Daughter's Facebook Brag Costs Her Family $80,000

[jimnyc]

What a dumbass! And her parents should have made it abundantly clear that she not discuss it. But they didn't. And she thought she was cute. Now she screwed her father and no vacation for her!

Call it the biggest Facebook mistake ever. A daughter’s snarky status update has cost her father the $80,000 settlement he won during an age discrimination lawsuit.

According to the Miami Herald, Patrick Snay, 69, was the headmaster at Gulliver Preparatory School in Miami for several years, but in 2010, the school didn’t renew his contract. Snay sued his former employer for age discrimination and won a settlement of $80,000 in November 2011. The agreement contained a standard confidentiality clause, prohibiting Snay or the school from talking about the case.

However, Snay’s daughter, Dana, now at Boston College and a part-time Starbucks barista, couldn’t resist bragging about the case on Facebook. “Mama and Papa Snay won the case against Gulliver,” she wrote. “Gulliver is now officially paying for my vacation to Europe this summer. SUCK IT.”

Dana has 1,200 Facebook friends, many of whom are current and former Gulliver students and news of the post made its way back to the school’s lawyers, who appealed the verdict. The Third District Court of Appeal tossed out the $80,000 discrimination suit earlier this week. “Snay violated the agreement by doing exactly what he had promised not to do,” Judge Linda Ann Wells wrote. “His daughter then did precisely what the confidentiality agreement was designed to prevent.”

According to depositions obtained by the Miami Herald, Snay argued that he needed to share the news with his daughter because she suffered “psychological scars” from her time at the school and besides, she knew her parents were in mediation. “We knew what the restrictions were, yet we needed to tell her something,” he said. Snay is now headmaster at Riviera Preparatory Academy in Coral Gables. He is allowed to file a motion for rehearing and also appeal to the Florida Supreme Court.

However, the odds of Snay winning his money back are slim, according to attorney Bradley Shear. “It depends on the terms of the confidentiality contract — each one is different — but the damage is likely done,” Shear tells Yahoo Shine. “Some confidentiality agreements stipulate that the client cannot tell people who are not involved in the case, others prohibit anyone from knowing. Facebook is a public forum, even if her profile is set to private, and that’s where the mistake was made.”

http://shine.yahoo.com/parenting/-80...164326139.html

[Abbey Marie]

Unfortunately for Mr. Loose Lips, the agreement surely does not say "keep confidential except if you really need to tell someone". He breached the agreement, he loses the money that was contingent on confidentiality. That's it.

Yet another way that FB can be misused to our detriment.

[aboutime]

EVERYONE SHOULD BE REMINDED....AT LEAST ONCE A WEEK.

Whatever YOU say, write, or post on the ENTIRE INTERNET....Namely FACEBOOK, or TWITTER...

"STAYS ON THE INTERNET......FOREVER".

It never, ever, ever....GOES AWAY.

If you say it. It stays.

IGNORE THIS WARNING AT YOUR OWN STUPID RISK.