offer of employment

What is the name of your state? Kansas
I was given a Conditional Offer of Employement that states the starting salary and start date of 9/9/02. Offer states that it is contingent upon the satisfaction of several items identified on the "Conditions of Offer" form which included verification of information, passing the required drug test, and completion of background check. I satisifed all those requirements and signed under "I accept your offer of employement..."

On morning of start date 9/9/02, I received a phone call from the recruiter saying that the start date had been postponed until 9/23/02. I called company on 9/20/02 to confirm the new start date and was told that they were now full to capacity and were not adding any new employees.

Do I have any recourse of this situation? They offered me a job, I was expecting to make a certain dollar amount from time of start date to now. It would seem that they have broken the contract as I was willing and ready to start the job.

An offer letter does not constitute a contract.

Whether you are entitled to anything is going to depend on a couple of factors. It is not illegal to withdraw an offer, so the circumstances are very important. A major issue is going to be, did you suffer any damages? Did you quit another job based on this offer? Did you turn down other work? Another issue is going to be WHY did they withdraw the offer, and offhand you won't know that. But if they had sudden financial reverses and had to cut payroll, that's a very different thing from making too many offers and having to pull back, to give you a couple of examples.

Thanks, cbg, for your response.
Yes, I did turn down TWO other job offers in order to accept this one.
I don't know the reason for the company to withdraw their offer, other than what I was told - "We are now at full capacity and not adding anyone at this time."
Should I pursue this? If so, what can I do?

I can't advise you as to whether or not to pursue it; only you can make that decision. I will tell you that in general, employers do not rescind offers without a pretty significant reason. They really don't make offers and then take them back just for the fun of it. In this economy, I don't think it's at all unlikely that they had serious financial problems and had to freeze hiring or even lay people off. And there's not always a lot of warning; my company had to cut its payroll by 50% with only four days notice when we lost funding. (We had to rescind a couple of offers, too.)

You might want to contact the other companies that offered work, tell them that your circumstances have changed and see if the positions are still open.