You are the Vice President for Sales at FinePrint Promotions. One of the clients you have inherited is “Inuit Eddie’s,” a bar and restaurant that has made for itself a nationally recognized iconographic t-shirt and cup logo that features a cartoon of an American Inuit and a husky dog. You have secured a contract for their annual Halloween print job. Their Halloween logo graphic has been provided to you on a thumb drive. You give the thumb drive to your company’s graphics and design manager, who reports directly to you. Your company’s graphics and design manager reviews the provided graphic and realizes it will need additional work for it to work with your company’s screen printer. However, she takes great offense to the graphic representation of the American Inuit and lodges a complaint against Human Resources that you are discriminating against that class of persons. Additionally, she reports the graphic to the Americans Civil Liberties Union, the Rachel Maddow Show, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The ALCU does a press release criticizing both Inuit Eddie’s and Fine Print for being insensitive and demands FinePrint refuse to print the job and fire Inuit Eddie as a client. Rachel Maddow brings the graphic and design manager on her show and your company’s phones are jammed and email boxes are full of messages from people upset and threatening to never use your company or any of your other clients products until you fire Inuit Eddie. The EEOC sends a form letter to your company saying a charge of discrimination had been filed but it was taking no action.
Inuit Eddie calls you and is livid at the treatment it has gotten in the press and fires your company because of the humiliation it has suffered. The loss of Inuit Eddie is going to cost Fine Print approximately $400,000 in sales a year.
The President and CEO of the Company wants you, as a successful recent graduate of an outstanding business law course, to advise her on the following:
1. She wants to fire the graphics and design manager. Can the graphic and design manager bring a wrongful termination against the company? If so, what are the strengths and weaknesses for her case and the company’s case.
2. Can Fine Print bring a lawsuit against the graphic and design manager for the loss of business from Inuit Eddie’s? If so, what are the strengths and weaknesses of the company’s case and the manager’s case