The Lawsuit & Williams v. Wyndham

The Lawsuit & Williams v. Wyndham

On November 17, 2016, Patricia Williams was awarded $20 million by a jury that heard her case against Wyndham Vacation Ownership, which had fired her six years earlier following her disclosures of allegedly fraudulent sales practices at Wyndham’s San Francisco office.  She didn’t get there with my ace attorney who negotiated a $45,000 deal with HomeFirst after I was fired.

Like many other whistleblowers, Williams identified a number of bad actions by her employer Wyndham.  In her lawsuit she listed various illegal and fraudulent sales techniques used by Wyndham sales people plus acts of credit card fraud.  Williams alleged that Wyndham’s tactics specially targeted seniors, and her allegations were echoed in a 2013 class action suit against Wyndham.

In identifying and disclosing these suspicious activities, Williams was no naïf. She had worked for fifteen years in the timeshare industry, where complaints of fraudulent activities were common.  In addition, she had worked in a Wyndham sales office in Virginia for three years before transferring to the San Francisco office in 2010.

Neither was Williams alone in her awareness of potential problems in the San Francisco office.  Before she was fired, Williams met with some other local sales staff, who also refused to engage in illegal activities, about trying to stop the fraudulent conduct.  Her suit identified co-workers who participated in the practices.  She reported her suspicions internally to the company’s compliance hotline, the HR department, and numerous managers, including one vice president.

After she was fired, two years passed before she filed her lawsuit.  If my own case against HomeFirst can be taken as a guide, during that period her attorneys attempted unsuccessfully to negotiate an acceptable settlement with Wyndham.  By the time of her suit, Williams had four co-plaintiffs, so the negotiations may have been complicated and the potential cost to Wyndham could have been high.

Wyndham’s arguments in its defense are familiar to other whistleblowers, and they give insight into how those negotiations might have proceeded.  They gave no ground: she had not proven her case, they claimed.  Wyndham’s actions were entirely justified by valid business reasons.  The company had made good faith efforts to avoid misdeeds and never intended to act illegally.  Williams had unclean hands and based her complaint about her termination on after-acquired evidence – a defense that my former attorney feared HomeFirst would use.

It is easy to imagine that Wyndham would have been no less difficult to negotiate with than HomeFirst was with me.  It was well-practiced in pushing back on complaints about its business conduct, as was HomeFirst’s attorney.  Williams could have settled, as her co-plaintiffs eventually chose to do, but she pressed on for a jury trial.  Along the challenging four-year path to her $20 million award, she plowed through four attorneys.

Williams won financially in a way that most whistleblowers can only dream of even if Wyndham seems likely to appeal the award.  But she certainly suffered first from her whistleblowing.  Unable to find another sales job, she was forced to take much lower paying jobs; she had troubles with alcohol; and she returned to Virginia.

For its part, Wyndham makes few apologies.  It claims to have fine-tuned its compliance operations and to have modified its sales practices.  The actions that Williams alleged occurred six years ago do not represent the company and its values today, it believes.  But it does not admit guilt now any more than it has in the past.

Wyndham’s statements and tactics since it fired Williams make clear that she could not have achieved her outcome through negotiations alone.  It took a lawsuit to get the job done, but the long course of that lawsuit shows why my former attorney was so quick to settle for a piddling amount accompanied by such onerous restrictions.  My attorney was probably correct in saying that any company with a capable defender would never voluntarily agree to a fair compensation for the whistleblower.

We see this one remarkable outcome because it is large and it struck at such a conspicuous target.  The egregious nature of Wyndham’s acts may have contributed to the success of Williams’ suit, but other companies that are called out by unsuccessful whistleblowers are also guilty of egregious behavior.  Williams’ suit pointed to appealing victims in vulnerable seniors, but most companies mistreat vulnerable people.  I alleged that HomeFirst’s actions wronged homeless disabled people, but my complaint has so far yielded no great victory for me.

The many lawsuits that produce little or nothing for their plaintiffs remain in the dark.  The thousands of negotiated settlements that fail miserably to compensate whistleblowers for their losses, even after years of effort, are secret from all.  Save for a lucky few, whistleblowers must content themselves with small reward and less fame.