> I think in a private company you'd need to prove not only that the hiring was a waste of funds since the person was ineffective but also that they premeditate

> I think in a private company you'd need to prove not only that the hiring was a waste of funds since the person was ineffective but also that they premeditated and succeeded at damaging the company during their tenure to get a general ruling that'd result in jailtime or a government enforced fine - the other recourse a company might have is if they committed fraud when they signed their employment contract. That's an "advantage" I'd never thought of to the standard US company boilerplate that you don't have an employment contract and (almost) nobody at the company has the authority to change that.