Discrimination or Promissory Estoppel?

[cw212010]

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

KY - Offer of employment rescinded after contacting employer for update on start date/progress of background check after long period of non contact (Promised start date was 4 days away and had already ceased employment elsewhere.

Employer/Legal counsel ignore all correspondence. I am foreign and had additional steps added to the hiring process which were unnecessary in this role.

I met all requirements for this role, was satisfactorily able to pass all background, drug and medical screenings.

Would this be considered Promissory Estoppel or discrimination?

What next steps can be taken now that I have attempted three letters to legal council which have been ignored?

It has taken around three months to regain employment in this field however it has become common knowledge in the local area that this situation has occurred which has caused extreme difficulty in being re-employed.

 

[justalayman]

You haven't given any reason it was either. Were you given a reason for rescinding the job offer, that was assuredly contingent upon a clear background check.

 

[Shadowbunny]

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

KY - Offer of employment rescinded after contacting employer for update on start date/progress of background check after long period of non contact (Promised start date was 4 days away and had already ceased employment elsewhere.

Employer/Legal counsel ignore all correspondence. I am foreign and had additional steps added to the hiring process which were unnecessary in this role.

I met all requirements for this role, was satisfactorily able to pass all background, drug and medical screenings.

Would this be considered Promissory Estoppel or discrimination?

What next steps can be taken now that I have attempted three letters to legal council which have been ignored?

It has taken around three months to regain employment in this field however it has become common knowledge in the local area that this situation has occurred which has caused extreme difficulty in being re-employed.

How many times did you contact them? And was it their legal department you were contacting?

 

[latigo]

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

KY - Offer of employment rescinded after contacting employer for update on start date/progress of background check after long period of non contact (Promised start date was 4 days away and had already ceased employment elsewhere.

Employer/Legal counsel ignore all correspondence. I am foreign and had additional steps added to the hiring process which were unnecessary in this role.

I met all requirements for this role, was satisfactorily able to pass all background, drug and medical screenings.

Would this be considered Promissory Estoppel or discrimination?

What next steps can be taken now that I have attempted three letters to legal council which have been ignored?

It has taken around three months to regain employment in this field however it has become common knowledge in the local area that this situation has occurred which has caused extreme difficulty in being re-employed.

Unfortunately it doesn't seem that the prospective employer shared your view of your qualifications for the position.

Anyway it would be breach of contract if you had a contract, but it doesn't seem that you did. For one thing you state that the "offer of employment was rescinded" not that a contract of employment was rescinded.

Also it is obvious that the offer was conditional upon the prospective employer's approval of your credentials and history. Of which you were fully aware of or wouldn't have made "contact for an update" on the progress of the gathering of that information.

Furthermore, among other things in order to sustain an action for breach of a contract of employment the proponent must establish the terms and conditions of the agreement with such certainty as the court can find there is mutuality of obligation and all you want to talk about is their obligations and no mention of yours.

For example if in the interim period you had received a more attractive offer of employment, would you deny that you had the right to accept it? I think not and that you'd be fool not to accept it.

You mention the doctrine of promissory estoppel but again to invoke that equitable principle the proponent must prove that a promise was in made and here it - it seems to me - that no unconditional promise of employment was ever conveyed.

 

[cw212010]

I was given a conditional offer of employment and met all of these requirements thereafter. It was my understanding that a verbal contract could also count for Prom Est?

I firstly wrote back to the HR department requesting further information, including copies of my own information this was immediately passed to their attorney who has failed to respond to any additional letters and has ignored all requests for my personal data in an effort to see if there is any clues to this puzzle that I was not aware of. An accusation was made against me during a visit where I was asked to drop off a copy of my medical - In reference to a completely unrelated criminal matter that a very, very in depth background check had already cleared me of. There is absolutely zero corroboration on their part, however I was accused of a minor crime which would not have been enough to disqualify me from the job. As I have stated, they appear to have made up a crime and accused it of being committed by me - Somewhat bizzare!

In regard to not sharing the same view of qualifications, I was chosen as number 1 from a pool of 50 candidates and was the CEO's personal choice. At the time I requested an update, I had already satisfied all of the conditional requirements. In regard to a contract of any form, I was verbally 'welcomed to the company', issued company ID and had signed the conditional offer as an at-will employee. The CEO, having met him after this matter had concluded was completely unaware that this situation had taken place.

My reasoning for suggesting discrimination is that I am from the United Kingdom and was told that I must undergo additional checks which I was later advised were not applicable, appropriate and potentially illegal by the variety of regulations the business must follow.

 

[justalayman]

Obviously you cannot or at least it wouldn't be wise to disclose too much information on a public forum. Given that and your certainty something improper happened I would suggest taking your information and finding an attorney to review your situation. The matter of meeting the ceo and other actions do not prove you had a firm contract. The matter of finding some suggestion of criminal activity in your past is not something you determine if
It is disqualifying. While there are regulations in place for many jobs that prohibit certain background isssues, outside of that the individual employer determines if your background disqualifies you. If they don't want to hire you because they see something in a background check, in most cases, they are free to use that to disqualify you.

 

[cw212010]

That is what becomes interesting though - They have given me a copy of my background check which states clear (It is a high level check as it is government related) and my existing role already has me cleared for an even higher level so I know that there is absolutely nothing on my background, they were simply lying. I have requested the notes which were taken during a spur of the moment meeting when I dropped off documents as stated before however miraculously these have disappeared/been refused.

