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Yahoo News just picks up stories from other media. It’s not so much that it’s not reliable, but that its mission is to pick and choose what it publishes in order to maximize page views, not inform the public of compelling news. It not where anyone should go to keep up on current events. </p>
<p>This story made the homepage of CNN this evening. This quote is from the legal document jym cited above and was mentioned in the article.</p>
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<p>The way he describes it–that his daughter was an “intricate” part of his case–perhaps it never was about age discrimination at all.</p>
<p>As an aside, it saddens me that the headmaster of a school costing $27K a year doesn’t know the difference between “integral” and “intricate.”</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/02/us/facebook-post-costs-father/index.html?hpt=hp_t2”>http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/02/us/facebook-post-costs-father/index.html?hpt=hp_t2</a></p>
<p>After he signed the deal promising not to do something, he walked out to the parking lot to decide how to break his promise. The school was right to get rid of this guy. His word means nothing to him. Integrity, honesty, these are foreign notions. I’d be a lot more sympathetic if he said he accidentally blurted it out.</p>
<p>I’m sure he was a challenging client as well and the attorney worked hard for his fee. Am hoping the guy was misquoted, but whatever word he meant to use doesn’t change the gist of what you wrote above. No sympathy here and am glad the school is rid if the guy and his D–quite the duo. </p>
<p>The issue of whether or not the case has merit - or whether or not the father was a jerk – is, to me, irrelevant to the question of whether or not such non-disclosure agreements are fair in the first place. This isn’t a case where a parent’s job required security clearance. Dad’s excuse of “psychological trauma” is bogus, but it just seems to me unreasonable in the extreme to permit a settlement contingent on an agreement that precludes telling the people closest to you, who doubtless knew that the case was ongoing, that a settlement was even reached.</p>
<p>I get that it is easier for the courts when people settle, but that doesn’t, as far as I’m concerned, justify permitting an agreement that requires giving up a basic freedom. Maybe we could free up the courts time by actually making it harder for frivolous lawsuits to ever get off the ground in the first place instead. </p>
<p>The fact that he did admit to telling his daughter shows that he violated the agreement. However, more hypothetically- if I were involved in a lawsuit my kids would obviously know that. If I suddenly had money for things that I couldn’t afford before and I was no longer engaged actively in the law suit, don’t you think most kids would figure that out? That puts you in sort of a Catch 22. You can’t tell them to not tell anybody because you can’t tell them about it in the first place. But they will figure it out and, not knowing they can’t tell anybody, could make some dumb post on social media. </p>
<p>True, but all this “can’t help myself-ing” means you forfeit your settlement. That’s the price of uncontrollable indiscretion. </p>
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<p>And really, that’s not really true. “I can’t talk about the outcome of the lawsuit, nor can anyone in my family, without risking any positive financial outcome of the suit. That’s all I can say, but I think you get my drift.”</p>
<p>When one enters into a CONTRACT as part of a settlement, the time to debate and agree upon the terms is BEFORE signing, not unilaterally decide AFTER signing that you choose not to follow the terms. </p>
<p>It is NOT uncommon for a party settling and paying money to want a non-disclosure clause and make it a part of the negotiations. As has been posted, no one is FORCED to settle, but when parties settle, they are obligated to follow the terms of the agreement or risk being sanctioned for any violation. </p>
<p>Whether or not a lawsuit is frivolous is really not for those not privy to the suit to fairly judge. Most jurisdictions have methods for handling frivolous actions with minimal costs to the parties. </p>
<p>apprenticeprof, are you opposed to non-disclosure agreements in principle? Employees, contractors and journalists sign non-disclosure agreements all the time about trade secrets and other company secrets. If I go to visit a company, sign a non-disclosure agreement, learn about a new upcoming product, and then blab what I agreed not to disclose, will you defend me on the grounds that I have the “basic freedom” to say something I signed a contract not to say? </p>
<p>I think people have the “basic freedom” to agree not to say something in exchange for something of value. And I think people who break contracts should expect to end up in court.</p>
<p>Nobody forced this guy to sign the agreement. He signed it in exchange for $80,000. Break the agreement, lose the $80,000. No pity from me.</p>
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<p>Non-disclosure agreements in of themselves are permitted so long as they don’t violate or condone unlawful activities/bad public policy or made under conditions which meet the legal definition of “undue duress”. </p>
<p>When both parties negotiate settlements to avoid going to trial, it’s the parties who are the main actors. Each of the parties have room to demand certain conditions…including non-disclosure clauses and the other party(ies) are free to agree or disagree with such demands. Part of the point of making settlements is each side agrees to give up some rights they may have in order to arrive at a compromise so the suit is settled quickly and both can move on with their lives without further expenses, drama, and the consequences of having most case details being subjected to the glare of being placed on public record. </p>
<p>If they disagree, the party(ies) concerned could either negotiate so the non-disclosure clause is loosened* or even eliminated*. Both parties also have the option to opt for a trial with its associated expenses and potential for serious fallout from most case details becoming part of the public court record. </p>
<p>Especially considering many individuals, institutions, and public agencies being sued often settle even weak cases with little merit because the financial and negative PR costs of litigating can be much more than the settlement amount made in the early stages before the case goes to trial. </p>
<p>The negative PR factor…even if it’s automatic assumption of guilt like the “defendant must have done something wrong” mentality is a major factor in why most defendants tend to insist on a non-disclosure clause and wouldn’t give that up without expecting the plaintiff to give up something substantial in the negotiation process or for him/her to reveal far greater leverage of some sort…such as an iron-clad case the defendant can’t possibly win. </p>
<p>Moreover, one must also consider the possibility that the plaintiff may also have an interest in a non-disclosure clause as well…such as medical conditions or when his/her case is so weak that any public revelation of the case’s details would result in major embarrassment and possible negative consequences. </p>
