Bad reference

[tmoody23]

What is the name of your state? Worked and lived in Tennessee, now live and work in Mississippi.

I worked for a company for almost 6 years. I started there straight out of college as a Junior developer. I worked my way up to Director of Software Development. In the same time frame I went from making 36,000 to 90,000. I grew tired of the job and the owner (not my supervisor) was not a very nice person.

I decided to leave the company and knowingly left them in a bigtime bind although on my resignation letter I offered to work for at minimum a month and let them know they could call me with any other questions after that. The owner blew up and accused me of abandoning them. He wouldn't let me come back to work at all and threatened to sue me if I didn't bring all company realted work to the office within 4 hours.

Anyway, fast forward to today (about 4 months since quitting). I am working a temp-to-hire job and they are doing the process for hiring me. I gave them my supervisor's name because they wanted a supervisor reference and he was my only one. I warned them it might not be good.

I got called to the HR guys office today and he says "in all my years of recruiting in HR I have never heard someone use some of the words he used in your reference" It was such a bad reference he felt the need to call me in privately and get my side of the story.

I have not heard the outcome but I feel like they are still going to hire me. If I end up losing this job because of that do I have any recourse? There was no reason for the supervisor (and part owner) to give me a bad reference except for sour grapes at me leaving.

If I do get hired do I have any recourse. I feel like I am going to be starting off on the wrong foot because he has painted me as a bad person.

 

[cbg]

A bad reference is not necessarily illegal.

If you get the job, that's it. No damages, no case.

If you don't get the job, whether or not you can take any legal action depends on exactly, and I mean EXACTLY, what was said. If everything he said was opinion, that's it. He's entitled to his opinion and he's entitled to express it. Example: tmoody23 did a lousy job on the Johnson account, is opinion. You have no cause of action for that, even if you think you did a great job on the Johnson account and even if the Johnsons agree (in which case, I would suggest asking the Johnson's to provide a reference). He IS allowed to express his opinion of your knowingly leave them in a bind. Contrary to popular belief, there is NO law in ANY state prohibiting an employer from discussing the reasons a former employer IS a former employee.

But if he made factual misstatements, that might provide some cause of action IF you can show that you would definitely have gotten the job but for what was said. An example of what I mean by a factual misstatement would be, tmoody23 was fired for stealing, when in fact you quit.

You will need to discuss the specifics with a local attorney if you think you have a cause of action.

 

[CO19]

Assuming the employer in question is based in TN, your concern over employment references is covered in the TN Statutes, as it is in many states. Based on below, consult with your atty as to whether you have a case.

Tenn. Code Ann. § 50-1-105

50-1-105. Providing employee information to prospective employers — Good faith. —

Any employer that, upon request by a prospective employer or a current or former employee, provides truthful, fair and unbiased information about a current or former employee's job performance is presumed to be acting in good faith and is granted a qualified immunity for the disclosure and the consequences of the disclosure. The presumption of good faith is rebuttable upon a showing by a preponderance of the evidence that the information disclosed was:

(1) Knowingly false;




(2) Deliberately misleading;




(3) Disclosed for a malicious purpose;




(4) Disclosed in reckless disregard for its falsity or defamatory nature; or




(5) Violative of the current or former employee's civil rights pursuant to current employment discrimination laws.