Showing posts with label illusory. Show all posts
Showing posts with label illusory. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 22, 2019

Promise of Commissions Was Too Vague and Indefinite to Be Enforced


In November, the Franklin County Court of Appeals affirmed an employer’s summary judgment on an employee’s claim for unpaid commissions on the grounds that the employee’s agreement failed to specify when the commissions were earned, thus making them entirely discretionary.  Dolder v. Auto Boutique Collision, Ltd., 2018-Ohio-4508.  While the agreement specified the percentage range of the commission, it did not indicate when the commission would be earned, leaving them to the employer’s unfettered discretion.  Because the parties never had a meeting of the minds as to what would trigger the payment of the promised commission, the promise to pay a commission was illusory and unenforceable.

According to the Court’s decision, the plaintiff worked approximately 14 months for the defendant employer as the shop manager.  In addition to his salary, his employment agreement provided that he would receive “commission payments  . . . based on 10-25% OF SALARY of $57,000. This commission will be paid monthly on the thirtieth day of the following month.”  Although the plaintiff had been paid all of the salary which he had been promised, he had never been paid any commission as provided in his employment agreement.

The Court rejected the plaintiff’s argument that his agreement required that he be paid this “commission” every month on top of his salary.  The employer argued that the term was too ambiguous and indefinite to be enforced.  Because the agreement failed to define “commission,” the court relied on its commonly understood meaning: “compensation earned by an employee based on a percentage of revenue generated from the employee's services.”  This is contrasted with a salary which is a fixed compensation paid on a regular basis and which is not dependent on the revenue generated.

In view of these definitions, a salary payment is fixed and not tied to any numerical performance variable, whereas a commission payment is based on a defined calculus relating to the employee's performance in generating revenue.  Thus, the parties' use of the term commission here indicates a general intent to somehow link the payment to Dolder's revenue generating performance.  The commission payment provision sets forth how a commission is calculated, at least within a certain range, and when an earned commission is paid.  However, this provision does not define how a commission is earned, such as by meeting a certain revenue benchmark.  Because the contract contains no language addressing how the commission is earned, the commission payments were entirely at the employer's discretion, making the provision illusory. . . .

In sum, the contract's commission payments provision contains no indication the parties reached any agreement in defining the circumstances under which a commission would be due to Dolder.  Therefore, in the absence of a meeting of the minds as to what triggers the earning of a commission, this provision is indefinite and uncertain, rendering the promise illusory.

NOTICE: This summary is designed merely to inform and alert you of recent legal developments. It does not constitute legal advice and does not apply to any particular situation because different facts could lead to different results. Information here can be changed or amended without notice. Readers should not act upon this information without legal advice. If you have any questions about anything you have read, you should consult with or retain an employment attorney.

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Franklin County Appeals Court Remands Incentive Compensation Claim and Dismisses Whistleblower and Reverse Discrimination Claims

Last week, a unanimous Franklin County Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal on summary judgment of whistleblower and reverse race discrimination claims, but remanded the highly-compensated plaintiff’s equitable claims for a six-figure profit bonus on the grounds that the written bonus plan was unenforceable to bar his equitable claims because there was no evidence that the plaintiff knew about or had agreed to its terms and because the employer’s “promises” to award a bonus in its unfettered discretion were illusory. Pohmer v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., 2015-Ohio-1229 (3-31-15).  In affirming the dismissal of the race discrimination claim, the Court agreed that the plaintiff had not shown that the defendant employer was unusual in discriminating against the majority, that he was similarly situated to his supervisor, or that the explanation for his termination (violating the employer’s technology policy by inappropriate and personal use of his blackberry and email) was pretextual.  He could not prevail on his whistleblower claim because he could not prove that he had ever made any relevant complaints to his employer in writing and the trial court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to compel additional electronic discovery that was unlikely to reveal additional relevant evidence without exorbitant costs. 

