3 ms·

Doubtful. He made his decisions as an adult, fully aware of what was right/legal - he could have refused but chose not to.

tyingq 9y ago
True, they did make a choice. The nuance I'm interested in is whether a person in this situation would reasonably assume they would lose their job, or promotion opportunities, etc, if they didn't do the illegal task as asked. And if so, does that create a civil liability?
- anigbrowl 9y ago
  I'm not sure that it would; the preferred route would be to refuse to perform the illegal request, and then make a claim against the employer if retaliation ensued. Of course, one could say one was under economic coercion, but that may be hard to demonstrate (as opposed to merely infer) and it's a difficult equitable argument to sustain.
- 21 9y ago
  I doubt it. Losing a job is not an excuse to do illegal tasks, especially when you have a senior well payed job and are not exactly scraping by. In some cases you might even be required to report such illegal requests to some authority.
  - yourapostasy 9y ago
    > In some cases you might even be required to report such illegal requests to some authority. That's absurdly naive of the laws. At this level of management and up, these requests are not passed along in a traceable, litigable form, unless you have spectacularly unaware executives performing the demands. Look how far out of hand it had to get at Wells Fargo before there was action, and how long it took at VW before there was any sort of action. Also, anyone with mediocre Internet searching skills can see the egregiously poor track record of whistleblowers' treatment everywhere. Unless you already are set up with your FU money, you'll die of starvation before seeing any justice in most cases. Legislators and prosecutors need lessons in how these policies are enacted and implemented in the real world to actually catch this form of malfeasance. They need to catch the equivalent of Frank Abagnale who performs these kinds of misdeeds, gets caught, and teaches law enforcement and legislators how to actually nab others like him. Until then, they're just blind pigs accidentally stumbling upon truffles while going to take a piss. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Abagnale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Abagnale
    - icebraining 9y ago
      That's absurdly naive of the laws. Is it? The report triggers the investigation, which can then compel the reporter to provide those lessons. It doesn't have to end at the report. Of course, knowing that, the person is less likely to report - which is why these laws exist.
      - yourapostasy 9y ago
        > ...the person is less likely to report - which is why these laws exist. It doesn't work like that in the real world. These laws only nab the lower-rung staff in the unfortunate position of unavoidably leaving tracks while implementing the directives from higher management. Directives are given in abstracted form, and clarifications are passed out in untraceable means, typically verbal conversations, and even then the clarification is very rarely spelled out in black and white, and more often expressed as a gruff "do whatever it takes" command. A soft, low-level form of how this plays out in the US that many can relate to: salaried employees officially are supposed to only work 40 hours a week. It is commonplace for many organizations to abuse that, but nowhere in official, litigable forms will you ever see a manager telling an employee they must work more than 40 hours. Finally, above a certain level, employees who try to play CYA games with emails and/or written letters will find themselves frozen out by management. It isn't like this everywhere, but it is common enough that I see it happen in some of my client accounts where I consult at; fortunately, I'm not the adversely-affected party, but I feel for the many permanent staff who I see subjected to this anti-pattern. If you really want to put a dent in this, then lobbying for allowing single-party recording to bring evidence of malfeasance to law enforcement might be a start.
- Geekette 9y ago
  "The nuance I'm interested in is whether a person in this situation would reasonably assume they would lose their job, or promotion opportunities, etc, if they didn't do the illegal task as asked. And if so, does that create a civil liability?" If so, then the expected response would be for that person to whistleblow and/or establish an EEOC complaint or lawsuit for perceived retaliation. Going along with wrongdoing when there's no immediate danger to his life or even arguably livelihood (as a high-ranking engineering exec, he could probably find another gig easily) isn't a defensible position.
- ahhhhhhhhhh 9y ago
  This is similar to an argument many Nazis made while being persecuted — "just following orders" isn't generally an acceptable defense.
- schneems 9y ago
  Sounds a bit like "Superior orders" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders. > that the defense of superior orders was no longer considered enough to escape punishment; but merely enough to lessen punishment
  - tyingq 9y ago
    Not really. It wouldn't change the person's criminal sentence. Just give them a path to recover lost wages, etc, from the employer, in a completely different venue.
- RoyTyrell 9y ago
  While I'm not a lawyer, I'd have to guess he'd likely have grounds to sue over wrongful termination. Also I'm sure if he was willing to become an informant and testify against VW, the EPA would have been able to work with the DoJ to grant him immunity from any prosecution. I wouldn't be surprised if VW is similar to other large companies in regards to a "no retaliation" whistleblower clause in their corporate policies. Based on what I've read about him, it seemed like he was more than eager to deceive regulators. He had many opportunities to come clean and avoid this and instead he chose to toe the company line.

