Dear Employer: You deserve this and more

 You may have seen the headline around the internet: Kentucky man sues employer for throwing him birthday party, and now they owe him $450K. I have seen it referenced on LinkedIn, Yahoo, TMZ, and even BBC. From the headline, it sounds ridiculous. Once you review the facts, though, the employer deserved this and more.

In summary:

- Employee asks employer not to throw him a birthday party as it could cause him to have a panic attack

- Employer throws him a party anyway. Employee has a panic attack. (Hmm, just like he told you he would...)

- The employee is berated the next day for his reaction to the party (really?) which causes, you guessed it, another panic attack

- Employer sends the employee home and fires him shortly thereafter

- Employee sues (I would have too)

Here is a breakdown of the legal aspects of the case. One of the comments I read on LinkedIn said that employers mistakenly think they can fire employees for any reason because Kentucky, like 48 other states, is an at will employment state. To quote one of the lawyers we used at a previous job "employment at will means you can fire someone for any reason or no reason at all as long as it's not an illegal reason." (emphasis added). In the case, the jury decided it was an illegal reason and awarded damages accordingly.

As I told one of my HR coworkers, this situation could have been avoided if the staff of the employer had just been decent people. Someone tells you he doesn't want a birthday party? Then don't throw him one. This is not rocket science. I have said before that 90% of HR is common sense. I definitely think this qualifies.

Finally, this is costing the employer far more than $450,000 (note- they likely have insurance that will pay at least part of this). First, they have had to pay for attorneys to litigate this case. As someone who used to review legal bills in a previous job, I can assure you lawyers aren't cheap, and this case must have had tons of billable hours. Secondly, this is absolutely horrible PR. Would you want to work for this company? I wouldn't, unless they paid me tons of money to help fix their obviously broken corporate culture. In my book, they deserve every bit of what this is costing them financially and reputationally.