According to the Court’s opinion, the plaintiff had received very favorable performance evaluations for over a decade, the most recent of which was in December 2011.  He had been assured in writing that he would be receiving a 4.5% profit bonus for 2011.  However, in a random review of his text messages and emails, the employer discovered that he had been sending inappropriate sexual-themed emails and messages to his children’s babysitter and co-workers in violation of the employer’s technology code of conduct.  He was soon terminated in mid-January 2012.  A few days later, the employer set the amount of discretionary incentive compensation and awarded bonuses to remaining employees a few weeks later.  The plaintiff filed suit and alleged, among other things, that he was subjected to reverse race discrimination because his supervisor also sent inappropriate emails and was not fired.  Second, he claimed that he had actually been fired in retaliation for reporting to his supervisor that one of the employer’s financial product campaigns was an illegal scam.  However, he could not produce any written evidence that he had ever made such an allegation prior to his termination despite the employer’s production of thousands of pages of emails and texts messages.  He also claimed that he was entitled to his profit bonus since he had earned it prior to his termination.
Incentive Compensation.  The trial court had dismissed his claim for his incentive compensation on the grounds that the employer’s Performance Based Incentive Compensation Plan (PBIC) was a binding implied-in-fact contract, thus barring any equitable claim under the theories of unjust enrichment or quantum meruit.   Pursuant to the terms of the PBIC, the Plaintiff was not entitled to any profit bonus or incentive compensation unless he was still employed on the date when the profit bonus was actually paid.  However, the Court of Appeals found that the PBIC could not be a contract since there was no evidence that the plaintiff even knew about the PBIC, let alone agreed to it.   All that the employer produced was an unsigned plan document and not any communications to the Plaintiff about the PBIC or indication that the Plaintiff’s employment and incentive compensation were subject to the PBIC.  Moreover, to the extent that the PBIC contained any promises, they were illusory (and thus, non-binding) since the employer retained “sole and absolute discretion” as to when, whether, and in what amount to award bonuses.  In contrast, the plaintiff produced evidence of a powerpoint presentation about the incentive compensation he was eligible to earn for that year and an email from his supervisor about the percentage of his profit bonus; neither exhibit made any reference to the PBIC or any requirement that he needed to still be employed on the date that the bonus was paid.
The doctrine of unjust enrichment “applies when a benefit is conferred and it would be inequitable to permit the benefitting party to retain the benefit without compensating the conferring party.” . . . A claim for quantum meruit shares the same essential elements as a claim for unjust enrichment, and both doctrines are equitable doctrines.  . . .  the two doctrines differ, however, when calculating damages.  The damages for unjust enrichment are " ' "the amount the defendant benefited," ' " while the damages for quantum meruit are " ' "the measure of the value of the plaintiff's services, less any damage suffered by the other party." ' "
 . . . 
"A contract is illusory only when by its terms the promisor retains an unlimited right to determine the nature or extent of his performance; the unlimited right, in effect, destroys his promise and thus makes it merely illusory." . . . . In deciding that the PBIC Plan is an illusory contract with respect to [the plaintiff], we do not mean to say that the PBIC Plan would be illusory under all circumstances. This is not a case where [the plaintiff] was made aware of the terms of the PBIC Plan and thereby assented to the PBIC's terms in exchange for his continued employment with JPMC.
Reverse Race Discrimination.  The Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of this claim because the Plaintiff failed to meet his prima facie case or show that the employer’s explanation was pretextual.  First, the Court adopted the heightened burden of proof for a reverse race discrimination claim, which requires evidence of “background circumstances supporting the inference that [the defendant employer] was the unusual employer who discriminated against non-minority employees.”  The plaintiff could not meet this burden, although he correctly argued that some courts have questioned the correctness of using a modified burden of proof in any race discrimination claim.    

In any event, the Court found that the Plaintiff did not identify any similarly situated non-white employees who were treated better.   The Plaintiff identified his supervisor for sending inappropriate personal emails because he only received a disciplinary warning, but the Court found him not to be similarly situated “in all respects” (i.e., “ 'all of the relevant aspects of his employment situation were "nearly identical" to those of the [comparable employee's] employment situation.'").  

Thus, to be deemed "similarly situated," "the comparables 'must have dealt with the same supervisor, have been subject to the same standards and have engaged in the same conduct without such differentiating or mitigating circumstances that would distinguish their conduct or the employer's treatment of them for it.'
They obviously did not report to the same supervisor.  “[A] supervisor's "position of authority within the company create[s] a meaningful distinction" that "explains [the employer's] different treatment of the two.” More importantly, the employer did not learn of the supervisor’s alleged misconduct until the plaintiff raised it after his termination (presumably during his deposition).  Other factors may have been at play including a discrepancy in the volume, frequency, and level of inappropriateness contained in the emails of each of the two men.”  

Ultimately, the Court found that the plaintiff could not show that his termination for admittedly violating the employer’s code of conduct was pretextual.   He could not “demonstrate that the proffered reason ‘(1) has no basis in fact, (2) did not actually motivate the employer's challenged conduct, or (3) was insufficient to warrant the challenged conduct.’"  Importantly, he could not show that the employer knew of any other similar violations of the code of conduct (including that of his supervisor) at the time of the Plaintiff’s termination in January 2012.   

Whistleblowing.  The trial and appellate courts both concluded that the plaintiff could not prevail on his whistleblower claim because he could not satisfy the statutory requirement that the complaint be made in writing to the employer after first making a verbal report.  The employer had produced several thousand pages of documents in discovery, including emails and text messages.  The plaintiff insisted that he had texted and/or emailed his supervisor (in addition to personal conversations) about his objections to the legality of a product campaign.  However, his alleged objections were not reflected in the documents produced in discovery.  Therefore, he could not satisfy his statutory burden of proof under Ohio’s whistleblower statute.   

The Plaintiff filed a motion to compel a forensic examination of his email and text mail boxes to ensure that none of his messages were inappropriately deleted by the defendant employer.  However, the trial court denied that discovery motion on the grounds that it was “unlikely to lead to admissible evidence and disproportionately costly.”  The appellate court found this not to be an abuse of discretion in light of the thousands of pages produced in discovery.  Moreover, it noted that the Plaintiff’s  

argument has less to do with the adequacy of the discovery process and more to do with [his] dissatisfaction that he did not discover sufficient evidence to support his claims. The trial court noted it had made an effort throughout the case "to keep discovery proportionate to the issues, and to sensibly minimize the financial cost and time burden which electronic discovery might otherwise require."
Indeed, the supervisor denied ever receiving such a written report and the Plaintiff failed to mention any written objections about the product campaign in his own deposition.

NOTICE: This summary is designed merely to inform and alert you of recent legal developments. It does not constitute legal advice and does not apply to any particular situation because different facts could lead to different results. Information here can be changed or amended without notice. Readers should not act upon this information without legal advice. If you have any questions about anything you have read, you should consult with or retain an employment attorney.