Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | H | HRMagazine

How to say no after saying yes: you can rescind job offers, but be sure to minimize your legal risks and keep communication open.

Article Excerpt
Put yourself in this real-life applicant's shoes: You receive a job offer that is too good to turn down. The job requires you to relocate to Eugene, Ore., and you and your spouse decide to move. You both resign from your respective employers. You put your dog to sleep because she is too frail to survive the trip. The moving van departs for Oregon, and you're en route as well, when you get the news: There is no job.

The company is closing its Eugene plant, and your job offer has been withdrawn.

What's more, you discover that the parent company apparently had decided to shut the Oregon plant months before you were offered a job there.

Now what?

"You sue the company for misrepresentation," says attorney Richard Busse, a partner with the Busse and Hunt law firm in Portland, Ore.

Busse represented the applicant. In arguing that the job offer had been rescinded wrongfully, Busse contended that the parent company, through its subsidiary, had misrepresented the facts in making the offer. He said the company kept hiring to maintain profits even as it was planning to close the plant.

The case, which went as far as a federal appeals court (Meade, et al. v. Cedarapids, dba El-Jay, 9th Cir., No. 97-35836, Jan. 12, 1999) and was later settled out of court for an undisclosed sum, illustrates some of the risks employers face in rescinding an employment offer.

Although it's legal in most instances to withdraw job offers, the reasons for doing so should be sound, and the process should be carried out carefully--and with an eye toward relevant case law involving rescinded offers.

To help protect your company from such litigation, become familiar with the typical reasons for rescinding job offers, the types of situations that might prompt an applicant to sue, and some of the steps you can take to preserve your legal ability to say no to an applicant after you've said yes.

Reasons to Rescind

New information that changes your evaluation of an applicant is one of the most common reasons for rescinding a job offer, says Peter Petesch, a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of law firm Ford and Harrison.

Discoveries that could lead to the scuttling of a job offer include, among other things:

* Poor results of a credit check, a drug test or in certain instances a physical exam.

* The applicant's failure to appear for a drug test.

* The person's unwillingness to sign a noncompete agreement.

* Learning...

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!