My last company has a history of going after select folks when leave and letter others out of contract. One of the guys they recently went after used that history to show bias and I believe field a counter suit for discrimination. You're best bet is to find a lawyer. Free advice is always worth what you paid for it.

 

Of course they are coming after the money, somebody has to pay for Frontier!

 

Lawyer up. You resigned under economic duress due to their refusal to allow you to utilize FMLA, therefore you have a legitimate case. Make sure you have a paper trail with the FAA regarding your medical, a paper trail with the company regarding FMLA/extended sick leave, and make sure you have some sort of documentation saying that you could not have anticipated your medical problems at the time of signing the contract, or at least that you had every indication that said medical issue would be resolved without having to resign from the company.

Unfortunately for your friend, voluntary resignations due to reasons such as a better offer or low compensation at RAH are not going to be legitimate cause to dispute the training bond. Better offer indicates a definite lack of economic duress and low compensation was disclosed before his/her signing. Economic duress will be the best argument against the company, tied with the slightly less prevalent hostile working environment, which will have to be even better documented than economic duress.

Case history of people not being pursued for their owed training bond is unfortunately dominated by people being terminated or furloughed for reasons out of their control. When you talk to a lawyer, I strongly suggest you show him/her the link to the Great Lakes case that was linked earlier in this thread, as it is a good recent example of a case like this, and will shorten their time in formulating a case for you.

 

That's what I was going to say. They can't selectively enforce something like that.

 

That place just plain sucks.

 

In HotMamapilots eyes you are a shady character!

TurboDog, sorry that you had to go through that and you have my sympathies.

 

Cheap Shot!
Maturity at its best!

 

The only way that RAH can "collect" on the money (assuming you don't pay) is by serving you a summons and appearing in court...

This first letter is just an attempt to inform you of payment. After letting the deadline pass the only next step for them to take is serving you a summons..... This has to be done in person (they cannot mail you a summons regular mail). Either by law firm or certified mail..... You can make it difficult for them!

So logically you have to decide what the chances are they #1) find you in whatever city you are in...

And what are the chances they take it all the way to court...

I wouldn't pay for a lawyer until the time they actually serve you papers...

Training contracts are generally enforeceable assuming nothing was "promised to you" that didn't occur. There was a Flexjet pilot who fought this by way of not upgrading when they said he would. He won but it probably cost him more in lawyer fees than it would have to not fight it.

I signed a training contract back in the day at a charter co. Left a year early, and decided not to pay. They served me papers and it went to court. We settled out of court for slighly less than the original amount. However, if I had moved and they could not find me, then I would have been off the hook.

 

I confess, I am one of the few who actually supports training contracts. It isn't because I want people to pay, but rather I want them to think LONG AND HARD about where they are going and if they think they should stay there X number of months. Maybe then they will only choose companies they want to work at rather than the first place that will hire them. (for the record, I have signed three training contracts and never broke one)

Your Friend owes it. Maybe he can get a lawyer to get him out of it (perhaps perfectly legally). But the fact remains he signed a contract of his own free will.

Think of it this way: I bought a car from you, promised to pay $12,000, but only paid $10,000. Should I be able to keep the car while you are out $2000?


If he left early, he should pay. If his new job is so fantastic, paying out the two months of his contract should be easy...

or maybe the government should take care of him.

 

The situation is irrelevant; a contract is signed and shall be abided by. Period. This is just another example of "it's not MY fault that I broke the agreement" or "it's not MY fault that I downed a fifth of jim beam, it's alcoholisms fault" blah blah blah blah blah.

And bolo, shouldn't you be working on your resume'?