UK electronics company is taking legal proceedings against me.

spec said:

there are many a-holes too

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Please keep me out of this!

Just a note about all this. The company boss would be claiming consequential damages. That might go this way. You accidentally drop a banana skin on the floor. The company's chief engineer slips and breaks a leg. Because of this, an important product misses its certification. Another company takes advantage of this and steals the market. Total loss to your company is £10M when potential futures sales are taken into account.

Think again. The banana skin dropping was an accident and not intentional- end of story. My understanding is that the only claim a company can practically make against you is if you deliberately damage any of the company's property, and then they can only claim the direct cost of that property, not consequential damages. The case would probably take at least six months to prepare and organise. With a company law specialist costing around £500 per hour and then no guarantee of winning the case, you would have to do an extraordinary amount of damage for a company to act against you. So they win the case; then what? Unless you were wealthy they would be peeing into the wind.

Intellectual property rights is one area where you could get into hot water though. By the way, in the UK any inventions patents etc you make which can be proved to be as a result of working for the company are automatically owned by the company. In practice that means everything. I'm not sure what the period is now, but I think this applies for something like two years after you leave the company.

The downside of all this is that because of the cost, stress and time involved it is practically impossible for a private individual to get justice, in the UK anyway. Of course, for simple cases involving financial loss, you can always go to the Small Claims Court, which according to my mates, works very well.

Sounds like the owner is just pissed off and will forget about it the next time he swims around the bowl.

My advice, don't worry.

Mike.

Sounds like empty threats to me.
Trying to prove you and you alone, maliciously lost them future money would be almost impossible.
Real life sucks sometimes and some of the people in it do too!

I am not too falmiliar with UK law, but I think there will be a huge difference between cases where you are hired on a contract, or you are an employee of that company.
If you are a contractor, then only what is in your contract should matter. If you were hired, in my country you need to say that you are leaving two months prior and if you choose to leave sooner without mutual agreement you can be sued for damages like missed busineses opportunities, expense for hiring someone in your place etc.

I suggest you find out where you are standing and maybe try talking with someone who knows the law, or read it for yourself.

Thats really funny coming from the UK, the boss sure has a pair of stones! Most bosses in UK would be more frightened of you suing for hurt feelings,cold coffee, non comfy chair etc etc or one the many many silly things people are suing for these days. I love watching this stuff on the news, some solid 15 year old advice.................Reply to email with the following,

Dear Sir.
Kindly GFYS, I take no responsibility for you hiring the wrong tool for the job, or the other 4 tools that seem equally unable to get the job done. When buying/hiring tools in future please make sure they are compatible in the first place, you wouldnt buy win10 based software and try to use on a win 3.1 machine would you?

I would also like to advise you that having consulted my online legal team they have advised me to counter sue for cold coffee [insert long list here] and for a deep paper cut cut caused by having to print your email out. I was forced to print the email because I was simply too upset to read the screen copy through a haze of tears, I am currently pricing up the holiday options to get over my trauma. I am of course a reasonable person and likely to except any 6 figure sum you offer to pay in settlement, this will also save you the cost of fuel money going to court.

I apologize in being unable to return to finish your product but It has given me an idea for a much superior one, in order that I can have it ready for market next week I had to leave in hurry.

Insert appropriate sign off here

P.S While I will except bank transfer for your payment I also take paypal if that helps

...................................................................

There you go mate sorted

I strongly suspect criminal mischief. 4 grown men hate you enough to bully you off the playground like kids, why would they stop there? When humans behave like this, it isn't because they simply want you gone. It's because they want to hurt you, or at least scare the crap out of you. If they felt that the pantload you dropped on your way out wasn't big enough, I think it's totally possible that they would seek to mess with you even from within the grave of what used to be your job. What better way to do that than by making threats from the most powerful person's email account that they have access to?

Yeah maybe, I don't know.

spec said:

Just a note about all this. The company boss would be claiming consequential damages. That might go this way. You accidentally drop a banana skin on the floor. The company's chief engineer slips and breaks a leg. Because of this, an important product misses its certification. Another company takes advantage of this and steals the market. Total loss to your company is £10M when potential futures sales are taken into account.

