New Employer Changed Start Date

[Mighty_Kong]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? California

Several weeks back my wife received an offer for employment along with a start date of 9/26/15. She accepted the position, and promptly notified her current employer that her last day of work would be 9/25/15. Yesterday (09/24/15), the new employer notified my wife that her start date had been pushed back to October 24th. She spoke with an HR rep for her new employer earlier this morning and found out that the background check ordered for her when she initially applied for the job back in July had expired, and that the delay in her start date is due to the need of having to run a new background check.

Does my wife have any protection here? Thankfully we are in a financial position right now capable of taking the one month hit in lost wages, but this just doesn't seem right to me. She's basically out an entire months salary (and then some considering how first paychecks tend to work) for their screw-up. How does detrimental reliance work in the case of at-will employment? Does it?

Thanks in advance!

 

[HC1432]

There is no legal recourse here. The current employer does not need to extend her resignation date and the new employer does not need to expedite the start date, or provide compensation in lieu of doing so.

Not really relevant to the question but it is very unusual, in my experience, for a background check to take a month to complete. It usually only takes a few days, unless it is a more in-depth background check like you might see for someone taking a position with some sort of high level government security clearance, etc.

 

[Mighty_Kong]

Thanks for the prompt response.

I agree that the month time-frame for a background check seems unusually long. Then again, I thought most background checks were valid for up to a year. Two and a half months seems kind of quick for one to expire.

As far having no legal recourse...that is a shame. Thankfully we'll be ok, but I can't imagine the havoc this might have caused a less fortunate family. I'm actually kind of shocked to hear there isn't any legal protection.

 

[cbg]

If there is a statute out there that guarantees that a background check is "valid" for any specific period of time and cannot be duplicated until that time, I am unaware of it.

 

[eerelations]

Why? Even in countries that are way way WAY more employee-friendly than the US there isn't any legal protection for something like this...

 

[Mighty_Kong]

Why? Even in countries that are way way WAY more employee-friendly than the US there isn't any legal protection for something like this...

Probably because she received a congratulatory letter along with a written start date. If anything I would have thought that constituted a written contract (for the start date). That's why I came here though -- what I think, and what is actually the case, are two very different things

 

[cbg]

Here's an explanation I've used before.

The offer letter with the start date is rarely if ever a contract and you don't want it to be. If it were, you could never get a raise or an increase in benefits or any new benefit offered or any additional vacation over and above what's listed in the offer letter. It can't be a contract when you want it to be and not when you don't; either it is or it isn't. In most cases (99.999%) offer letters do not meet the definition of a contract, but in general it would not be in your favor if they did.

 

[ecmst12]

More to the point, she doesn't want to make a big stink about legal action with her soon-to-be new employer, unless she wants them to withdraw the job offer entirely.

 

[Chyvan]

You asked this on another forum. Have your wife apply for unemployment benefits. It's all she's going to get. As the weeks tick by, she's going to lose even that because it's not retro active to the date of her quit but only going forward from the date she applies.