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Girl's Facebook Post Costs Her Dad $80,000
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "BBC reports that when Dana Snay learned her father had been awarded an $80,000 cash settlement in an age-discrimination lawsuit against his former employer, she couldn't resist bragging about it on Facebook. 'Mama and Papa Snay won the case against Gulliver,' the teen posted to her 1,200 Facebook friends. 'Gulliver is now officially paying for my vacation to Europe this summer. SUCK IT.' Trouble was her father had signed a confidentiality agreement so the school refused to pay a dime and a Florida appeals court has found in the school's favor. 'Snay violated the agreement by doing exactly what he had promised not to do,' wrote Judge Linda Ann Wells. 'His daughter then did precisely what the confidentiality agreement was designed to prevent.' Snay's father said in depositions that he and his wife knew they had to say something to their daughter because she suffered 'psychological scars' from issues during her enrollment at the school and was aware that they were in mediation with Gulliver attorneys. Attorneys say it's unlikely confiding in Dana Snay would have jeopardized the settlement — it was the facebook post that did them in. 'Remember when all you had to worry about was your daughter posting naked selfies of herself on Facebook?' writes Elie Mystal at Above the Law. 'Now, things are worse.'"
As near as I can tell, there's nothing especially tech related in this story. She screwed up in a way that many before her have screwed up, it's just that she happened to use facebook to do it. Nothing to see here.
Not news at all. However the penalty for this stupid thing is a bit harsh compared to the infraction. Maybe the parents should have explained a bit more to her what this entails and what the effects of telling anybody could be...
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
There is only one way to keep something secret; don't tell anyone. And anyone includes your teenage daughter.
that is exactly where the laws of probability are greatest for containment.
Please understand the person you tell may be no better at keeping it than you were.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Confidentiality agreements are *gasp* legal contracts. Their daughter made a stupid mistake, as teenagers do, that doesn't change the fact that the agreement was broken.
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
This is why it's important to communicate with your kid. These things are not difficult to foresee. Kids (and a lot of adults) tend to believe against all reason that Facebook and it's ilk are their own private playground where nothing goes past their own circle of friends. But Facebook is just the tool here -- an attractive nuisance, if you will. It's so easy to acquire the momentary satisfaction of revealing information to your circle of friends. But it's really part of a larger problem, that of knowing when to keep your mouth shut in any medium. Adults presume at their peril that kids have this kind of insight.
So if, in this case, the adult told the kid "this is what a confidentiality agreement means, and doing this or that will violate it" and the kid did it anyway, she now owes the family about a century of allowance. But if the adult did not adequately explain this, it's really the adult's fault, because this is a natural thing for kids to want to do.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Are we sure those aren't her grandparents?
Or is he her stepfather? 'Cause if I were her stepfather, she'd be sleeping at her bio-father's house tonight...
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
While I don't agree that the settlement should have been confidential in the first place, a contract is a contract and he broke the damn rules.
I hope the lawyers eat their fill out of what he DID keep, and then he loses in the final appeal and gets left hung out to dry.
We hate it when big corporations weasel out of their promises, so I don't really think it's kosher to let Joe Sixpack have a free pass doing the same thing.
And honestly, I oppose confidentiality clauses on principle. This 80 grand was nothing more than hush money to bribe dad to keep his trap shut about what the company did, and this is the sort of thing the public needs to be warned about.
Gulliver Preparatory School wins. They don't have to pay anything...but then again, they don't have any right to suppress the truth which a court of law has declared (now that the judgement is apparently void), that they're (in my opinion) just one big waste of air space and semi-human skin wrapped in a warm moist layer of fecal matter. Spread the word! Gulliver Preparatory School is the sort of learning establishment that seemingly fires all their most experienced personnel when their age becomes worrisome - why would you want a bunch of ignorant young trolls educating your kids?
The biggest screwup here is that the father has admitted to breaking the contract by saying "we needed to tell her something", when all he needed to do was say nothing and get the schools lawyers to prove that he told his daughter about the settlement; instead of her daughter finding out by eavesdropping on a conversation, reading a letter or bank statement.
But yes, it's more of a law story than a tech story, but I can see the Your Rights Online angle. Just.
