my Uncle Joe's interesting lawsuit

Tonight I had dinner with my dad's brother, my Uncle Joe. He's in town for a court case. He let me read the case. It's hilarious. This guy is suing a company because he thinks they owe him money. That's because, when he entered into an employment agreement with them, he sent them an email asking to be paid X amount of money plus to be given a share of the company. This after he had agreed to different terms of employment. He thinks, based on the email (which was never replied to) that the company should pony up $250,000 (arbitrary number that he can't justify). Also, he says he was wrongfully terminated.

So my Uncle Joe did some investigation. He has an email from the guy saying he quit his job (makes the argument that he was fired moot). The guy was so incompetent that the company moved him into three different positions to see if they could find something he could do right (my uncle thinks he was incompetent on purpose, planning to learn the business and then start a rival company - he said "no one could be that incompetent" - he's obviously never worked with my company). My uncle has numerous testimonies from clients and suppliers saying the guy was a moron.

He also got copies of the guy's phone records since the company paid his phone bill. Not only was he making tons of calls to a competitor, he also was hiring prostitutes when he was on travel (he's married). My uncle is saving that little fact for last in the case.

And, it turns out, if you do a bad job at a company, intentionally or not, there's something called being a "harmful agent", which means you're harming the company. That means if you've totally fucked up something for a company (business deal, customer relationship) the company can sue you for damages. It's not done often and the labor lawyer my uncle is working with didn't even know about the case law (my uncle knows a ton about case law through the whole spectrum of the legal system). So not only will the guy lose his case, but he may also end up owing the company money. My uncle initially offered him $25K to end the lawsuit just because it's annoying. The guy refused to take it. Now he's screwed.

Needless to say, when I get a book or screen play deal, he's going to be my lawyer. He's also very physically intimidating (imagine a mafia guy who's also a lawyer) so he's kind of like a built in body guard as well. He did some research for me on good places with reasonable contracts if I decide to self publish. Nice of him since he's busy...

Though, he plans on buying a plantation in Indonesia when he retires which will make him less geographically accessible. I better get a deal soon.