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Here's a hypothetical situation:

  1. Alice is the sole software engineer at Bob's company.
  2. Bob notices a software bug and asks Alice to fix it. He tells her that the bug is costing the company $100,000/day.
  3. Alice realizes that it would only take her minutes to fix the bug, but that it would take any other engineer weeks to understand the company's systems enough to fix it.
  4. Alice asks Bob for a $1 million bonus before she solves the bug, and threatens to quit unless she's given the bonus.

Alice didn't intentionally cause the bug, she didn't intentionally engineer the systems in a convoluted way, and she didn't plan any of this ahead of time; she only came up with the idea once she was asked to solve the bug.

Would this be legal? I'm interested in US law, but didn't have a specific jurisdiction in mind.

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  • 30
    Asking isn't getting.
    – ohwilleke
    Commented Nov 13 at 21:17
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    I've heard of this being negotiated in tech companies when there's a giant emergency that requires a team to do 80 hour weeks. The company offers stock options valued to be a good percentage of what they save.
    – user71659
    Commented Nov 13 at 21:41
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    Pulling this sort of stunt seems like it'd only work once, since one you do, you're probably going to want to find another job.
    – nick012000
    Commented Nov 13 at 22:00
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    @nick012000 One of the more famous examples of people pulling premium pay for niche expertise acquired from an old job involves the handful of people who have the expertise to tweak and fix the software that the IRS used to handle processing tax returns which was written some arcane programming language that was basically machine code, decades ago.
    – ohwilleke
    Commented Nov 13 at 22:53
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    … 5. Bob realises that if Alice has done this once, she might do it again (or other people might be encouraged to follow suit) — so losing $1.4m for other engineers to fix it over 2 week is cheaper than paying $1m to Alice now, and another $1m as a "bonus" next time there is a critical bug.
    – Chronocidal
    Commented Nov 14 at 10:32

6 Answers 6

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If Alice deliberately created the bug, with the intent of asking for this exorbitant sum to fix it, I think that would be extortion, like a protection racket ("That's a nice database you have there, sure would be a shame if something happened to it"). This type of thing isn't completely far-fetched; when I was in high school I did some work for my father's company, and their programmer at the time told me that when he was a consultant he would leave unfinished code in his projects, so the clients would have to hire him again to complete them.

But if Alice didn't deliberately create the situation, I think she can ask for whatever she wants. There are minimum-wage laws, but I've never heard of maximum-wage laws that limit what the employee can ask for in a negotiation. If your expertise is worth a million dollars, why shouldn't you be able to ask for it?

Of course, if you're already under a contract that requires you to keep working at your current salary until the end of the contract period, threatening to quit would be in violation of the contract. But in the US most employees are at-will -- they can quit or be fired at practically any time, so long as they're not fired in violation of anti-discrimination laws.

You're generally still required to provide a reasonable notice period (2 weeks is typical in the US), during which you should continue to do your job. But I think the only consequence of not doing your job during that period would be that they'd fire you for cause, and probably not pay you for that period of work. Which is effectively the same as quitting on the spot.

Of course, the hypothetical you describe is very far-fetched. It's rare that a single employee is so critical that they can ask for many times their normal salary. Any business that gets themselves into a situation where one person is indispensible is poorly run to begin with. No one, even the CEO, should be so crucial.

And it's also unlikely that a problem that costs such huge amounts pops up suddenly and there's only one person qualified to fix it. The employee who thinks they're the only one who can save the company millions of dollars has extreme hubris.

But if they can convince the employer of this, more power to them.

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    – Dale M ♦
    Commented Nov 18 at 20:21
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Alice cannot quit on the spot (with some exceptions related to health and safety which do not apply here). There is a notice period to do so (the legal maximum and most common is three months), during which she must still follow her employer’s instructions, as long as they are legal and fall within her job duties. ("Her job duties" are outlined in her fiche de poste, a legal document that forms part of her work contract and cannot be changed unilaterally.) What happens next depends on how she breaks the law.

If she physically leaves the company never to work for them again (with or without invoking - wrongly - one of the "health and safety" exceptions as a justification), her employer may ask for damages under article 1237-2 of the labor code ("abusive severance of work relationship at the employee’s initiative").

