Steel Supply Firm Had Ample Reason for Firing Salesman

HOUSTON (CN) - A federal judge has found that a steel salesman lost his job for falsifying expense reports and not for refusing to take clients to strip clubs as he had claimed.

Michael Vackar sued Sentry Supply Inc. dba Superior Supply & Steel in November, alleging wrongful termination, saying he was fired because he refused to take clients to strip clubs.

In defense, the company said a vice president, Michael Kotcher, had emailed a recuriter shortly after he was hired, describing Vackar's communications skills as some of the worst he had seen in 20 years of business.

While touring a potential client's facilities, Kotcher met a woman whom Vackar had listed as a contact and claimed to have had dinner with the previous week, said the defense motion. Vackar had submitted an expense report for the dinner, but the woman had trouble recalling Vackar and denied the dinner meeting ever happened.

Kotcher said he then discovered three other phony expense reports Vackar had submitted, and three days later, he fired Vackar.

U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal did not buy Vackar's story and found Monday that Superior had ample reason to fire him.

"Superior has provided competent evidence that it had, and relied on, four legal reasons for firing Vackar: falsifying and misrepresenting expenses on expense reports; falsifying call and sales reports; nonperformance; and insubordination," Rosenthal wrote.

Rosenthal also pointed out that the undisputed fact that Vackar failed to make a single sale in nine weeks with the company.

Superior did not persuade the judge to order sanctions, but Rosenthal said it could seek them again when it submits more evidence for its counterclaim for defamation.

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