QUESTION:
What should I do if a laid-off employee won’t return his laptop to the company? It has confidential information on it, and it’s a company laptop.
ANSWER:
Ethan Stone
by Ethan Stone, Stone Business Law
First, a quick but important clarification: I’m not your lawyer and this answer doesn’t establish a lawyer-client relationship. I’m giving a generic answer to a generic question to educate the users of this site. The information below is general in nature and should not be understood as a substitute for personal legal advice.
There are several approaches that might make sense, depending on the specifics of the situation. Unfortunately, you shouldn’t take any of these actions without consulting with a lawyer about your specific situation, since all of them depend a lot on the specific facts and involve the application of various laws and regulations or your chances in court.
If the employee is still getting any severance benefits, take a look at the release agreement he (hopefully) signed when he left. If it’s well drafted, it should give you the right to cut him off if he refuses to return company property. Depending on the agreement and your state’s employment laws, you might also be able to sue him to get back what he’s already received. If there’s a lot of severance still to come, that can be very effective.
Another approach is to try the “nuclear option” and look into making a criminal complaint to the police for theft of trade secrets. You need to talk to a lawyer before you do this to evaluate the specifics of your situation, including whether there are, in fact, trade secrets involved. You should only do this if you are prepared to see the person prosecuted. Once you start the process, the ultimate choice won’t be yours. You should never threaten to report someone to the police, as opposed to informing him that you’ve done it. That can constitute extortion which is itself a crime. The disadvantages of this route are obvious. The advantage is that it can produce a dramatic result at relatively little cost.
Finally, you could just sue the guy for misappropriation of your property and/or trade secrets. If you win, you will ultimately be able to get the sheriff to go in and seize the property (you might be able to get it seized in the interim, but you’d have to talk to a litigator about that possibility). The problem with this route is that it isn’t fast and can be fairly expensive. On the other hand, if the guy doesn’t have the money to defend the suit (and you have enough to bring it), he might fold fairly quickly.
Good luck.
If I were you, I’d return the laptop and any equipment included. Otherwise you could be looking at 1 count of Burglary (10 years) and 1 count of Grand Larceny (15-40 years) if they pursue criminal action against you. If there is “confidential” information on it, have them send you a label for the laptop and other equipment (monitors, kb, mouse, etc.) I spoke with Company General Counsel and local Sheriff Dept and they won’t play games when it comes to things like this. You will go to jail, they will confiscate the property and charges will follow. If you are sentenced, you will serve that time consecutively.
My company let me go and did not request MY Laptop be returned. They intentionally let us leave with them.
The company offered me a 1099 (they did not have us sigh a 1099) job to do for them a month later. After completing the job they let me keep my same LAPTOP.
More then 3 months later they again offered me a 1099 (they did not have us sigh a 1099)job to do to do for them more than 3 month after I was let go. After completing that job, they let me keep my LAPTOP.
Now all most another later they said they will call the police on me if I don’t give them my laptop.
I offered to buy it but they did not respond. I offered again to buy it and they said to return it. They did sell a laptop to a femal employee but all male employees were denied the opportunity.
After not accepting the laptop back that many times and after all that time past, do they have a right to it back?
We did sign a contract stating we would return tools but it was a year after receiving our laptops.
This is under MI law
Will all of you who are non-remorsefully holding someone else’s property, please be brave enough to post your full name on this website? If you have property belonging to someone else, you should not need a note from your parent to remind you to return it to the proper owner. It is your responsibility to return it, though I doubt that there is a company out there who would not be glad to pay for you to do that which you should do anyway. And the DA who wants to destroy the company: I really want your full name. Go ahead and give me your email and ip address of your computer, too. After all, only you are smart enough to destroy or sabotage someone else’s computer, so why would you worry about giving up that information to anyone else?
I’m with you Mr. E. I have a laptop that I never signed for. As far as I know I was given it without any negotiation verbally or written that I was to return it due to my quitting or being let go.
What if the original employment contract I signed says for all documents, company information, etc.. needs to be returned but never mentions anything about the computer? Since they implied non-physical items need to be returned but never mentioned the hardware then I think I can keep it since they’ve told me what needs to be returned. I should be able to just give them a thumb drive with that info on it and call it a day.
