Patrick Snay, 69 -- the
former head of Guillver Preparatory School -- filed an age
discrimination complaint when his 2010-11 contract wasn't renewed.
In November 2011, the
school and Snay came to an agreement in which Snay would be paid $10,000
in back pay, and an $80,000 settlement. Gulliver Schools also agreed to
cut Snay's attorneys a check for $60,000.
But before the ink could
dry on the deal, Snay's daughter took to Facebook, boasting, "Mama and
Papa Snay won the case against Gulliver. Gulliver is now officially
paying for my vacation to Europe this summer. SUCK IT."
Snay's daughter blasted
the message to her 1,200 Facebook followers, which included many current
and former Gulliver students. Word of the post spread like wildfire
back to school officials.
Within a few days,
Gulliver Schools sent a letter to Snay's attorneys stating that Snay had
broken a confidentiality agreement and that he would not be receiving
the $80,000 settlement.
The agreement stated that
neither Snay nor his wife could speak about the settlement to anyone
except for his attorneys and other professional advisers.
Snay filed a motion to enforce the settlement and won in a Circuit Court ruling. The school appealed.
A hearing was held to
determine if his daughter's knowledge of the settlement and her Facebook
post had violated the confidentiality agreement.
"What happened is that
after settlement, my wife and I went in the parking lot, and we had to
make some decisions on what we were going to tell my daughter. Because
it's very important to understand that she was an intricate part of what
was happening.
"She was retaliated
against at Gulliver. So she knew we were going to some sort of
mediation. She was very concerned about it. Because of what happened at
Gulliver, she had quite a few psychological scars which forced me to put
her into therapy.
"So there was a period
of time that there was an unresolved enclosure for my wife and me. It
was very important with her. We understood the confidentiality. So we
knew what the restrictions were, yet we needed to tell her something,"
Snay explained in court documents.
Last week, the Third
District Court of Appeal for the State of Florida agreed that Snay had,
in fact, violated confidentiality and reversed the Circuit Court ruling.
It wrote: "Snay violated
the agreement by doing exactly what he had promised not to do. His
daughter then did precisely what the confidentiality agreement was
designed to prevent, advertising to the Gulliver community that Snay had
been successful in his age discrimination and retaliation case against
the school.
"Based on the clear and
unambiguous language of the parties' agreement and Snay's testimony
confirming his breach of its terms, we reverse the order entered below
granting the Snays' motion to enforce the agreement."
Snay is now the headmaster at Riviera Preparatory School in Coral Gables, Florida.
Link to source: http://www.cnn.com
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