Twitter and other social media may be transforming our world, but they haven’t changed laws and company policies against disclosing sensitive company information.  Take the recent firing – reported in The Inbox – by women’s clothing retailer Francesca’s Holdings Corp. of its CFO, Gene Morphis.

• Confidentiality
• Social Media
• Trade Secrets

For a high-level executive leaving a company under less-than-ideal conditions, it’s as common as handing in keys to security and shutting down the computer for the last time.  In exchange for a severance payment, the executive is asked to sign the typical general release: “I hereby release my employer from any claims, liabilities, demands, or causes of action . . .”

Unsurprisingly, once an employee signs a general release, if he later sues, he is likely to face a quick motion to dismiss.  

• Motions to Dismiss
• Releases
• Severance Agreements

The latest developments in suits by suits:

• When Brian Wittenstein left his job as talent coordinator at Total Nonstop Action (TNA) Wrestling for TNA’s competitor, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), he apparently took a lot of TNA confidential information with him.  Now TNA is brawling with WWE and Wittenstein in court.   TNA’s lawsuit acknowledges that WWE told TNA that Wittenstein had given it the confidential information and fired him.  But TNA alleges that WWE conspired with Wittenstein to get the documents, delayed for three weeks before it told TNA about the disclosures, and is now using the secret details of Nature Boy Ric Flair’s contract to solicit him to join WWE.  PWInsider.com.

• Breach of Contract
• Confidentiality
• Summary Judgment
• The Inbox

A key question looming over any lawsuit is, "Will the case go to trial?" Or, as lawyers usually put the issue, "Will the case survive summary judgment?" (For any laypeople reading this, summary judgment is a procedure for disposing of cases prior to trial if there are no meaningful disputes about the important facts—as lawyers put it, no “genuine issues of material fact.”)  Last week, a New York appellate court affirmed a grant of summary judgment against a urologist’s discrimination claim, holding that his employer successfully presented evidence of legitimate reasons for its adverse actions against him.  Melman v. Montefiore Med. Ctr., 2012 N.Y. Slip. Op. 04111 (May 29, 2012).  The Melman decision shows how judges can agree on how to decide whether to grant summary judgment on such claims, yet still disagree on whether summary judgment ought to be granted.

• Discrimination
• Summary Judgment

I need to start off with a confession: my name is Bill and I’m an insurance lawyer.  (“Welcome, Bill”).  I’m going to be writing about insurance as it applies to employment-related disputes.  Even though you may think insurance is a very dry subject, I promise to make it as interesting as I can – although there will be no dancing green lizards in any of these posts.  And, if you work for (or defend) a company that can face suits by employees, you may find these posts to be interesting food for thought when it comes to protecting your corporate bottom line from those suits.  (As always, though, whether an individual dispute is insured or not is a very fact-specific inquiry that depends on the language of the policy and the facts at issue – your mileage may vary, as they say).

• D&O
• Executive Compensation
• Insurance

Now here’s some #@%! thought-provoking career advice for executives and the people that hire them: cursing at work (or “cussin” as my southern in-laws say) can cut both ways for your career, as reported here in the Wall Street Journal. 

This week in suits by suits (and jerseys):

• Ellen Pao, a partner in the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers has filed a lawsuit alleging sexual discrimination and retaliation.  Pao alleges that she was pressured to have sex with one partner and propositioned by another.  According to Pao, when she reported her complaints to the firm's senior partnership, they retaliated by giving her a smaller share of firm profits, removing her from the board of a startup, and tried to banish her to their China office.

• Discrimination
• The Inbox

On May 13, 2012 – after just five months on the job – Scott Thompson resigned as CEO of Yahoo! Inc. in response to allegations by “activist” shareholder Dan Loeb of the hedge fund Third Point LLC that Thompson was claiming a computer science degree he did not have.  An internal investigation by Yahoo revealed that Mr. Thompson’s bachelor’s degree from Ston ehill College was in accounting, not “accounting and computer science” as listed both on Mr. Thompson’s resume and in Yahoo filings with the Securites and Exchange Commission.  Thompson – who is also recuperating from surgery for thyroid cancer -- subsequently resigned from the board of directors of software developer Splunk Inc. on May 21 as well.

• Breach of Contract
• Wrongful Termination

Here’s an interesting story from Joann S. Lublin and Christopher Weaver of the Wall Street Journal about the CEO of medical device company Stryker, who was asked to leave that company over an alleged affair with a flight attendant who worked on the company’s private plane.  In the abstract, it’s not unusual for a well-placed executive to leave when an affair with a subordinate is discovered.  The interesting thing is: CEO Stephen MacMillan asked a committee of the company’s board for approval to conduct the affair once his divorce was final.  He (and his paramour) even followed the committee’s request that the flight attendant leave the company first. 

On March 29, 2012, Current TV fired well-known TV personality and “baseball nerd”  Keith Olbermann a little more than one year into Olbermann’s five-year, $50 million contract in which Olbermann would move his political news and commentary program Countdown With Keith Olbermann from MSNBC to the fledgling Current TV network founded by former Vice President Al Gore and entrepreneur and politician Joel Hyatt.  Current’s termination letter alleges numerous material breaches of contract by Olbermann (described below) as a basis for its decision.

• Breach of Contract