There sure is leeway: no signed contract. If he had left on good terms they would have paid the bonus, no question. He didn't and his fuckup cost them a lot more than $10k. At this point, dig in their heels.
He says an email is a contract? OK, well, two can play that game. I'd bet that on the bottom of several of those emails there was something about "this email is only addressed to the sender, it may not be reposted anywhere".
Looks like Joshua Z.H. Wu is now in material breach of "contract" too. I'm sure a clever lawyer could come up with some sort of nondisclosure or material defamation claim. He wants to go to the mattresses, let's go to the mattresses.
Again, no need if he's a good guy. He's a good guy, they're good guys. If he's a douche, they have no obligation to be good guys.
> He says an email is a contract? OK, well, two can play that game. I'd bet that on the bottom of several of those emails there was something about "this email is only addressed to the sender, it may not be reposted anywhere".
Doesn't work that way. The e-mail in question was a back-and-forth conversation in which both parties clearly agreed. Your hypothetical bottom-of-the-e-mail notice is not. It may well not be enforceable.
I don't understand why you say "He says" here, as if this is some sort of fruity off-the-wall legal theory. Contract law is pretty clear that any agreement that meets certain conditions is a contract, and this e-mail almost certainly meets them. In theory, a simple conversation where the guy said "We'll pay you $X for a referral" and the other guy responded "OK" is legally binding. In practice, it would be hard to prove that it happened. It's really easy to prove that the e-mail happened, though. Did they promise him a referral bonus? Bam, done, legally binding contract.
But let's say it is enforceable. What of it? The company would have to show damages if they wanted to sue over it. What damages are they going to show, exactly? That their illegal refusal to pay their former employee got exposed? Good luck getting a judge to go along with that.
> Did they promise him a referral bonus? Bam, done, legally binding contract.
Nope, not if they actually have a pre-existing contract signed with other employees that states that the bonus is for current employees only. Then the email conversation is a reference to this pre-existing contract, which excludes Joshua Z.H. Wu in his current state.
And if you were the DBA at the company who was just caused no end of trouble by old jzwhu, you might remember that you signed a contract like that back in October or something.
He says an email is a contract? OK, well, two can play that game. I'd bet that on the bottom of several of those emails there was something about "this email is only addressed to the sender, it may not be reposted anywhere".
Looks like Joshua Z.H. Wu is now in material breach of "contract" too. I'm sure a clever lawyer could come up with some sort of nondisclosure or material defamation claim. He wants to go to the mattresses, let's go to the mattresses.
Again, no need if he's a good guy. He's a good guy, they're good guys. If he's a douche, they have no obligation to be good guys.