answers, as I've already rated yours in the past and are unable to do so as of now :(

[ScottGem]

If this is the same company that fired you, they have a serious problem. They need to hire an HR person to get them out of trouble. I agree with everyone else. They don't have a case and she should call their bluff and countersue them if they dare bring a suit. She may wind up owning the company and hire you back.