Texas Court Decides Companies Can Legally Lie To Their Employees

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Welcome to Rick Perry's Texas miracle.

If Mitt Romney is right and corporations are in fact people my friend, then they are definitely the kind you don’t want showing up at your parties.

The highest court in Texas decided that a company can legally lie to its employees if the bosses think the employees might bolt if they knew they were about to get screwed. Allow me to explain as you shake your head in disbelief.

Chief Justice Nathan Hecht ruled that a company can willfully mislead employees into thinking that they are going to continue being employed and still fire them whenever the company chooses. From a business angle, it makes sense: Employees that know they are on the verge of being laid off or sold out to a different company don’t work nearly as hard as the blissfully ignorant ones. From an ethical angle, these companies should probably do some soul searching and fast.

And the reason Hecht made this decision was because this has already happened. In 2002, the chemical company E.I. du Pont de Nemours decided to spin off some of its operations into a subsidiary. The employees were contractually allowed to transfer within the company if they so chose, but du Pont didn’t want them to do that. Instead they told the employees that they would be able to keep their jobs at the subsidiary and maintain their same wages and retirement funds. What happens next would make Ebenezer Scrooge cringe.

Du Pont, which had just convinced all of these long-time employees to stay with the subsidiary, turned around and sold the subsidiary – most of the employees were promptly laid off by the new management (In a twist good enough for Hollywood, the new company was none other than Koch Industries, the closest capitalism has to supervillians). They lost everything and du Pont got to squeeze out the last remaining productivity before they did.

Obviously, du Pont had just lied to its (former) employees faces, knowing full well that they were about to be sold away without a second thought. The employees took the company to court under the assumption that the justice system wouldn’t allow this to happen. Instead, the Texas Supreme Court favored with du Pont.

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/08/23/texas-court-decides-companies-can-legally-lie-to-their-employees/

[Sherman A1]

1. Perhaps the only thing to do is

to appeal the decision at this point.

That said, it's a damn shame that companies treat people like this, but that is where we are in this charming corporate world.

[cstanleytech]

17. I dont hold out much hope for an appeal to win to be honest.

This is clearly a lesson that you should never take the word of an employer though and if you want to be sure of something get them to put it in writing and sign a contract that will force them to comply with it.

[Sherman A1]

18. Agreed

but, I don't know what other options would be available at this time.

[Jackpine Radical]

25. The obvious next step is for the corporations

to be freed from their contractual obligations as long as those obligations are to mere humans.

[exboyfil]

32. Seems this already has happened in this case

From what I understand of contract law this is fraud.

A fraud is an intentionally false representation made with the intent to mislead the listener, and that the listener relied on "to her detriment."

A ridiculous decision that received absolutely no traction in the business press. Try to do this under due diligence and find out what the other corporation will do to you.

[cstanleytech]

33. I disagree, the decision made sense.

And yes it also leaves a bad taste in my mouth to agree with the decision that favors a corporation but imo if you want to hold a corporation accountable to its word you have to get it in writing as they will bend you over and screw you the first chance they get and then they will ask you if you want seconds.

[Ms. Toad]

38. Texas is an at will employment state (same as most).

What that means is that you can be fired (or quit) for any reason at all, at any time, generally without any notice. The exceptions to that rule are when you have an employment contract which specifies when you can be fired (most people don't), and you cannot be fired for an illegal reason (like because of your race, religion, gender, marital status - for example).

So - in Texas, you could walk into work, and your boss could say, "I don't like your blue eyes. Clean out your desk. You're fired." That would be perfectly legal. He couldn't say, "I don't like Blacks. Clean our your desk. You're fired." If you have a contract that says you can only be fired for just cause, or with 2 weeks notice, etc. then the boss has to stick to what he agreed to.

Even in an at will Without reading the case itself, there may still be individuals who could make out a case against their employer. If you ask the new company whether it will keep you on, it lies to you, and you make a job decision (like turning down a job offer, for example) based on the misrepresentation, they you would have specific circumstances that might distinguish you from the general masses who didn't lose anything because of the lie.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. Maybe it has already happened. THAT DOESN'T MAKE IT ANY LESS WRONG.

Based on that decision alone, you could say murder is OK, SINCE IT HAS ALREADY HAPPENED.

WTF is wrong with Texas?

[Vincardog]

3. WTF is wrong with Texas? The conservatives have packed the courts.

IF a Corporation VS a Person, the Corporation wins.
If a Business VS a connected Business the Connected business wins.

If anything gets past the front line the appeals court will find for the Corrupt Corporation (Or Tom the bug man Delay).

IF it goes all the way to the TX Supreme Court the TX SC will illegally rule the way the Corporate Masters want them to.

[deathrind]

4. Yep...

Watch the documentary "Hot Coffee" it goes into how the right has been working to get corp friendly judges on benches all across the country for years now.

[littlemissmartypants]

14. Yep. nt

[daredtowork]

35. And Justice for Corporations Only

When no one who isn't super-wealthy can afford a lawyer, no one can defend their rights: therefore no one poor can vindicate their rights. The wealthy know that and they tread upon the rights of the poor with impunity, because they can play the odds that the poor can't fight back.

Thus the poor have not had de facto rights in America or a long time.