 

[justalayman]

Have you asked them why they rescinded the offer?

 

[latigo]

I was given a conditional offer of employment and met all of these requirements thereafter. It was my understanding that a verbal contract could also count for Prom Est?

I firstly wrote back to the HR department requesting further information, including copies of my own information this was immediately passed to their attorney who has failed to respond to any additional letters and has ignored all requests for my personal data in an effort to see if there is any clues to this puzzle that I was not aware of. An accusation was made against me during a visit where I was asked to drop off a copy of my medical - In reference to a completely unrelated criminal matter that a very, very in depth background check had already cleared me of. There is absolutely zero corroboration on their part, however I was accused of a minor crime which would not have been enough to disqualify me from the job. As I have stated, they appear to have made up a crime and accused it of being committed by me - Somewhat bizzare!

In regard to not sharing the same view of qualifications, I was chosen as number 1 from a pool of 50 candidates and was the CEO's personal choice. At the time I requested an update, I had already satisfied all of the conditional requirements. In regard to a contract of any form, I was verbally 'welcomed to the company', issued company ID and had signed the conditional offer as an at-will employee. The CEO, having met him after this matter had concluded was completely unaware that this situation had taken place.

My reasoning for suggesting discrimination is that I am from the United Kingdom and was told that I must undergo additional checks which I was later advised were not applicable, appropriate and potentially illegal by the variety of regulations the business must follow.

Are you purposely avoiding my question or did I fail to make it clear? I will repeat it:

If in the interim between the last time you contacted the company for an update and your receipt of their notice of withdrawing the offer had you received a more favorable offer of employment, would you have felt free to accept it? Would you've accepted it? If not, please explain why not?

And if you had accepted the second offer why wouldn't your theory of promissory estoppel apply equally to the first company's benefit as you now claim it applies to your benefit?

 

[eerelations]

They are not legally obliged to give you (or even keep) copies of notes made during meetings with you, whether those meetings are formal or informal.

(For what it's worth, if I were considering employing a person who started sending numerous letters to me and to my company's legal department, and demanding to be given copies of my interview notes, I would be very inclined to rescind any verbal offers - and OP, make no mistake, what you had was a verbal offer, which in no way rises to the level of a contract anywhere in the US - of employment that I might have made.) (In fact, I think I have actually done this, once or twice.)

I understand how incredibly frustrating this can be, to go through an entire application and interview process that seems to go very well, only to have whole thing die just before a written offer letter is issued. This has happened to me a few times and it's just awful to be let down so suddenly and so inexplicably. However, professional etiquette dictates that you're only allowed to ask once why this happened, no more than once no matter how unsatisfactory (or nonexistent) the answer is.

Regarding possible illegal discrimination, you have admitted that they knew very early on the process that you're from the UK. If their intent was to discriminate against you on that basis, why did they continue putting you through the process?

Finally, it's not up to you to determine which steps in the process are necessary and which are not. Employers wanna make candidates jump through hoops? Candidates have to jump through hoops.

 

[cw212010]

Are you purposely avoiding my question or did I fail to make it clear? I will repeat it:

If in the interim between the last time you contacted the company for an update and your receipt of their notice of withdrawing the offer had you received a more favorable offer of employment, would you have felt free to accept it? Would you've accepted it? If not, please explain why not?

And if you had accepted the second offer why wouldn't your theory of promissory estoppel apply equally to the first company's benefit as you now claim it applies to your benefit?

I would not have accepted any offer as I was clearly engaged with this employer to some depth - They had already paid for medicals and I had undergone months of background checks and testing having being given a conditional offer. As stated, the employer themselves stated I had cleared all of the conditions to their satisfaction. After three weeks, I contacted them to enquire as to the start date (I was told June 1 and this was around May 28). A week later I received a letter stating they had rescinded my offer because I called them. I believe that promissory estoppel would have applied equally as they had invested several thousand dollars in to the above process.

Regarding possible illegal discrimination, you have admitted that they knew very early on the process that you're from the UK. If their intent was to discriminate against you on that basis, why did they continue putting you through the process?

They were not made aware that I was originally from the UK until after the conditional offer of employment. The position was open to non-citizens. Apologies if I did not clarify this, however it was only after clearing all of the conditional steps that they then added additional conditions of employment.

This involved a 'Terrorism task force check' which is only something that can be conducted on individuals such as Police Chiefs and those with access to the intelligence community. Needless to say, two weeks after they rescinded the offer, I passed this check with no concerns.


I did not send any letters to the employer nor make more than one telephone call during the process. It was only after the offer was rescinded that I wrote initially to the HR department requesting an explanation and copy of my background report which was sent to me via their legal counsel. I have attempted to engage with their counsel since this time, however am ignored.

 

[Zigner]

Ok, look. You didn't get the job. Move on. Really.

 

[Shadowbunny]

. A week later I received a letter stating they had rescinded my offer because I called them. **************

.... I have attempted to engage with their counsel since this time, however am ignored.

Sounds like you said something during the course of that phone call that offended. And their legal counsel has no obligation to speak with you. If you persist with contacting them, you may find yourself on the business end of a no-contact order.