When potential employer breaks the promise to hire you...

Imagine the following, not uncommon situation. You are happily or at least not unhappily employed at your office for a number of years. You are slowly building a career enjoying a decent salary, benefits and a retirement package. One day, a different employer approaches you with a tempting offer to quit your current job and work for him for a significantly higher salary and a number of other perks that make the offer all the more difficult to resist.

You decide to take a risk, quit your job in anticipation of being hired, and suddenly, for whatever reason, you find out the the new employer's plans to hire you fell through. You try to return to your previous place of employment but they have already found a replacement for your position. You are devastated. Not only did you lose a job through no fault of your own, but you are also not eligible for unemployment compensation benefits because you voluntarily quit. 

The above scenario has a legal remedy as it is considered fraud, fraudulent inducement and detrimental reliance. Proving fraud requires showing misrepresentation inducing reliance and damages. Lazar v. Superior Court (1996). An action for a promissory fraud may lie where the employer fraudulently induces the potential employee to enter into a contract. This would allow the aggrieved employee to recover compensatory damages (wage loss) as well as damages for associated emotional distress, pain and suffering, and possible punitive damages to punish the employer for fraudulent or reckless conduct.