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?
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.
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.
Didn't mean to imply that timeframe for the position was the only consideration. But the article didn't imply that the job description was different from what Seagate offered, but rather than his employment was simply terminated.
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?