No Breach of Settlement Agreement by Employer When Employee Failed to Properly Direct References to Specified Individual

The Trumball County Court of Appeals this month affirmed summary judgment in favor of an employer on a claim by a former employee that the employer breached their settlement agreement concerning job references.   Baumgartner v. AIM Leasing, 2013-Ohio-883.   In that case, the parties’ settlement agreement – as many do --  provided for a certain job reference (which omitted certain driving accidents by the employee in the course of his employment) if he directed his future employers to contact a particular Human Resources employee.   When applying for jobs with other trucking and delivery companies, the plaintiff-employee failed to specify on his job applications (or on the job reference waiver forms) who the potential employer should contact at his former employer.   Consequently, these prospective employers did not receive the agreed-upon job reference information pursuant to the settlement agreement.  One of these employers hired the plaintiff-employee anyway, but fired him after receiving reference information (which disclosed his preventable and unpreventable traffic accidents) that was inconsistent with the information he provided on his job application.  The Court found that the defendant-employer was not required to provide the agreed-upon reference information unless the prospective employer contacted the particular HR employee as agreed in the settlement agreement.   Therefore, there was no breach of the settlement agreement. 

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