I signed a severance General Release when I was terminated from my employer. I then rescinded my signature before the 7 day grace period was up and then changed my mind and reinstated my original signature for the agreement within 5 minutes via e-mail to

Most employers will honor the agreement because it makes sense to do so. However, if you were not represented by legal counsel and the employer has some type of evidence against you or the employer changed its mind after you rescinded the agreement then you simply begin negotiations from the start.

Hopefully this is indicative of why retaining a lawyer to review these agreements is imperative for all. E-mails confirming settlements can be enforced in New York. But assuming there is no e-mail after you rescinded that the employer's offer was still good you are probably now back to square 1.

Of course NO LAWYER can provide an opinion to anyone without actually reviewing the exact document (which of course would be for a set fee) and getting the salient facts. Employment law is all about facts and all about timing. In fact, I think one of my next Employment Law Reality Check videos is probably going to be about why employment law will never be simple no matter how much information is on Google. Best.

posted by V Jonas Urba  |  Aug 9, 2019 09:25 AM [EST]