Snyder & Snyder, P.A.: Seagate Employment Case Headed for Jury Trial

MINNEAPOLIS, July 21 /PRNewswire/ --  Induced by promises from disk-drive manufacturer Seagate, Chandramouli Vaidyanathan, PhD, uprooted his family and career at Texas Instruments to move to Minnesota for a job that did not exist. Within nine months of arriving at Seagate's operations in Bloomington, MN, Dr. Vaidyanathan (pronounced "Why-de-ah-NOT-an") was out the door.

Today, U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank denied Seagate's motion to dismiss, and ordered the case alleging false representations by Seagate to proceed to a jury trial in Federal Court.

The basis for this case is a little known Minnesota statute that makes it illegal to induce "any person to change from any place in any state, territory or country to any place in this state to work in any branch of labor through or by means of knowingly false representations...."  A person induced to change a place of employment can recover damages and attorney's fees under the statute.

In his order denying Seagate's motion, Judge Frank noted that Dr. Vaidyanathan claimed:

"Seagate knowingly made false representations concerning the kind or character of the position it offered to him, inducing him to give up his job at Texas Instruments to take the job with Seagate.  Specifically Vaidyanathan alleges that Seagate represented that he would be hired to do yield engineering when Seagate actually did not need a yield engineer."

Judge Frank stated that "the Court finds that there are genuine factual disputes with respect to whether Seagate made false representations regarding the position."

Dr. Vaidyanathan is represented by the Minneapolis law firm Snyder & Snyder.  That firm has won $15 million in employment-related lawsuits for its clients since it was founded three years ago by Brent and Stephen Snyder.  Previously, Stephen had recovered more than $100 million for clients in employment cases as a partner at other law firms.

In this case, Dr. Vaidyanathan alleges that he quit his lucrative position at Texas Instruments in Dallas, TX and moved his wife and two school-aged children to Minnesota to take a position with Seagate as a Yield Engineer in semiconductors.  However, when he arrived at Seagate, there was no such position. Nine months later, he was laid off.

In his order, Judge Frank quoted an internal Seagate document that Dr. Vaidyanathan "was hired to lead a yield/product engineering/team" but "this charter never came to fruition."

Judge Frank set the trial for November 8, 2010, in St Paul, MN.

In a similar case, on May 26, 2010, a Minnesota jury awarded $1.2 million to James Williams, finding University of Minnesota basketball coach "Tubby" Smith had falsely represented that he had final authority to hire assistant basketball coaches.

SOURCE Snyder & Snyder, P.A.