Originally Posted by JohnBurke

Sounds like he quit during training, not after a checkride. After all, he made a point of telling us that he received nothing but basic indoc. This is a lie however, as he said he also received flight training. Basic indoc has nothing to do with flight training.

Regardless of how far he got through training before he quit and left the employer high and dry, he did accept the job, did accept the training, and then ran away.

Your comments remind me very much of an individual who came to us years ago for a job. I was flying a single engine air tanker at the time, and we told the gentleman that he needed more tailwheel experience. He had six hundred hours or so, but all in an RV-6, which really didn't count. Something bigger. He went to an operator near Reno who towed gliders. He managed to tow one glider before balling up the tow aircraft on landing, destroying both the aircraft and the employer's business. He then returned to us, and said he'd flown a bigger airplane, and wanted a job. He still had no experience.

When we asked what happened, the pilot told us that the crash didn't count, because he wasn't being paid yet. As he wasn't really a full employee, it didn't matter. He simply destroyed the airplane and walked away.

You're attempting to suggest that the employer is somehow obligated to the original poster because the original poster took the training and ran? It's hard to fathom that you really attempted to suggest such an idiotic concept. No, the original poster has no grounds to bill the employer for "wasting his time." Did the original poster not know the terms before he started? He did. Did he not know the wage? He did. Did he not know the nature of the flying? He did. He accepted these things, and made the decision to go to work.

Indentured servitude? It's a ******* job. It's not slavery. He accepted a job. A paying job.

A job requires training, and that's an expense on the part of the employer, who invests his time and money. The employer also has an opportunity cost. The employer has stopped looking for another employee, one with better skills and more integrity, because a mutual agreement has been reached; the employer will train the original poster, and the original poster has agreed to be trained. Instead, the original poster took the job, meanwhile entertaining offers from other employers (got engaged, but kept dating around in the days leading up to the wedding), and then jilted the employer and ran off with a new employer during the wedding ceremony.

As others pointed out above, it's not okay for an employer to tell an employee that the employer has found a better employee, after the employee has been hired and is in training. The time for that is between interview and job offer. After that, it's not acceptable. An employer who does that is going to get a bad reputation among employees, and will be considered unreliable, disreputable, and dishonorable.

An applicant may, and often does, entertain multiple job offers or interviews while looking for a job. It's acceptable to receive an offer and not accept the offer. It's acceptable to interview and not go to work for that employer. It's not acceptable to accept a job offer, begin training, and then leave, which is what the original poster did.

The original poster may or may not have a legal obligation based on an oral contract or duty based on an agreement. Most likely it's not worth the cost of legal effort to recover on the part of the employer. The original poster, however, should at least offer to repay the employer. In this case, the employer has presented a bill. Rather than try to find a way to get out of it, the original poster should settle with the employer and make a clean break.