Outside this cause of action, things are more difficult. What if she stays on the premises, performs other work duties, and otherwise does her job except fixing the bug? Suing Alice for damages for actions done (or not done) within her job duties requires that Bob first fires her for heavy fault (see e.g. Cour de cassation, Chambre sociale, 7 mai 2024, 22-23.180, §5-10).

Firing under French law is (almost) always for-cause, and falls under three categories of gravity: simple, grave and heavy fault. The latter category requires that (1) the employee acts in such an egregious manner as to "make impossible to keep the employee within the company for any duration of time", and (2) the actions reveal an intention to harm the company. The typical examples are disgruntled employees deleting documents, vandalizing company property, etc.

It is very unclear to me that Bob could successfully prove that Alice’s behavior meets the heavy fault standard. She is not taking overt actions to destroy company property, and she might not have communicated her blackmail explicitly. Alice failing to fix a simple bug due to incompetence is at most simple fault; Alice asking a bonus is not grounds for termination.

Bob also needs to act promptly. If Bob decides not to fire Alice immediately for some reason, then has a later change of mind, it becomes difficult to argue that her actions meet the first prong of the heavy fault standard ("actions so egregious that she cannot be kept as an employee for any duration of time"). Bob could potentially show that he did not understand the gravity of Alice’s action at the time (maybe senior engineer Carol, who eventually fixed the bug, comes up weeks later with irrefutable proof of points 2 and 3), but that muddies the waters.

Assuming Alice is liable, then she is on the hook both for recovery steps (say, if the company needs to hire an external consultant on an emergency fee to fix the bug), and money lost due to the bug past the point she could have fixed it. Proving the exact timeline might be a tricky factual question, of course.

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  • Up to which point can damages be asked? I'm Spain an employer may ask damages to an employer who quits, but only if he has recently received formation, and up to the cost of that formation. Other than that, the employer can only take 15 days of salary (the usual notice period).
    – SJuan76
    Commented Nov 15 at 6:52
  • @SJuan76 in the case of a heavy fault, the employer can request the reimbursement of all their costs. What they will get in court is another thing.
    – WoJ
    Commented Nov 15 at 14:23
  • If she is tasked to fix that bug, that's now her job responsibility and not doing it would be refusing to work which is almost certainly cause for summary termination (though with France's labour unions, who knows).
    – jwenting
    Commented Nov 15 at 14:28
  • @jwenting Certainly. But at this situation, can Alice just ask for the money and accept dismisal at no cost other than losing his job? At $1.000.000, it would probably worth it. That is how I read the question.
    – SJuan76
    Commented Nov 15 at 21:16
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    @jwenting Refusing to perform work (aka insubordination) is grave fault, but not heavy fault (hence: on-the-spot dismissal, but no damages). Proving that a selective refusal to perform some work was calculated to hurt the company (as opposed to mere laziness) would be very tough. Grave and heavy fault both allow immediate dismissal without notice and the vast majority of employees cannot cause enough damage to warrant suing, so I doubt there is much jurisprudence about the distinction between the two.
    – UJM
    Commented Nov 18 at 9:09
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That would be a breach of the employment contract

An employee must follow the lawful and reasonable directions of their employer. If an employee attempted such coercion, they could be terminated for cause, and potentially be liable for any damage flowing from the breach - the cost of the other programmers, for example.

It’s probably not commercially viable to bring such a suit, but it is legally viable.

