[throwaway26960]

Got sued by my previous company for a line of code that they asked me to change. Luckily I had proof that they asked me to modify that line of code. If I didn't, well, I'd owe them millions of dollars and have my wages garnished for the rest of my life. Writing software is a bit ridiculous, your employer can blame you for anything and you'll have to waste years of your life and tens of thousands of dollars in the legal system.

[tootie]

Wha? Can you elaborate? Did they say you introduced a critical bug or something? Is there such thing a programmer malpractice?

[throwaway26960]

They claimed it was an attempt to sabotage their company, yet they were the ones that asked me to make the change, jesus, FML.

Definitely learned my lesson on how important it is to get the initial contract correct, clarifying legal liabilities, responsibilities, etc. All your hard work and savings can go down the drain in a second if your employer wants to screw you over.

[nugget]

Can you elaborate on their claim for specific damages? How could a temporary change to robots.txt cause millions of dollars in damage? (Assuming you weren't telling Google to de-index TripAdvisor or some other huge SEO-dependant site.)

[throwaway26960]

The code change was requested by an employee and it wouldn't have caused any damage. Feature, not a bug. Imagine trying to explain this to someone who doesn't know what "code" is. It's just people making up a story to blame you. The point is that you can be blamed for anything you do and become involved in a frivolous lawsuit.

[nugget]

Usually in the US you can only be sued for actual, provable economic damages that are suffered as a result of your actions. It sounds like there may have been more to the story here.

[throwaway26960]

They claimed to be damaged all throughout the complaint, yet didn't provide any evidence. Imagine explaining this to someone non-technical like your grandmother. You can make up a story and that non-technical person is going to have no idea if you are telling the truth or not.

[dnautics]

This sounds like a shitty situation... Can you elaborate on the symptoms of burnout that followed?

[pfarnsworth]

Your wages wouldn't have been garnished for life. You could just declare bankruptcy and it would be erased.

As well, being sued for work that you do as an employee can't get you sued, at least in North America. That's like a restaurant owner charging a waiter for dropping plates, that's illegal.

[throwaway26960]

I told that to the Plaintiff, I'd just file bankruptcy, although they said they would still be able to garnish my wages. I assume the lawyer was not telling the truth, but you never know.

I'm proof that you can be sued for work that you do as an employee. Whether the Plaintiff will win or not is another story, but you can be dragged through years of the legal system.