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MassMutual gets to pay their fired guy $50 million
Posted on January 4, 2007 6:14 PM
When you get fired from a job and you go for unemployment, there's a process where the bureaucrats try to find out if you got canned for gross misconduct. If you did, they don't have to pay you jack, because it's much better if you have to fall into poverty and dependence on more government aid so those bureaucrats and others like them can keep their jobs.
Never thought about it that way, huh?
No one else does either. The worst thing that can happen to the government would be a self-sufficient populace that doesn't need its nannying. They still have to make an effort to make their work look legitimate, which is why a gross misconduct firing puts you off the dole and onto the welfare roll.
The gross misconduct thing is the difference between cutting back your expenses until you get another gig while on the dole, or begging someone to crash on their couch.
If you're on the other end of the pay spectrum, up in CEO Land where it's all milk and honeys, you've got a contract and a hell of a lot more bling in play. Robert O'Connell had $50 million up for grabs, $50 million of MassMutual's money that an arbitrator said they had to count out to their ex-CEO.
MassMutual called BS on the arbitrator's ruling and took their chances with the court system. They thought they had a good case...
O'Connell was fired by MassMutual's board of directors in June 2005. Among other things, the board accused him of artificially inflating the value of a shadow retirement account to $30 million, buying a company-owned condominium at below-market prices and using policyholder assets for his personal use of company aircraft.The arbitrator had said too bad for you, MassMutual...
The independent arbitration panel found that O'Connell did not violate a term in his contract that he could be terminated for cause if he engaged in "willful gross misconduct ... resulting in material harm to the company."The judge said sucks to be you...
But in a 12-page ruling Superior Court Judge Allan van Gestel dismissed the company's suit and ruled "there is no evidence of any failings in the procedural aspects of the hearings" the panel held, or fraud on the panel's part.So it's "hey Robert, you're an arrogant overprivileged goober but you didn't screw the shareholders, so here's the bag of money." Reminds me of a bumper sticker – Eat the Rich, The Poor are Tough and Stringy.
Van Gestel also was careful to avoid taking sides on the facts in dispute, except to note that whatever O'Connell's actions, they were not extreme enough to sway the arbitrators. "Many may be appalled at the way America's corporate executives are compensated and at the lifestyles that they assume are their due," van Gestel wrote, but added that it wasn't his place to decide whether O'Connell's actions had a negative effect on the public.
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