...Eric Schmidt told us there should be no reason to have any secrets.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
Gulliver obviously settled because they weren't sure about their chances to win the lawsuit, so why should he accept their terms of non-disclosure and not just see it through? It feels like he gave away a winning hand. If someone's done you wrong you'd want to tell people about it. IANAL so maybe I'm missing something.
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He said something to the daughter.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
It matters what she said because somebody told her about it, which violates the confidentiality agreement. All she had to do was not say anything. That's how confidentiality agreements work. The father even admitted to telling her, so it's pretty much cut and dry here. I think there's probably an implied acceptable breach ('Well, I guess it's OK if you tell your family') but if that leeway is abused, well, tough shit. You can't use that excuse as a way to circumvent your agreement.
She didn't, so he violated the agreement the second he told his daughter. Which, when dealing with a normal adult - you say "we won, we got our judgement, and we agreed that we would not talk about it, so we'll use the money to find a job and life goes on." And a normal adult would celebrate in private and never say anything unless asked, or would be cagey about the results (they came to an agreement, and my dad is looking for another position). No harm, no foul - it's like doing 68 in a 65mph zone.
But this adult, his (presumably 18 year old) daughter, decided to crow about it and make a stink in the very community the school wanted to avoid the publicity. So it's his fault for telling her, but her fault for basically ratting him out.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
He told his daughter.
Spelling and Grammar errors have been added to this post for your enjoyment
and then we will need some kind of basic income for all the people who get push out of work.
And this is a big part of why.
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But if she didn't agree under contract to the originators of the contract then it shouldn't matter. I'm pretty sure in Canada you would get out of this no problem.
No. You aren't thinking about this at all. It has nothing to do with what the daughter agreed to. The Father agreed to tell nobody, then violated that agreement by telling the daughter, which would have been a violation that never came to light if the daughter didn't subsequently blab to the world about it. You see, the violation was the father telling the daughter, not the daughter telling the world. It was the fact that the daughter told the world that made it obvious that the father told the daughter.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
The father was bound by it, and breached it by telling her daughter. That alone would be cause to refuse payment. His daughter being a blabbermouth just got him caught for it.
The daughter didn't breach anything, she just got his dad busted for telling HER about it.
because the parties settled to this (insert settlement) the case is dismissed
...where "this" refers to one dollar and other valuable consideration.
I agree that the problem is that the father told the daughter, however making this about the daughter is wrong, the daughter could of written every national newspaper and appeared on the nightly news but unless she signed the same contract as her father, SHE and SHE alone can not be held accountable. The father is the one being held accountable in truth, the exact issue here is that he told her and that is it.
is it legal to forbid someone to speak about something with his relatives?
I agree
... and that's all I have to say about that.
Gulliver's facebook page now also says "SUCK IT!"
The dad broke the confidentiality agreement by telling his daughter about it. Her post was just incontrovertible evidence that he did it.
Yes. Didn't you RTFA?
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Many things that are under NDA you cannot even discuss with your immediate family anyways, but for things that would affect or concern them, such as a legal settlement that they receive the benefits of, the dad should have made it very clear that they weren't really allowed to talk about it to anyone.... ever, because that was a condition of receiving it in the first place, and they go back on that, then they will have to give it back.
Even a bragging teen will understand that much.
If, however, he had told his daughter and his daughter went and did it anyways, well... then, the daughter is going to have to live with feelings of guilt for however long it takes for her to get over the fact that bragging about it ended up costing them the very thing she was bragging about.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Since the original agreement was not to sue and not to say something, and that got broken, nothing to keep him from taking them to court and suing over the original thing. Might even work to their favor. "Well your honor, they were going to pay us off, but then didn't when word of it got leaked out via facebook."
As for the daughter, she's 19, time for her to leave the nest and earn her own living.
Be seeing you...
Actually, the dad *IS* permitted within the confidentiality agreement to disclose such information to his own family, or anyone else residing permanently in his household, because matters of family income directly affect their well being. He is also, of course, obligated to disclose the amount to the IRS. What they are categorically *NOT* allowed to do is publicize that the settlement occurred or the amount, however. The dad should have made that point clear with his family when bringing the matter up. If he did tell them and the daughter did it anyways, then she's going to have to feel guilty about it because it cost them the very thing that she bragged about. The only way the dad may have done something wrong here is if he didn't actually mention that this was supposed to be kept fairly secret, or, possibly if he had any reason to previously suspect that his daughter would want to brag about it in the first place would have been legitimate reason to not mention it to her as well. But simply telling his family if he had no reason to suspect that any of them would say anything to anyone else is categorically *NOT* a confidentiality breach when the matter does directly affect them (as household income would).
