Daughter's Facebook Brag Costs Her Family $80,000

Yahoo! Shine ^ | February 28, 2014 | Elise Solé

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Call it the biggest Facebook mistake ever. A daughter’s snarky status update has cost her father the $80,000 settlement he won in an age-discrimination lawsuit.

According to the Miami Herald, Patrick Snay, 69, was the headmaster at Gulliver Preparatory School in Miami for several years, but in 2010, the school didn’t renew his contract. Snay sued his former employer for age discrimination and won a settlement of $80,000 in November 2011. The agreement contained a standard confidentiality clause, prohibiting Snay or the school from talking about the case.

However, Snay’s daughter, Dana, now at Boston College and a part-time Starbucks barista, couldn’t resist bragging about the case on Facebook. “Mama and Papa Snay won the case against Gulliver,” she wrote. “Gulliver is now officially paying for my vacation to Europe this summer. SUCK IT.”

Dana has 1,200 Facebook friends, many of whom are current and former Gulliver students, and news of the post made its way back to the school’s lawyers, who appealed the verdict. The Third District Court of Appeal tossed out the $80,000 settlement earlier this week. “Snay violated the agreement by doing exactly what he had promised not to do,” Judge Linda Ann Wells wrote. “His daughter then did precisely what the confidentiality agreement was designed to prevent.”

[Flick Lives]

This girl is weapons grade stupid.

[who knows what evil?]

...just another of our leftist overlords...

[cornelis]

..... Oksana chose to speak of her ex on Howard Stern's radio show back in October, a mistake that will cost her almost $400,000.

Under the 43-year-old's agreement with the Lethal Weapon actor, the singer - who has daughter Lucia, aged four, with the star - was not supposed to discuss him at all.

The beauty was receiving payments as part of the $750,000 settlement with Gibson after a nasty split in 2010 that included claims of physical abuse and a leaked tape recording where the actor belligerently berates her. . ." linky

[MaxMax]

Could have received more money if he said he was Gay. It's trending.
But at least his daughter is Gay.

[Yo-Yo]

[InvisibleChurch]

What could be clearer than “Don’t talk about this”? If I was the college, I’d be magnanimous about it and say “Yes, we owe you a settlement for age discrimination so here’s one dollar for your troubles. You obviously didn’t need the 80,000 since you were just going to use it to send your daughter to Europe.”

[AppyPappy]

“Gulliver gets their money back. SUCK IT.”

[SpaceBar]

This girl is weapons grade stupid.

Some stupid is so strong it can only be handled with gloves, goggles, and a rubber apron.

[Theodore R.]

The college will probably have to sue to collect, as some of the money has probably already been spent — it was received several years ago.

[G Larry]

Parents, DON’T discuss your income with your kids!!!!!!

[onedoug]

Jeez. ‘Wish her to the cornfield.’

[xp38]

The first rule of settlement club is don’t talk about settlement club.

[JoeProBono]

[9YearLurker]

I’m sure the lawyer made it clear to Mom and Dad—who should have made it clear to the daughter, perhaps without giving her specific info that she could report.

E.g., had Mom and Dad merely told the daughter that they were satisfied with the case, but the daughter put the pieces together and posted the same tweet—then I’m not so sure Dad would have lost his $80K.

[9YearLurker]

How charming.

[BlueStateRightist]

“Parents, DON’T discuss your income with your kids!!!!!!”

Don’t ever discuss your income or financial worth with anyone except your spouse or your boss. Everyone else will use the information to your detriment.

[Oregon Betsy Ross]

“Or was he not even allowed to disclose the results of the settlement to his own family members?”

Nope. I can’t tell you about the law in his state, but in the great state of Texas, a court will construe contract terms by what we call “the four corners” of the contract. That means if the contract says no disclosure and you agree to that, that means no disclosure. It doesn’t mean you can disclose to the people of your choosing. Father had no business signing the contract if he couldn’t keep his mouth shut.

There is no legal hole you can drive a truck through here.

[Chewbarkah]

I am not a lawyer, but I have paid one... In civil rights claims the “Plaintiff” can include family members “affected” by the Defendant’s alleged “discrimination.” Daughter needed Daddy’s income for college and European travel, so she was a “victim” if Daddy lost his yob; suffering little children threaten potential juror sympathy and up the ante for a settlement. Assuming prudent Defense counsel, all Plaintiff’s family members were parties to the settlement, including confidentiality and “waiver of claims” provisions, so that they couldn’t file a case on their own behalf the next day.

Either Headmaster Daddy didn’t explain the ramifications or he can’t control his own family. That the Defendants went to court to overturn the settlement based on the confidentiality violation implies they think he has a weak case and paid him to go away rather than air the school’s dirty laundry (arguing publicly that their former headmaster was incompetent, dishonest, or just sub-par when they wanted excellence, isn’t exactly good advertising for the school).

Plaintiff could probably resurrect the case, but has just made a chump out of his attorney, and in effect capped the damages at $80,000. Defendant’s motive to settle is blown and Plaintiff’s cost of going to trial exceeds the potential award. Oops.

[miss marmelstein]

My Depression-era parents would never have thought about discussing finances with their stupid kids. But then they were of a generation who thought kids were kids and adults were adults. They didn’t dress up on Halloween or allow their children to even sit at the same table at Christmas. We all sat at the children’s table - anybody remember that?! I think now that it wasn’t about dealing with annoying brats but so that they could have adult conversation out of the earshot of young skulls full of mush.

[sten]

I can violate such an order by just knowing it ended well for one side over another??

looks to me like the judge was looking for any excuse to let the school district off the hook