[link|http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060505/NEWS/605050358/1006|Delaware Online]

His former employer claims the 44-year-old, who now lives in Chicago, overstated his qualifications to get the job, and once hired, made too many personal phone calls and played with his iPod too much.

The company not only fired him in July, it is now demanding in a federal lawsuit that he pay back the $90,000 plus an additional $210,000 in profits that the company believes it lost because of his poor job performance.

This is the sort of case where I suspect there is something more going on that we can't see. But if the article is correct this is a horribly dangerous idea. Not only is the company trying to get what they paid him back, despite firing him for nothing more then run of the mill incompetence, but they are trying to claim damages on the amount of buisness the company didn't get because of his incompetence.

The first idea is bad enough. Notice that the company is not claiming any crime here, just that he was bad at his job. To allow that would set a terrible precedent. A company should not be able to sue to recover wages paid unless they can show fraud on his part in the hiring process, or criminal behavior on the job. And even there I think it should be carefully limited.

The second is fairly absurd. They want damages on the amount of buisness they estimate he did not bring in due to his incompetence. That is downright bizarre, and massivly open to abuse.

Jay