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
You may want to read up on confidentiality agreements with regards to household income. It is not a breach of confidentiality to disclose such amounts to other people who are within the same household and family, since it directly affects them. The government is further allowed to be informed of all of your income regardless. A person still bears the burden of making sure that anyone he or she *does* tell, however, does not further publicize the matter... and this is how the confidentiality agreement was broken... whether it was by either not telling his daughter that she shouldn't be telling anyone else, or whether it was by not realizing that his daughter would have been so inclined to have publicized it.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
The school effectively paid $80k for confidentiality; a non-disclosure agreement, and a breach would still pay pay $1.
There usually needs to be consideration (money) for a deal to be a deal. Unless you are getting steam-rolled.
The settlement was two parts.
The first was acknowledgment of any claims or allegations (not agreement or objection), and there could be no further claims by either the parents or child (even when she becomes an adult), or other family members, ever; pertaining to those (generally defined but bound by a date range) allegations.
The second part was a conditional consideration (payment). This non-disclosure agreement would also have a time restriction of a reasonable time, probably a decade or less. This probably was setup as a payment schedule, though not required. The schedule continues the evaluation of the non-disclosure - and reminds them not to do what the child did.
No matter what, both parts are executed upon signature, and the conditional payment would be evaluated for a period of time before payout.
Once you give someone $80k and they spend it, not many people can come up with that amount of money, so there is always a waiting period.
You forget #3: The father is a party to the confidentiality agreement, therefore he has a legal duty to insure his daughter agrees to keep it confidential before he lets her know the details.
I do agree that if she found out on her own without her father giving her any details, the school should be out of luck. But even in that case the courts would probably hold that he still had a duty to make the situation clear to her and that once he had she'd be bound to keep information she found confidential.
Typically these personal injury lawyers work on a cut on the settlement. Now that the lawyer has won the settlement, but it was yanked from him due to the stupidity of the daughter, do they still owe the lawyer his cut? Would the lawyer now sue the daughter for causing him financial loss?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
In general, yes, you are correct... but in matters concerning household income, it differs considerably. You are right that there is no scenario under which a child absolutely must know the information, but disclosing it to a child who is part of the household is not, by itself, considered a breach of the confidentiality... the child must further disclose the information to another person who was not implicitly authorized to know about it before the confidentiality agreement can be considered violated.
The dad erred when (i imagine) that it probably never occurred to him that his child would mention it to anyone else (or worse, brag about it publicly) so it's still ultimately his fault from a legal standpoint. Since the teen thought it was a cool thing to brag about, it's clear that the daughter placed some value upon it, so the fact that her actions have cost their family the very thing that she bragged about may ultimately end up affecting the daughter far more significantly than her dad.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I doubt it contains the words "SUCK IT."
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
If she's over 18, her agreement would not be his to grant. Even under 18, his ability to give her agreement may be limited.
I'd say a "we won, SUCK IT!" Kathy Griffin style Facebook post is worth $35-40,000 tops. That's just not a wise financial move blowing $80,000 on it, lol.
He's not granting agreement, he's obliged to get her to agree. If she won't, he's obliged not to give her any details that if disclosed would breach his agreement.
So what is he to do, claim he won it playing poker?
?
did you?
The father could not reasonably be expected to keep case nor the agreement secret from his immediate family, and unless the daughter signed the agreement she could not have been bound by it. Plus the daughter didn't reveal explicit details of the settlement. I think he should appeal.
"GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 51230 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Setec Astronomy)"
Agreed. Once the public sword has been unsheathed, the public have an interest in knowing how their sword was used -- knowing the settlement. All settlements for suits filed. The Courts are corruptly reducing their workload by enforcing confidentiality terms.
Remember when their used to be one link to The Fucking Article? (If you don't, get off my lawn.) Is there any reason for three links, when one is the real story, and the other two are fluff pieces glossing the story?
is it legal to forbid someone to speak about something with his relatives?
