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wrongful termination

LashL said:
I've sent the pdf files to ~enigma~ for posting when he gets the opportunity.

All I've sent are
1) Ryan's complaint;
2) UL's motion to dismiss;
3) UL's brief on the motion to dismiss; and
4) PACER case history

because the rest of the documents, while of passing interest to lawyers perhaps, are not likely to be interesting to anyone else :)

Ryan's complaint is not particularly well drafted and doesn't state very clearly the basis for the claims it makes, but essentially it says that

- in 2003, Ryan told people at UL all of the usual tinhat conspiracy theories;

- UL did not act upon his woo in the manner that he wanted them to;

- so Ryan wrote to NIST to repeat the tinhat conspiracy theories, and to accuse NIST of doing a crappy job in its investigation and report, to accuse NIST of failing to "identify the truth about what really happened", and suggesting that "criminal elements within the U.S. government" may have planted explosives in the buildings, etc. etc.;

- Ryan admits that he sent the letter from UL, using UL email address, using his UL title, but says that he was stating his own opinion, not UL's, and says that UL allowed him to use UL email for personal email, and that the email program "automatically added the UL title of Mr. Ryan to his email";

- Ryan also wrote to some tinhat troofer organization and they posted his letter on the internet;

- UL fired Ryan as a result, saying that it was because he misrepresented UL by writing as though it was UL's opinion and not his personal opinion;

- UL used this as a pretext to fire him "in retaliation for Mr. Ryan exercising his rights and acting to fulfill his duties under the U.S. constitution, the constitution of Indiana, and under federal and state laws";

- UL wrongly terminated his employment because (by writing to NIST), he exercised his right under the U.S constitution and the state constitution to "petition his government for redress of grievances and to reform his government", and because he was exercising his first amendment rights in his letter to NIST and in his communications with tinhat groups, etal.;

- UL wrongly terminated his employment because (by writing to NIST, etc.), he was exercising his right to "report safety hazards and to disclose material facts in a government investigatino of a (sic) occupational and public safety related incident";

- UL wrongly terminated his employment because he was exercising his right under federal, Indiana and NY laws, "to report potential felonies and terrorist activity";

- UL wrongly terminated his employment because he was defending the constitution and seeking to petition his government for redress of grievances and seeking to "reform" the government "in the face of actions by persons seeking to subvert" the gov't and alter the democratic nature of our society;

Therefore, he seeks:
- back pay from November 2004
- $200,000 in front pay or, alternatively, reinstatement to his job;
- $unquantified for cost of relocation and job search;
- $unquantified lost value of medical insurance, retirement plan, benefits;
- $unquantified damages for emotional distress and damage to his reputation;
- $unquantified punitive damages.

UL brought a motion to dismiss the complaint. Its brief is self-explanatory and nicely set out, and essentially says that the complaint discloses no viable claim and should therefore be dismissed.

In a nutshell, it says

- that Ryan's complaint discloses no statutory basis for any of the claims made by Ryan;

- that UL is not a government entity, (thus the first amendment and related claims are not sustainable);

- that Ryan has not pleaded the requisite elements to make out any of his claims;

- that UL was entitled to fire him for his sending the letter to NIST "containing many false or unsubstantiated assertions" and "baseless assertions" and "incredible and unsupported claims" because he misrepresented his opinions as that of the company; and

- Ryan was an "at will" employee; and

- Ryan cannot, in the circumstances, bring his dismissal within the narrow exception to "at will" termination, namely "public policy exception"

Cheers,
Lash
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NOMINATED!!!

Thanks much LashL for the research and for communicating the thrust of the case in language we future defendants can understand :)
 
I'd like to add my thanks as well to LL2 and enigma. I'm not sure I'll understand any of whats written in those docs, but I look forward to reading them nonetheless. :popcorn1
 
ConspiRaider said:
Excellent stuff, LashL and also Loss Leader. Great research and information.

Man, you guys are...

Just wait a minute.

LashL (LL) and Loss Leader (LL). Are you guys the same poyson? C'mon, don't lawyer up on me now! Has anyone ever seen LashL and Loss Leader in an undoctored photo together?

