Post#37 » by Magic_Kingdom » Wed Jul 13, 2016 5:03 pm
Where was it reported that he got a "severance"? I've read a lot of amateur employment lawyers on here, and heard several on the radio, mistakenly equating a "separation agreement" with severance pay. Separation agreements in employment law can, and do, contain numerous items that have nothing to do with the employer paying anything to the employee beyond what they were due. In fact, a separation agreement could be just that -- an agreement as to how much is due/remaining to the employee per the terms of the original contract, because that might be ambiguous when the employee quits after Year 1 of a 4-year agreement.
For example, let's say the Magic agreed to pay Skiles a bonus if the team reached 35 wins, but the contract also contained a clause vaguely indicating that any bonuses would only be paid upon completion of the contract. There may be a disagreement between the Magic's lawyers and Skiles's lawyers as to whether he should be paid that bonus for the 35-win season. So they argue about it, and then reach a written separation agreement as to how the unpaid bonus issue will be handled. The agreement may result in money going to Skiles, but only because the Magic compromise on an amount that he would be due for achieving the bonus without completing the contract.
This is purely a hypothetical example, but it illustrates just one detail that may have to be addressed when a high-paid employee quits before the term of his contract expires. Some others:
-- How long his health insurance will cover him.
-- Confidentiality agreement regarding the resignation and any other internal issues.
-- Payment for meeting performance indicators despite early termination of contract.
-- Money (penalty, refund, etc.) owed back to the Magic resulting from Skiles's arguable breach of the contract.
-- Handling of any information deemed "trade secret" -- for example, draft strategy information, scouting info, player personnel rules/methodology/requirements, management issues, etc.
People tend to look at it one way -- if the Magic entered into a separation agreement, that must be because they were paying off Skiles. Totally inaccurate. Skiles arguably breached their contract by quitting after one year. He agreed to work for 4, and who knows whether there was a clause allowing him to terminate the contract early and resign at any point without penalty. Maybe the separation agreement addressed whether Skiles was going to be penalized for breach, and if so, how much? Or the agreement could have contained language indicating that the Magic were waiving the penalty, insisted upon by Skiles's lawyers just to make sure the team didn't go back after him later.
The point is, it is totally, totally false to assume that a separation agreement between an employer and an employee means the employer had to pay off the employee or give them severance pay even though they quit. It does not mean he was secretly fired. Alex Martins said in his interview about it that the agreement did not mean they were paying a dime to Skiles, and that separation agreements occur all the time and address all sorts of issues, especially when multi-million dollar contracts are being terminated early.
Finally, if Skiles was really fired, do you think he would have agreed to say he quit and take less money than he was owed? I mean, seriously? We're talking about Scott Skiles here. You think he wouldn't have told them to go screw themselves?
I think the truth is that Skiles was frustrated and disappointed, didn't agree with Hennigan's philosophy, and probably realized about halfway through the season that he didn't need this crap. Martins admitted that he knew Skiles was unhappy for a while. They went on the retreat to try to chill his ass out, and they thought it worked. Then a few weeks later he told them he was done. They were surprised, but at the same time they had been trying to reel him back in for a while. Skiles is a little bit unhinged -- that's no secret. You can read articles throughout his playing and coaching career regarding his tenuous grasp on sanity. No doubt there is more to the story than we will ever know, but I doubt it rises to the level of conspiracy theory.