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  • 8
    Suppose the employee simply quit, unconditionally first, and then waited for the company to ask them for help? The right to quit is pretty absolute.
    – ohwilleke
    Commented Nov 13 at 21:42
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    Does this logic similarly argue that any "give me a raise or I'll quit" threat gives rise to similar liability? Such threats, in one form or another, must be very common in salary negotiation.
    – Nate Eldredge
    Commented Nov 14 at 3:07
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    @NateEldredge Where's the breach of contract in that if the employee keeps performing their assigned tasks while negotiation?
    – Dale M ♦
    Commented Nov 14 at 3:14
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    @DaleM: But that seems like just a matter of phrasing. Suppose Alice says "I'll keep working for the next 2 minutes, but if I haven't received an enormous raise by then, I'm quitting." And suppose further that making this statement didn't slow down her work (maybe it was during a scheduled coffee break), and that she is an at-will employee with no required notice period. At what point is she failing to follow the directions of her employer?
    – Nate Eldredge
    Commented Nov 14 at 3:34
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    @PeteB Even an agreement to be an employee at will for a stated rate of pay and benefits and job responsibilities is an employment contract. Relationship contracts that set the terms of the arrangement between parties but can be terminated at will or with modest notice by either side are not uncommon. For example, in business to business transactions, or just with any seller you regularly do business with like Amazon.com, there is often a general contract that supplies most of the boilerplate for individual transactions, but one makes orders of specific goods only when the buyer wants to.
    – ohwilleke
    Commented Nov 14 at 19:12
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In the US, frequently there is no express employment contract, and in many states an employee is an at-will employee with few rights under an implied employment contract. Regardless of the facts (Alice didn't create the bug as part of an extortion scheme, ete.) many employers would simply assume that she did, which could be considered reasonable, and Alice would be fired for making such a demand.

If there is an express employment contract, the employer would be justified in simply saying, "No, do your job."

If it's an emergency, the employer might make a counter-offer of some reasonable sum, say, $5,000, and keep in mind that Alice's contract will not be renewed, or fire her after she does the work.

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  • After the employer says "Do your job", Alice could tender her resignation.
    – Barmar
    Commented Nov 18 at 2:49
  • @Barmar If I were an employer, I wouldn't want an employee like Alice. I think Alice losing her job is the ultimate end of all the possible scenarios here.
    – Wastrel
    Commented Nov 18 at 15:07
  • I agree. This whole thing seems like a lose-lose for everyone. Few employers will give in, and it just makes her look unreasonable. The point of my last comment was that the order won't necessarily get the bug fixed.
    – Barmar
    Commented Nov 18 at 15:51
  • Even if she has to stay and work for a 2-week notice period, she can just claim "it was harder than I thought" and not get it done before leaving.
    – Barmar
    Commented Nov 18 at 15:52
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Contracts notwithstanding, I don't see how this is not legal. Most engineers (in the US) do not have a contract. Most states are at will employment so either party can terminate without cause. Alice can certainly walk into her boss's office and say "I want X or I will quit", just as the boss can say "Alice I need to you to take a pay cut to remain employed" or even "Alice you are fired".

Even if a different employee, Trudy, actually caused the bug with the intent to blackmail, I feel that it would be difficult to prove in a court of law. Checking in code, with a bug, is commonplace, and if Trudy was smart she would follow all the company processes to make it look like an accident.

So how is this prevented from happening in the real world? First the company could back out the change that caused this bug in the first place, eliminating the business loss. Second, it is rare to have someone in such a situation. Most of the time there is a back up that could fill in, and take over for Alice in a reasonable amount of time. Third, is the ethics of the developer.

Most of the time developers in Alice's situation are treated very well by the company and a short term gain is not in Alice's best interest.

Also even if there was a contract what clause could compel an employee to work for less than they desire? While there exists some exceptions to this, for most in this situation that would not be the case.

So, legal, for sure.

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    This answer could be improved by adding references to specific status and/or relevant case law. It reads more like only opinion at present.
    – Toby Speight
    Commented Nov 14 at 14:53
  • s/status/statutes/ - sorry about the misspelling.
    – Toby Speight
    Commented Nov 15 at 12:43
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    @Toby It can be hard to reference statutes or case law if something is implicitly legal (note that none of the other answers do so, either). If I ask whether it’s legal for me to walk barefoot in my back garden, the obvious answer is, “Yes, of course it’s legal – why would being barefoot affect your right to move around on your own property?” … but what statutes or case law would you point to that explicitly states this?
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented Nov 16 at 1:27
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illegal.

As long as "fixing bugs" is part of Alice's job description in the contract, demanding extra pay for that is illegal: it is a "Dienstanweisung" and as long as it is not for extra hours and a legal demand and within the scope of the contract, it has to be obeyed under the conditions of the contract. See § 315 BGB and § 106 GewO.

Further, quitting on the spot is not an option either - the contract and law have firing and quitting protections in both ways.

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