Just for that: I'm a gonna send my Hero Ryan a sawbuck!
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:D :D

gumboot said:
Well there was that one time down at the reservation...

-Gumboot
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:D :D
 
The complaint is something I would pay to watch a judge read because I doubt he would keep a straight face. the ulbrieftodismisssuit.pdf is comedy gold. Kevin Ryan is really a real Bobby Boucher :D
 
The contrast between the complaint and the brief is priceless. Thanks for digging these up.

(~enigma~, I'm getting an error trying to open the second link (Motion to Dismiss Suit). The others seem to be working fine.)
 
I've read the complain and in actual fact Ryan does major on the accuracy of the NIST finds. For example (and I'm still laughing at this one):

16(c) substantial evidence supported the conclusion that the three WTC buildings that collapsed did so due to a well engineered controlled implosion.
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I assume that he's trying to get his complain supported under whatever "whistle-blower" legislation you have in the States, based upon the premise that the NIST report was so fundamentally flawed that he had a duty to report it.

However a major problem (if it was the UK, anyway) is his release of his NIST letter/e-mail to third party public interest groups (to whit, the woowoos) . I would imagine an argument that

(1) NIST should have had sufficient time to consider and respond to his approach.

(2) if he felt that his employer and NIST were not having sufficient regard to his views then he should have gone to another government (or similar) body.

(3) He failed to differentiate between personal and professional opinions which, in the context of such important issues, should have been reasonably foreseable.


But hey, I'm an architect who's legal training is limited to construction related issues (planning law, contract law, liability). What do I know?
 
Just read the motion to dismiss. I can see why LashL was amused, its almost as if a JREFer had written it!! That was a total and complete beatdown !:big:
 
LashL said:
Therefore, he seeks:
- back pay from November 2004
- $200,000 in front pay or, alternatively, reinstatement to his job;
- $unquantified for cost of relocation and job search;
- $unquantified lost value of medical insurance, retirement plan, benefits;
- $unquantified damages for emotional distress and damage to his reputation;
- $unquantified punitive damages.
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Good lord. Thanks for the work, LashL. I look forward to reading these.

It reminds me of a case a resident in an adult home brought against my client, the provider. He had found a small metal shaving from opening the lid of a can of peaches in his bowl of peaches. He reported it to the staff, they thanked him and nobody was injured in any way. He sued for a million dollars and to have the license of the institution revoked. I very politely offered to settle by giving him another bowl of peaches. He refused and I had to bring a motion to dismiss. Some people need more pity than they do scorn.
 
When I was training, we were taking down a building which had partially collapsed. Very dangerous, as you can imagine.

Anyway, half way through the remainder collapsed. No injuries (we knew the risk of collapse and had planed safe zones, additional bracing, etc) and the Health & Safety Executive (govermental body with a reputation for being real b*******) were quite happy.

Client threated to sue us. This was despite the fact that the collapse actually saved him about £15k in downtaking costs. He really couldn't understand why us, then our PII insurers, couldn't stop laughing.

Suffice to say, he was never stupid enough to go to court. Mind you, he's now a Tory MP!
 
Architect said:
But hey, I'm an architect who's legal training is limited to construction related issues (planning law, contract law, liability). What do I know?
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You know that you can't, of your own volition, inspect another contractor's job site and write a letter to him (which you then post on the internet or in a newspaper) saying that his work is substandard based on your years of experience as an architect at company X.

But then again, that's just common sense.
 
Architect said:
...Suffice to say, he was never stupid enough to go to court. Mind you, he's now a Tory MP!
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I'm a Yank, a bit clueless here.

Tory MP - is that Tory Mounted Police? What's his horse's name? I have a hope chest (hoping for a pony) full of oats, can I send some?
 
You know that you can't, of your own volition, inspect another contractor's job site and write a letter to him (which you then post on the internet or in a newspaper) saying that his work is substandard based on your years of experience as an architect at company X.

But then again, that's just common sense.
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Interesting issue; if something comes to my attention on a site (mine or another) which I know to be dangerous, and the contractor fails to act on it, then I do have a common law duty of care to inform either the local authority building control department or the police.

BUT you would be right to imagine that both my employer and my professional institutes would show quite an interest if I told the papers, or a lobby group, at the same time.
 
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