There are cases where it is legal, without me even agreeing to it. For example, if I'm the juror in a court case. Or if I'm a doctor, I'm not allowed to discuss your sexually transmitted diseases with my relatives.
Here the question is: Can a contract be legal if it includes some provision not to talk about the contract,? Sure it can.
Grounded until the heat-death of the Universe!
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
You're kidding me, right? Of course I didn't. Did you forget where you are?
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
So what are you saying exactly? She's not being held to any standard the father is. The daughter doesnt need a contract or anything, she only confirms the father told somone. Her choosing to post to everyone else on FB only made matters worse. You acknowledge the father told the daughter, since the contract had a confidentially clause this violated the conditions.
No. It did not mean that at all. The business was allowed to tell the negroes to leave. And the cops loved to assist. No requirements to serve.
IANAL, but not only do they not get the $80K, presumably they still have/had legal fees related to this case which will need to be paid somehow. Likely they were to be paid from this money or from another pile of money from the school, but also likely that any such payout if it existed was also terminated by the breach of agreement.
So basically, Dad not only doesn't get 80K, he still has a legal bill to pay. And he has no job. This is made of win.
And now that the stuff has been made public, the school could possibly sue for breach of contract as well, and maybe defamation since they technically settled and didn't admit anything and weren't convicted of anything. However, the plaintiff's accusation is now in the open where it should not have been, has damaged the school's reputation, etc.
What a mess. Can they un-have this child? That might be the best option.
Sig for hire.
Perhaps try some simple wikipedia reading? I mean, I know that's almost like actually researching something, but really, you could just read the first paragraph and learn more than you appear to know.
The Jim Crow laws literally required businesses to segregate facilities. It was no longer a choice by the business. It was a legal requirement by Southern Democratic lawmakers to keep their different colored customers separate.
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
FTA:
"Attorneys say it's unlikely confiding in Dana Snay would have jeopardized the settlement — it was the facebook post that did them in."
Confidentiality Wise...! One Should take Responsibility...
There are some laws, for example for doctors and lawyers. But there should be no contract, where you can be forced not to speak with your family about something.
"Where'd I get the money? Court settlement. I'm bound by a CA, and can't give further details."
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Yes. That's what I said. Had they only told their daughter, even though they were in violation it would not have likely been an issue, as nobody would know. It was when she posted to Facebook that it became apparent to the world that the terms were violated; said violation being the telling of the daughter, and then the subsequent fallout of that. You are mistakenly interpreting that to say "Nobody really knows if it was wrong to tell the daughter." That's not what that sentence means.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
I'm wondering what your teenage daughter posting naked pictures costs over a lifetime of missed job opportunities costs in comparison to a one time failure to gain US$80,000. Surely being a child porn star is pricier in the long run, not just financially, but emotionally as well?
And there's no way a 19 year old might guess it was a settlement in the case that has been a major source of conversation in the house for the last year.
...to see this stupid kid's face when she discovered her Failbook post cost her parent's the lawsuit and thus her trip to Europe. It'd be priceless!
And if she draws her own conclusions, that's reasonable. Though you could say 'And because of that CA, if you tell ANYONE, we get NOTHING. NOTHING!'
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
I don't see how gag orders in court settlements can possibly be considered to be in the public interest. Why should a wrongdoer continue to enjoy a sterling reputation protected by contract? It is particularly questionable when the gag protects a legal fiction and where it is unlikely that the plaintiff is the only party that was wronged.
the way i see this is that people do not understand what a contract is "" a volantary agreement between 2 or more party's " that is the definition in my dictionary . 2nd the tech part from my point of view is that we can now enter into a contract by a push of a button , or a stocke on the laptop " mouse " as i did a few days ago , by agreeing to a statement for the purchase of software . i feel sorry for people getting themself into a problem because they do not realise " or bother to read , or listen to what they are agreeing to " i think that the best example is the warning on ebay ! at least with them , using modern tech , a person has to Conferm , i also think , and many www users have come across sites where there is no warning , chlick the mouse and you have bought it . cevat empor
the power of men in charge of words over men in charge of machines surpasses all wondering S WEIL