April 04, 2012

Job seeker sues Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo

Jason L. Nieman, an Illinois resident, sued his former employer, Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company, in 2009. Various public documents from that litigation are available on the Internet, and are accessible via Google and other search engines by anyone searching for Nieman's name.  Nieman recently filed a pro se lawsuit against Google, Microsoft (Bing), Yahoo, and others, alleging that other potential employers are conducting such searches and then unlawfully declining to hire Nieman, even though he "was obviously the most qualified person for the position" (Complaint ¶ 17).  (Hat tip to Eric Goldman, from whom I learned of the case.)

I wonder how Jason Nieman's job prospects will be affected by the fact that potential employers searching for his name will now learn of his lawsuit against search engines for linking to his lawsuit against a former employer.  (And this information, unlike the information about his litigation against a former employer, is probably a perfectly legal basis for an employer not to hire him.)

Additional coverage:  State Journal Register

2 comments:

mw said...

You have to think it will make it tougher for him when they see this lawsuit, should be interesting to see how this plays out

David said...

I read the article in the State Journal-Register that you linked to, but nowhere does it say what he thinks his cause of action is. How does he think that a search engine indexing a public record can be held liable?

In the last line of the article he says "I’m just trying to do the right thing for me and my family." I think the right thing would have been to avoid drawing this additional attention to his litigious inclinations.