tyingq 9y ago

True, they did make a choice. The nuance I'm interested in is whether a person in this situation would reasonably assume they would lose their job, or promotion opportunities, etc, if they didn't do the illegal task as asked. And if so, does that create a civil liability?

anigbrowl 9y ago
I'm not sure that it would; the preferred route would be to refuse to perform the illegal request, and then make a claim against the employer if retaliation ensued. Of course, one could say one was under economic coercion, but that may be hard to demonstrate (as opposed to merely infer) and it's a difficult equitable argument to sustain.
21 9y ago
I doubt it. Losing a job is not an excuse to do illegal tasks, especially when you have a senior well payed job and are not exactly scraping by. In some cases you might even be required to report such illegal requests to some authority.
- yourapostasy 9y ago
  > In some cases you might even be required to report such illegal requests to some authority. That's absurdly naive of the laws. At this level of management and up, these requests are not passed along in a traceable, litigable form, unless you have spectacularly unaware executives performing the demands. Look how far out of hand it had to get at Wells Fargo before there was action, and how long it took at VW before there was any sort of action. Also, anyone with mediocre Internet searching skills can see the egregiously poor track record of whistleblowers' treatment everywhere. Unless you already are set up with your FU money, you'll die of starvation before seeing any justice in most cases. Legislators and prosecutors need lessons in how these policies are enacted and implemented in the real world to actually catch this form of malfeasance. They need to catch the equivalent of Frank Abagnale who performs these kinds of misdeeds, gets caught, and teaches law enforcement and legislators how to actually nab others like him. Until then, they're just blind pigs accidentally stumbling upon truffles while going to take a piss. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Abagnale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Abagnale
  - icebraining 9y ago
    That's absurdly naive of the laws. Is it? The report triggers the investigation, which can then compel the reporter to provide those lessons. It doesn't have to end at the report. Of course, knowing that, the person is less likely to report - which is why these laws exist.
    - yourapostasy 9y ago
      > ...the person is less likely to report - which is why these laws exist. It doesn't work like that in the real world. These laws only nab the lower-rung staff in the unfortunate position of unavoidably leaving tracks while implementing the directives from higher management. Directives are given in abstracted form, and clarifications are passed out in untraceable means, typically verbal conversations, and even then the clarification is very rarely spelled out in black and white, and more often expressed as a gruff "do whatever it takes" command. A soft, low-level form of how this plays out in the US that many can relate to: salaried employees officially are supposed to only work 40 hours a week. It is commonplace for many organizations to abuse that, but nowhere in official, litigable forms will you ever see a manager telling an employee they must work more than 40 hours. Finally, above a certain level, employees who try to play CYA games with emails and/or written letters will find themselves frozen out by management. It isn't like this everywhere, but it is common enough that I see it happen in some of my client accounts where I consult at; fortunately, I'm not the adversely-affected party, but I feel for the many permanent staff who I see subjected to this anti-pattern. If you really want to put a dent in this, then lobbying for allowing single-party recording to bring evidence of malfeasance to law enforcement might be a start.
Geekette 9y ago
"The nuance I'm interested in is whether a person in this situation would reasonably assume they would lose their job, or promotion opportunities, etc, if they didn't do the illegal task as asked. And if so, does that create a civil liability?" If so, then the expected response would be for that person to whistleblow and/or establish an EEOC complaint or lawsuit for perceived retaliation. Going along with wrongdoing when there's no immediate danger to his life or even arguably livelihood (as a high-ranking engineering exec, he could probably find another gig easily) isn't a defensible position.
ahhhhhhhhhh 9y ago
This is similar to an argument many Nazis made while being persecuted — "just following orders" isn't generally an acceptable defense.
schneems 9y ago
Sounds a bit like "Superior orders" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders. > that the defense of superior orders was no longer considered enough to escape punishment; but merely enough to lessen punishment
- tyingq 9y ago
  Not really. It wouldn't change the person's criminal sentence. Just give them a path to recover lost wages, etc, from the employer, in a completely different venue.
RoyTyrell 9y ago
While I'm not a lawyer, I'd have to guess he'd likely have grounds to sue over wrongful termination. Also I'm sure if he was willing to become an informant and testify against VW, the EPA would have been able to work with the DoJ to grant him immunity from any prosecution. I wouldn't be surprised if VW is similar to other large companies in regards to a "no retaliation" whistleblower clause in their corporate policies. Based on what I've read about him, it seemed like he was more than eager to deceive regulators. He had many opportunities to come clean and avoid this and instead he chose to toe the company line.