My wife had a solid job offer rescinded a few years ago. She got the whole "welcome aboard" speech and everything. However, when attempting to check an old reference, the person she listed as her reference wasn't available and so another guy who'd she had never met decided to give it instead. He gave an entirely fictional and terrible reference for no apparent reason. They had never worked together, had no history or anything yet this guy decided he would just mess someones life up.
Anyway, even after explaining that to the potential employer they still didn't care and rescinded the offer.
Life is weird sometimes.
Why not sue the guy for slander? It did real and measurable damage, the potential employer has a record of the conversation, and the former employer has the true record of her work there. Seems like a slam dunk to this non-lawyer.
To answer all the questions about sueing etc. The job she interviewed for was in the US, but her previous job where the guy gave the bad reference was in the UK. Also, we had no idea who actually gave the reference because we could find no record of the name he gave to them. I assure you, if we could have sued someone, we would have!
Even companies that don't do severance will pay out when they rescind an offer, because it makes them look horrible. Since it sounds like there's nothing embarrassing on her (it was just a case of a random hit) she could easily get $75,000. (Most bad reference/rescinded offer cases make plaintiff look somewhat bad and come in around the $20-50k range; but in her case, they don't have anything on her.)
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My wife had a solid job offer rescinded a few years ago. She got the whole "welcome aboard" speech and everything. However, when attempting to check an old reference, the person she listed as her reference wasn't available and so another guy who'd she had never met decided to give it instead. He gave an entirely fictional and terrible reference for no apparent reason. They had never worked together, had no history or anything yet this guy decided he would just mess someones life up. Anyway, even after explaining that to the potential employer they still didn't care and rescinded the offer. Life is weird sometimes.
Why not sue the guy for slander? It did real and measurable damage, the potential employer has a record of the conversation, and the former employer has the true record of her work there. Seems like a slam dunk to this non-lawyer.
To answer all the questions about sueing etc. The job she interviewed for was in the US, but her previous job where the guy gave the bad reference was in the UK. Also, we had no idea who actually gave the reference because we could find no record of the name he gave to them. I assure you, if we could have sued someone, we would have!
That's totally awful.
The company that offered me the job offer told me that they will not be doing any reference check on me.
IANAL, but that sounds like the a textbook definition of libel. If it happened as you said, it sounds worth pursuing
Did she get a settlement for it?
Even companies that don't do severance will pay out when they rescind an offer, because it makes them look horrible. Since it sounds like there's nothing embarrassing on her (it was just a case of a random hit) she could easily get $75,000. (Most bad reference/rescinded offer cases make plaintiff look somewhat bad and come in around the $20-50k range; but in her case, they don't have anything on her.)