Well, that is not strictly true, a company can perfectly legally say it would not rehire you, and the next company will read between the lines. Good luck trying

Well, that is not strictly true, a company can perfectly legally say it would not rehire you, and the next company will read between the lines. Good luck trying to sue - if word got out that you did, you really would become unhireable. In the U.S., no. Blackballing law is extremely friendly to the employee. And no, you don't sue over a bad reference. You have your attorney send a C&D letter and they fall back to the "default" reference: name, dates of employment. Generally, you never need to sue over a bad reference. The best response to a bad reference is to replace him, ideally with someone who worked with you at the company and can vouch that, yes, you actually did good work. Also, hiding gaps on the CV is a major red flag. I didn't tell him to hide gaps. I told him to put his years of employment (not months) on his CV, e.g. 2009-2010 instead of Nov. 2009 to Jan. 2010. He may still have to put the dates on the formal application that comes later in the hiring process, but after you've had an interview, CV smells don't matter as much. It would be grounds for instant dismissal, it's as bad as pretending to have a qualification you don't. You cannot be serious. Omitting two months at a startup that didn't work out is not the moral equivalent of a quack surgeon pretending to have a medical degree. That said, from a strategic perspective, omitting a job of even 2 months is almost never a good idea because a gap is more damaging that a bad job (which can always be spun). (If it's less than 2 months, omit it; you didn't really work there.)