Judges hate pro se defendants, too. They don't let them speak. They use tentative rulings to avoid actual hearings. If the pro se person doesn't know obscure court procedures, the Judge wields that to scold and cut them off: I've seen this in action. In the end poor people just want it to be over, and they will accept any ruling even if it's untrue and unjust. There really aren't clear ways to complain about this situation, either.

While a lot of people are focusing on race and the spiritual conversion around white privilege, I wish there was a way to call people's attention to the concept that the source of these problems are the failure of infrastructure at the local level. After the marching and tweeting and protests are over, will people come out and DO real change on the local level: addressing gaps in the social safety net, recognizing real lingering problems with unemployment, providing for real social services and fair structures of law enforcement and justice? Will people actually try to rebuild their communities or will they just get Ferguson tweet fatigue and move on to some other cause to opine over?

There are things to be DONE here, and I really don't see a lot of DOING going on. At least not in my community. Here in the Oakland, CA area it's the same old ongoing blindness to the local problem, while people prefer to be Busy and Important over Global Issues.

[Unknown Beatle]

16. Keep telling yourself that (WTF is wrong with Texas?)

and ignore the reality that corporations are taking over the US. The SCOTUS ruled in favor of corporations and they would probably rule that it's OK for them (corporations) to lie too.

Texas is just a microcosm of what's going on in the US.

[dickthegrouch]

5. Perhaps if any of the employees were also shareholders

they could bring suit against the company for lying under SEC rules.
Misleading statements about the condition of the company are what got Ken Lay et al into trouble.

[BrotherIvan]

8. That's an excellent idea for activism and labour

Because employees obviously don't matter to most companies, but shareholders do.

[rurallib]

21. That is an excellent point as many employees do buy their company's stock

[rickford66]

6. What if it's the other way around?

[WinkyDink]

7. The employee could be fired. What's yer point?

[Trillo]

9. The asymmetry is remarkable, isn't it? NT

[hughee99]

10. Get all corporate promises in writing.

That's still no guarantee, but it helps a little.

[antigop]

11. precisely why unions and worker co-ops are needed. nt

[Orrex]

12. Employees should have the right to lie on their resumes

And professional background checks should be ruled a criminal invasion of privacy.

[SoapBox]

13. Hell...sounds like my employer anyway.

They've been lying or manipulating shit forever...based in Georgia.

They will smile to your face and then put a knife in your back.

[groundloop]

15. We must work for the same company

Either that or this kind of shit is far too common.

Hell, I once worked at a small family owned company. The son had recently started running things, he gave us that wore out old "times are tough, work harder, tighten your belts, no raises this year" speech and then had the gall to show up driving a brand new BMW a couple of weeks later.

[blkmusclmachine]

19. ,

,

[A Simple Game]

20. Companies have always lied to their employees, and in the case of Fox News

they have a legal right to lie to their customers (viewers).

[rurallib]

22. I worked for a major company and it seemed to be standard practice.

I expected nothing less, but always loved to confront management with rumors I heard.
Part of the fun was to watch these so called Christians have to compromise their so called faith.

[Jerry442]

24. But if the defendant had been Hobby Lobby, they'd have lost the case...

...because they violated their Christian values.

Yeah.

Right.

[rickyhall]

23. Sometimes seems Socialism is the only alternative.

I don't mean Stalinism or Maoism either. I mean what its supposed to be, the workers run the company. I guess that would mean the Proletariat Controls the Means of Production. I think we got our antisocialism prejudice because it scares the living shit out of the Corporatists, the Capitalists.

[redqueen]

26. +1

[paleotn]

30. Or at the very least....

...very tightly controlled capitalism, European style. Capitalism is like fire or electricity. Tightly controlled, it benefits all of us. Run amuck in some Koch Bros. wet dream it can kill us all. Socialism is similar from a human nature point of view. We need a balanced approach that benefits all of us. Right now, in the US, we're no where close to balance and I fear it's rotten our country from within.

[walkingman]

27. Welcome

to the Corporate State is Texas. Thanks Gov. Perry for turning a once great state to nothing more than a gaggle of morons.

Peace

[Manifestor_of_Light]

28. Welcome to Feudalopolis, formerly Texas.

[Drew Richards]

29. Well Citizens of the United States they have left us only one option one choice one way out

We must each and every one of us INCORPORATE become corporations...LLC's that will screw them and the courts turning us into peasants... And if they hire us they are hiring a corporation and then we get our basic legal rights back....disgusting but reality...

[Gothmog]

31. Nathan Heck is a real world class ass

I really dislike this idiot

[daredtowork]

34. I didn't realize this was illegal

I think it's immoral, indecent, sad, and evil.

But I know of an employer in California (an at-will employer state like Texas) that created the impression that everything was okay by setting meetings, ordering office furniture etc...and then laid people off at the end of the week. The company wasn't going under: that particular manager was just re-structuring their department and getting some personal friends in. Employees complained, of course, but the company's human resources/arbitration mechanism just dragged things out for a ridiculous long time (probably to screw with memories and various legal deadlines) and then rubber-stamped the whole thing. This made me raise an eyebrow, but I always assumed it was legal because of the At Will State thing...

[vancedecker]

36. So many things wrong with this article and comments...

I wonder how many of the people on the board of directors of this company consider themselves quote unquote Christian.

[Wella]

37. So if I lie on my resume, I can be fired; if my company lies about my livelihood......crickets?

Really?

[Quantess]

39. K & R