Yep. You pretty much nailed it from the legal side.

Even if she brought the documents to the job if she modified and/or customized them for that company, those new documents are now property of the company and not her. She is in an extremely precarious legal situation. She has already done a lot of damage. She should retain legal counsel asap.

Learn to read.

That's not how it works.

This comment is hidden. Click here to view.

Common sense would dictate that the files were created well within the scope of her job during her employment. Why else would they A. Be created during her employment. B. Be used in training for that company C. Be so vital to the company moving forward. What she regards as being outside of the scope of her employment is irrelevant. I assume she thinks because she wasn't specifically directed to create them this is the case. But that's not how it works. Anything pertaining to the job created using as sort of company resources including her time is company property. On a side note both her and this company sound pathetic. She quit and screwed them for feeling "underappreciated"? Lol They allowed vital company property to solely remain in a single employees possession? Something tells me this is either made to look much bigger then it is or completely fake. As training documents aren't really considered vital to operations only confidential for proprietary securities

Agree. Yet something seems a bit off with OP's story. She asked for a title change, claims they don't know how much or what she did... what I would like to know is if she gave them any written process of what she does. Even if on a timesheet. Does she request for annual review? I know it sounds like employers should know details of what their employees do and ideally that person's direct manager should know, but I've had to fight for my title and promotions over my 20+ years in my career. Annual reviews with monthly or quarterly check points with management would have been a great way to keep them in the know or at least a good reminder.

It doesn't matter if you were specifically compensated for some work or if it was under a specific title. If anything is produced while on the clock then it belongs to the employer. Period. Even if you weren't asked to do it.

Yep and if what she designed was neither specified, expected or requested by the company, they will have a hard time getting a court to make her return what they cannot describe. She could photocopy how to tie shoes in 50 languages and hand thst back or shred it all and hand that back. There are a lot of things a company can threaten with but rarely go after anyone for because unlike a patent or delineated license it is very hard to make a case of " someone took our instructions but we can't tell you what they are cuz we relied on them" IP technically does encompass anything an employee produces but companies choose their hills to fight on.

I get yours emotionally mad maybe some PTSD yourself you're taking to heart going on about it but logic stand if no one asked her to do it and she took it upon her self.That's very childish to then say well I did this and now pay me more. No one asked you....She received a salary I would hope for the job she was doing and when she went outside her scope and did something that she shouldn't that is on her. She said they didn't have training docs uploaded which could also mean they had some half a*s ones and in retrospect she just updated them. That's definitely steeling the companies property then. I feel this is not the whole story

There is no such thing as going above and beyond. That's the stupidity here. If she worked on a process for creating a fun music app while she was at home, and went to work at an insurance office during the day, okay she owns the music app she works on only from home. But if she worked on an insurance app at home, employer still might own that. If she did work for her employer, on their business, it became solely their property the instant it happened. She then threw a tantrum and little childish b***h fit since she was so misguided in first place to think people not in love with her value her and her work above the dollars and cents they paid for it. That's conflating personal and emotional relationships with working ones. A grand technoutopia reading everyone's mind at all times and making all decisions fairly for us would be the scenario OP describes where extra effort would warrant extra pay. Would be nice. It's the furthest thing from what we have for real though.

No assumptions. She is obviously totally wrong without a leg to stand on or argument to make. That's how "or" works. If she does the work for theirnbusiness purpose OR she does something not for them but for her own purpose on their time OR she was asked to do it elsewhere with her own materials OR it falls in scope employment... Any one of those situations makes documents and training she produced the property of the employer. You don't need all those or to feel good about it. If the work was done for them while they were employing her to do work for them, that's it. It's your own IP when none of the situations apt and it looks more like an accountant by day writes a hit pop song by night. The accountant firm employer probably doesn't own that song. Even then they might. A training manual is what we're taking about! For a role at the employer! There is no room on these facts for all the interesting arguments. This is a dummy who seems like a right wing troll catfish story to mock.

So someone takes a job at an agreed upon wage. And then they get it in their head that they are worth more than what they agreed to work for. If they feel unappreciated, they are free to look for other employment. What they can't do is steal stuff from the company, weather they had a hand in creating it or not. They were paid for their work, so there product belongs to the company. Some people have a delusional sense of self worth.

Lawyer answer: Because the King. The King owned the land, the people, and all the fruits and credit of their labor all. Property, contract, tort/injury, constitutional rights, and procedural rules are all mechanisms to give people a chance at making their own way, but there's still the default presumption underlying those assertable rights that all good belongs all to God slash King slash Lords/Ladies we know now as the owners/employers. It and any capitalist, militarist, authoritarian based systems, like all the ones that exist, start with the assumption people being born are born in the service of the wealthy to create a safer stronghold for them on their wealth, then die like millions others living their lives only to do the same. Transcending that is the real game. Most try to endure it. That entrenches the status quo. We have about thirty years to wholesale replace all power structures and rights with a decentralized technoutopia or squandered millions years of fossil fuels.