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Mastering The Faithless Servant?: Reconciling Employment Law, Contract Law, And Fiduciary Duty, Charles A. Sullivan

Charles A. Sullivan

Abstract

The quaintly-named “faithless servant” doctrine requires employees subject to it not merely to pay damages for their derelictions but also to disgorge the compensation paid during the period of faithlessness and without any right to recover in quantum meruit for the value the employee may have provided during that time. The net result is that an employer can recover substantial amounts of compensation paid and otherwise due without proof that it suffered any damage whatsoever and, indeed, even if it is established that there were no such damages.

Such a result is startling to those who approach the question …