Fred Naderi is the founder and CEO of Executive Direction, a contract employee provider in San Francisco.
Mr. Naderi was responsible for causing EDI employees to sign in my opinion one of the most grossly illegal employment contract I have ever witnessed. After EDI sued to enforce the contract my client countersued, and included claims that the contract:
- Illegally prohibited employees from discussing their rate of pay
- Included an illegal non-compete agreement prohibiting employees from working for another employment agency, or for a client, within 6 months after their employment with Executive Direction ended
- Illegally required employees to indemnify Executive Direction for any expenses and liabilities - just the opposite of what California law requires
When one of Executive Direction's employees left to work through a competing agency, Fred Naderi wrote to his client, Wells Fargo, in an attempt to get the former employee fired. My client said that in his correspondence Mr. Naderi repeatedly lied and defamed her.
Naderi then told his company to move forward with a lawsuit because the employee did not appreciate 'civil treatment' and 'need[ed] to be dealt with in the court of law.'
During trial Fred Naderi admitted that he had no personal knowledge about defamatory statements he made about the employee, and he was dramatically impeached about various statements he made. For example, he had written that this 'is only the second time we have been forced to start any legal proceeding.' Trial then proceeded through what seemed like an eternity as over a dozen lawsuits Executive Direction has filed were listed, one by one.
After trial the court issued a tentative statement of decision against Fred Naderi [ large PDF file ].
In short, Judge Mellon said he was finding that Fred Naderi had illegally tried to get his former employee fired, that Fred Naderi had made false statements, that Fred Naderi intended to cause emotional and substantial financial harm, and that Fred Naderi engaged in outrageous conduct. As a result, the court's tentative decision levied personal damages against Fred Naderi for $20,000.
Afterwards, the parties resolved their claims before Judge Mellon finalized his decision.
Read more about the Executive Direction - Fred Naderi Case