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<li>Not very likely as most defendants being sued have a strong interest in keeping such settlements secret so they could move on without the negative publicity and second, so the greater public doesn’t make automatic assumptions of guilt over their settlement.<br></li>
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<p>If he was that concerned about the impact it would have on his daughter and felt that he would have to disclose something to her, he surely knew this in advance of signing the agreement. Perhaps he and his attorney could have negotiated out the non-disclosure requirement prior to settlement.</p>
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Well, so much for confidentiality… :-t </p>
<p>apprenticeprof, I do understand your concern over “fairness” in cases in which an employer offers a non-disclosure (or non-compete) agreement as a condition of employment. Employers almost always have the upper hand, and it can be hard for individuals to assert their rights without losing the job offer on the table. In this case, though, the guy could have walked away after he was terminated. Instead he seems to have had other issues with the school, including his daughter’s negative experience there, and he chose the low-hanging fruit of an age-discrimination suit to seek compensation.</p>
<p>People seem to mistakenly believe that getting into the magic window of the protected age category means they can never be fired. Apparently this is not the case. </p>
<p><a href=“http://blogs.findlaw.com/sixth_circuit/2012/09/age-discrimination-beating-the-odds-of-indirect-evidence.html”>http://blogs.findlaw.com/sixth_circuit/2012/09/age-discrimination-beating-the-odds-of-indirect-evidence.html</a></p>
<p>If the dad thinks his DD was “emotionally scarred” at her prep school, that will be NOTHING compared to knowing that the world now knows she made the biggest goof ever. She’ll hear about this for the rest of her life. She probably is getting daily doses of digs right now.</p>
<p>It will die down. Will become yesterday’s news.</p>
<p>I don’t have any problem with non-disclosure agreements as a condition of employment, because that involves access to privileged information. While I might learn the secret formula to coca-cola in the course of working for them, that isn’t then my secret to tell, in the same way that if a friend tells me her secret, that doesn’t make it mine to share, even if it winds up having a powerful effect on me. The latter scenario involves a moral, rather than a legal matter,but it seems to me similar in principle. In any case, non-disclosure agreements are in certain circumstances necessary for companies to function, or else any employee could blab trade secrets the second he or she found a better job.</p>
<p>Gag orders on a legal settlement seem to me quite different, because it involves being prohibited to speak about an event in your own life, rather than information you acquired about someone else’s (or about other kinds of sensitive information). Let’s suppose for a second that the guy’s case is a legitimate instance of discrimination. In that case, you have a man who was the victim of illegal discrimination that may have caused him real financial harm. He didn’t choose to be in this situation (unlike a CIA agent who chose a career requiring secrecy). Presumably, he discussed this with family and friends. He decides to sue as a way of recouping some of those financial losses, and out of a sense of justice. This is a major event in his life, and is also known to be happening by his family and friends.</p>
<p>He may have a great case, but there is also a power imbalance. He presumably has much less money than the school district, which probably also has the means to get better legal counsel. When the school offers a substantial settlement, even if he thinks he deserves to win outright, he may simply not be able to afford turning it down on the gamble that he’ll do better if it goes to trial, and out of discomfort with the non-disclosure agreement. </p>
<p>I understand that if you make the agreement, you are obligated to abide by it. I still don’t think it is just to allow agreements in which people can be coerced by considerable financial pressures into signing over the right to talk about something done to them when the only reason for silence is that the other party doesn’t want to look bad. Even just on a practical level, there are people for whom a material change in a family’s financial circumstances would be highly relevant to know. D is likely to be a beneficiary of her parents. She will likely inherit their money when they die, and may become responsible for their care and finances before that. More immediately, if the family has financial planners, they are going to know about the change in circumstances. Apart from any moral qualms, it just seems silly to me to have to do the winking “well,I now have 80K more in my account, but I can’t say where it is from.” </p>
<p>The only reason for silence is that the other party doesn’t want to look bad. But the only reason for the payoff is to get the silence. </p>
<p>This guy’s case appears to have been far from ironclad. If the employer didn’t get the silence, they would have little reason to settle; they’d go to court and take their chances, which look pretty good.</p>
<p>If we remove the ability to use silence as a bargaining tool, fewer court cases will be settled.</p>
<p>@jym626</p>
<p>Yes, it will die down with strangers, but not within her social circle. I can just imagine the future comments, “uh, I’d like to share this secret with you, but I don’t want to give up $80k” or “Don’t tell Dana unless you’re willing to fork over $80k.”</p>
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<p>But this does involve sensitive information: the defendant has been sued as word of that going around by itself is enough for negative PR defendants are eager to avoid even if they did nothing wrong and if the plaintiff agrees to a settlement agreement with such a non-disclosure agreement after negotiations, he/she’s bound to honor it at the pain of voiding the agreement and thus, their settlement payout. </p>
<p>Maintaining the non-disclosure is one of the “prices” defendants are likely to demand to settle cases as that is just as/more important to them than the expense saved by not going to full trial. </p>
<p>If either party doesn’t want a nondisclosure clause, they either need to negotiate it out or failing that, opt for a full trial in lieu of a settlement with all its expenses, drama, and chancy outcomes. </p>
<p>There could also be strong incentive for a person to pay lots of money to someone who would donate a kidney, but we don’t allow those kinds of deals, even if the donor signs an agreement that he is willing. </p>
<p>There are certain things that shouldn’t be up for sale. I bet plenty of people would be willing to sign a contract giving up their right to vote or consenting to change religions for a sum of money. I suspect those would not be legally enforceable contracts. There are situations that require that free speech be curtailed. This isn’t one of them, in and that case, I think that the expedience of using silence as a bargaining chip isn’t enough to outweigh the restriction of freedom. </p>