I was terminated from a Therapist position for being a whistleblower. My former clients are still getting their appointment reminders and the reminders are scheduled with another therapist, but saying that the appointment is still with me as though I am still employed there. There is no mention of another therapist in these reminders. Only me.
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1Have you asked them to change the name on the reminders? If you have, did they refuse?– user 55905Commented Apr 25 at 6:27
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1No, I’ve not asked I just found out yesterday. Two former clients bumped into me in the community and said they were confused because their alerts said they were still meeting with me; they were both considering going into the clinic in hopes that I would be there. I can call and ask or send a cease and desist letter?– Jennifer StephansenCommented Apr 25 at 13:40
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1Instead of a “cease and desist” letter, you can just call them and strongly recommend to remove or change appointments with you. And the next former client, tell them that you advised the company, and ask the client to draw his own conclusions.– gnasher729Commented Apr 26 at 18:55
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3 Answers
There are inevitably screw ups when an automated system doesn't catch up with reality. There is no reason to think it is intentionally deceptive. It isn't illegal, it is just a reflection of the imperfection of bureaucratic life in the digital age.
If the error was continued intentionally with an intent to influence patients, that might be illegal, but there is no indication that this is what is happening, and there would be no reason for the former employer to do so.
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I think it would be worth specifying a jurisdiction here. I think that in some states (Ohio, for instance), this would be a NIL violation.– bdb484Commented Apr 24 at 22:24
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@bdb484 I think that a name-image-likeness right of publicity violation is a stretch in a situation like this one where there is a clearly unintentional glitch in the system that hasn't been fixed immediately. The essence of a NIL violation is an intent to profit from the use. Related link: codes.ohio.gov/ohio-administrative-code/rule-3362-3-26 Commented Apr 24 at 22:34
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1It's also common to forward the former employee's email to whoever has taken over their role. I doubt this would be considered any form of fraud, it's just more convenient than sending an auto-reply telling them who to contact instead. Employees are generally considered to be fungible agents of the company.– BarmarCommented Apr 25 at 23:40
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What is the effect on you and on the patients? If someone appears at their offices for their appointment with you, you should never know about that so you are not damaged. As long as the company tells the customer that they messed up and you don’t work for them anymore.
If their receptionist apologised to the patient, saying that you are unreliable and often miss appointments, that could be libel. If they called you on your home phone number to see where you are, you told them that you are not working there anymore, and that happened once that would be minimal damage that you would probably ignore.
The patient might have a much better case, depending on what happens next.
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"What is the effect on you and on the patients?" Potentially a damage to a reputation, if whatever they blew the whistle was serious and public enough that conveying that the OP still works there amounts to defamation. Commented Apr 27 at 12:28
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It could be consumer fraud or ethical breaches on the patients and it could be defamation of you of it leads to probable loss of income or reputational harm on you.
But it would be hard to prove that it was intentional harm on either your ex-patients or yourself unless it's prolonged, or done after being notified. Prosecutors or the court would take into account simple explanations like "it was automated and a mistake". It's not like the one that fired you are calling the clients up and knowingly lying to them over the phone or something. It's an automatically generated form letter.
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"It was automated" is no legal excuse. And if they intentionally left this to a computer, then it is intentional. What matters for "intentional" is that someone did what they did intentionally, not whether they intended to cause damage. Commented Apr 27 at 19:39
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@gnasher729 the law isn't so blind as to criminalize tiny mistakes like that. The law also recognizes wilful and reckless and wilfully reckless as different levels. Intent to cause damage is treated differently. Knowing something is dangerous and still doing it is treated differently than not knowing it was dangerous and doing it which is also treated differently than not knowing it was dangerous but you should have known and still did it.– cdeCommented Apr 27 at 19:49