The “analysis” provided above is a bit of wish-fulfillment fantasy thinking. Unless you are Goldman Sacks or your Trade Secrets also involve National Security secrets – don’t expect an FBI task force dedicated hunt your perp down.
Save yourself time and embarrassment and file where you have the greatest chance of success in recovering your property – small claims court.
If you want some sort of more satisfying vengeance – then be prepared to pay ugly sums in legal fees with very uncertain outcomes.
Nop Joey…
To begin with, i for instance, did NOT steal anything from the company that i was laid off from…
BUT, i’d have lots of recourses to chose from :
#1. Applying to a competitor,
#2. breaking the firewall that accesses to their intranet, and making a massive data dump into a server hosted in in Kuala lumpur and making the contents acessible to all competitors in the industry,
#3. Designing a crude nuclear device, powerful enough to obliterate several building blocks of the company,s premises… not that difficult, really…
#4 Expose the company ( emails with documental proof to Reuters, NYSE, NASDAQ, etc ) about the concealed way they run the tests so as to hide the true ammount of harmful engine emissions…
…see !?
I did not do anything alike, because i am not a psych.. pardon me, “an employee with an insane level of hatred and bitterness, with relation to management disloyalty to people that help build their profits” .
I only stressed that people when they get “pissed off” ( a.k.a. feeling betrayed ) they have several levels of progressive rescourse, in terms of sheer drastic retribution, and/or creativity, it does not take a “manager” or a “CEO” or an expert in HR Legal issues to cause havoc at an insane scale…
and actually, to bring it up into context, stealing a computer because one is pissed off, is quite inelegant, it is akin to taking a stupid pawn, when one could probably be going for the Grandest Check mate, …EVER.
I’m in field sales for large company. We have people quit with out notice and keep our equipment- not a laptop, but an inventory scanner that has no value to them. What can I do as a local manager to get our equipment back?
What if the company will not give you your final paycheck. Can I sell these items to recoup my money owed?
if criminal charges are brought, how can a company prove that you have certain items of the companies?
Everyone who posted above who did not return company equipment is guilty of theft. You are all just lucky the corporation did not file a criminal complaint. You got fired and your pissed, so your only recourse is to steal from them? Id put you in jail in a San Diego second.
I recently left a so called partnership in a lawn service company.. I asked for what pay was due to me and got a run around…I had a phone that was provided and a hedge trimmer still when I left. I contacted my partner/boss to let him know I had these items and he could pick them up.. he then threats me with thief of company items. .what can he really do since I told him to pick up the phone and hedge trimmer.. I also keep the texts of our conversation. .
I was laid off three months ago after being promoted to a new position that the company realized three weeks too late that it had no use for (due to an unsurprisingly incompetent move made by company executives during negotiations with a client organization – I could go on all day, were this the time or the place.) They’ve neither asked for my company laptop, nor provided any means of shipping it back.
Is there any penalty I could face from keeping this device? And if so, do I have no legal recourse to charge them for the safekeeping of their property for the three months they neglected to retrieve or request it’s return?
Right now, the device is securely stored in it’s original packaging, unopened and having never been used even once (the job dissolved before I ever even began my new role – I’ve never so much as removed the tape). I assume that if I can be held legally liable for the condition of the device upon it’s requested return, I must be able to hold them legally liable to compensate me for safeguarding their property after they stopped compensating me. Is this accurate? Otherwise, they are simply permitted to use my home as a secure property storage location for an indefinite period of time and to bill me for any harm that befalls the property I am involuntarily safeguarding due to their negligence rather than my own refusal.
To the point: Are there circumstances that result in the simple forfeiture of property when a company/organization neglects to request and retrieve it or causes an undue burden on a former employee by requiring them to protect it for a considerable length of time without reimbursement?
Hi Mike,
If the laptop is the property of the company and not the employee, then an employee who keeps the laptop if permission to keep it has been revoked could be liable for theft and the company is within its rights to begin civil action against you.
Steve
I was fired from a Fortune 500 company and was treated quite unjustly. On top, they didn’t pay me my proper severance.
I have yet to return the company laptop after 4 months. It does not contain any confidential information.
They asked for it about 3 months ago, but have never heard from them since.
Can I just keep the darned thing?