questions & answers

Question: What is my rights? I work for a major company and while I had a temp manager they stole two of my major accounts without my knowledge and transferred them to other reps on other teams and I lost out on 1,000,000 in sales. The company has policy in protecting reps from going into accounts that does not belong to them or assigned to them. Behind my back they stole my accounts and next thing I know they closed about a 1,000,000 in business that was rightfully mine. Do I have legal rights? Our company rules of conduct / ethics and policy stAtes that no other reps are allowed to go into other assigned accounts nor other territory that is assigned to other sales reps. This all happened during the time I did not have a current manager in place because my manager left the company and the company was looking for new manager to fill that position. As I stated I had a temp manager who was not my manager. Please advise

Answer: Generally speaking, employees should abide by their employers’ policies. You may want to check your employee manual to determine if there is a procedure to follow, if you feel that another employee has violated company policy. Generally, employers have a protocol to report misconduct either directly or anonymously depending on the size of your company. If you have tried your employer’s grievance protocol and still have not received the relief you expected, you can investigate legal remedies. Generally those remedies would be against your employer, as an employer acts in a role of supervising employees’ behavior. There is a theory of common law (case law) called vicarious liability, under which employers can be held liable for their employees’ behavior, if the employee was working within the scope of his or her employment at the time the incident occurred.  It is also a function of agency law as an employee acts as the agent of their employer. Your question sounds like it could be rooted in 2 or 3 different directions, either as harassment (by the other employees/ supervisors), failure to adequately supervise (other employees or you if a supervisor would have prevented this issue), or a possible trade secrets action (for using your information).

You may want to consult an attorney for further details and possible representation in this matter.  Additional information is available on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is a good resource for employment related matters. This is an EEOC guide on harassment. Arizona Revised Statute 44-401 has information regarding trade secrets.