Think again. The banana skin dropping was an accident and not intentional- end of story. My understanding is that the only claim a company can practically make against you is if you deliberately damage any of the company's property, and then they can only claim the direct cost of that property, not consequential damages.

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I am not a lawyer, but I think that a company could claim against an employee for damages, including consequential damages, resulting from an accident, if there was negligence on the part of the employee.

It is rare for that to happen, as negligence on the part of the employee would often be something that proper training or supervision should have prevented, so the company would have a hard time proving negligence. Suing employees is not good for employee morale or company image, so it is rarely done in the case of accidents.

Lets be serious for min, it was an email. I think it's highly unlikely any action is going to happen, I would think especially in the UK you would hear nothing until you had a solicitors letter delivered to your door.

Flyback your not a bad bloke, I suspect they are aware you might be the sort of person who would worry a little over threats and this is why they did it. Please dont take offense when I say you come across as a...........'sensitive' sort of person. And as was said a while back if you aint got it what can they do? Ignore it I wouldnt give them what they really want and that is to get you in a bit of a stew over it.

I hope you find somewhere to settle and if I was you I would get hold of a trial *cough cough* of Altium or some other and have a go at learning it, ultimately I think it might be worth you thinking of working for yourself, but please dont do the selling yourself .

While we are on this subject of company law etc, there was a big shake up in the 1990s about product safety. This is an area where you can get into big trouble if you don't do a good job and follow the rules. The basic principle is that products shall be safe, both by design and manufacture, according to the safety standards, including reasonable misuse. It seems that a judge would have to decide what is reasonable misuse in each particular case. The law was changed so that not only the person directly contravening the safety rules would be culpable, but the whole company, including the directors.

Flyback,

Your original post was incorrect:

Flyback said:

...
I am the subject of legal proceedings...

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You are not the subject of legal proceedings- there are no legal proceedings. So do as we say: forget it and move on. It's a big world out there full of oppertunities, especially for someone in the electronic/software field

If you are a day-to-day worker, you can leave at any time and you cannot be sued for something you did not do.

Many good things in all these posts, one thing you don't want to lose your head when dealing with a bully. Look them straight in the face and twist your head and with one eye as close as you can get and say Ok, you want some. But, remember there is no where on the planet I won't find you and I would suggest you sleep lightly. Because, sometime sooner or later, I will find you and when you least expect it and you won't know until it's to late. I don't forgive and don't forget. Just keep one eye on your back at all times. Don't forget it.

Since you didn't do that, they are making empty threats. Since you left the big boss who suggested to hired you, now he's angry they made you leave. Now the project falls on their shoulders and they're expected to complete it without your assistance. The Big boss doesn't have someone qualified to replace you, even if he did, it's your designs and they would have to make sense of them which extends the project.

We had 3 Engineers develop a Power Board and Control Board but, the cheap owner got rid of them, big mistake. After that, the stock holders were angry they couldn't close a 9million dollar shooting range, because it couldn't be signed off. 4 Engineers later still couldn't figured out why they had so many issues. Many people lost their heads before and after I left the company.

Strant, is right. Bullies that couldn't make poor McFly finish their homework, boo-hoo. Plus, don't have you to push around anymore to make themselves feel powerful. Now, their trying to push at you from a distance, with phony accusations without merrit.

Until, a lawer contacts you with a charge it's all a bunch garbage.

kv

Good luck, don't freakout. Keep your head.

This does sound like harassment and while it is unfortunate you were subjected to that, or more specifically made to feel like that... it is a by and by & unfortunately "glaring" is subjective.
What is key here is the conditions in which you left with regards to your contract of employment.

What exactly is stated in the contract with regards to termination? for instance mine explicitly states I must provide 3 months written notice (there would then be a process of handing over responsibilities and exit interview... If I refused to assist in the handing over things may get ... complicated) . Why I want to leave is not their concern as if I want to leave I just have to satisfy the prerequisites.

If your contract stated 1month and you didn't provide said notice they have you on breach of contract
If the contract was to some arbitrary stage of a project ... well.

Really comes downto the specifics of what is in your contract.