How much do you love watching Friends? Do you often find yourself quoting Chandler and Phoebe? Do you identify with all the ‘Joey doesn’t share food’ memes? Can you recognise the episode by a single screencap? Can you fight a lawsuit for Rs 43 crore for Friends?
Nope, that wasn’t a mistake. A woman called Chase Robinson has been sued by her former company, owned by actor and Hollywood legend Robert De Niro for embezzling money and watching Netflix while on the job.
Canal Productions, De Niro’s loan-out company, has also alleged that she also cost them a lot of money by using millions of frequent flyer miles for her personal trips. Consequently, they filed a $6 million lawsuit against her on Saturday.
According to media reports, Chase was hired as an assistant to De Niro in 2008 but at the time of her resignation in April this year, she was the vice president of production and finance, and her salary was $300,000 (which is Rs 2,14,36,350). According to the suit filed in the state court in New York, there were “growing concerns about alleged corporate sabotage” around the time she left.
The company has said that she was almost never in the office, and even when she was, she would just spend all her time watching Netflix during office hours. Apparently, over a four-day period in January, she watched 55 episodes of Friends. That’s not all! On one of those days, she also ordered lunch from Caviar San Francisco and had dinner at Paola’s Restaurant, and charged both of these exorbitant meals to the company card.
Over another four days in March, she watched 20 episodes of Arrested Development and 10 episodes of Schitt’s Creek. Say what you will about this woman, she sure seems to have good taste in television and food.
Unsurprisingly, her former company does not care about that at all. “Watching shows on Netflix was not in any way part of or related to the duties and responsibilities of Robinson’s employment and, on information and belief, was done for her personal entertainment, amusement and pleasure at times when she was being paid to work,” the suit alleges.
None of this seems to have fazed chase. When she quit chase called these allegations ridiculous and even drafted a recommendation for De Niro to sign, which he obviously didn’t.
So, the next time you get an itch to sneakily watch some Netflix at work, remember that it can cost you dearly!
Feature image: Instagram
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