Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, WAGE-HOUR—D. Mass.: Sales manager, fired for insubordination, failed to substantiate wage, retaliation claims, (May 2, 2025)

By Jason Albright, J.D.

The parties did not dispute that he would not have been fired if he had completed a presentation as planned.

A former sales manager for a cloud-based services provider, fired for alleged insubordination after he failed to complete a planned presentation, could not establish Massachusetts wage or retaliation claims, despite his contention that the employer did not pay him earned commissions, a federal district court found. The sales manager’s commission plan provided that commissions are earned only if the sale is classified as “New Business,” and the employer correctly characterized the deal at issue as a “Renewal” instead. The sales manager also could not identify a factual dispute that could show that the justification for his termination was pretextual (Bean v. NICE Systems, Inc., No. 23-12394-BEM (D. Mass. Apr. 30, 2025)).

Cloud-based services. inContact is a subsidiary of NICE Systems. NICE Systems Tech., in turn, is an indirect subsidiary of NICE Systems, and NICE Systems is a subsidiary of NICE Ltd. inContact provides cloud-based services to customers through a Software as a Service (SaaS) called CXone.

Sales manager. Beginning in September 2021, the plaintiff worked for inContact as a Senior District Sales Manager with the company’s Marquee Sales Team. The Marquee Team supports new sales to existing customers. It sells CXone to existing customers who had contracts for other inContact solutions but had not yet purchased CXone. Members of the Marquee Team were eligible to earn commissions, though the companies were entitled to assign members of the Marque Team, including the sales manager, work that was not commission-eligible.

Commission plan. In addition to a base salary, part of the sales manager’s compensation included a commission plan. His sales incentive plan for 2022 (the “2022 Commission Plan”) defined and distinguished between sales classified as “New Business” and those classified as “Renewals.” “New Business” was defined as “the initial Booking of a particular Product, Subscription Deal or Order for Maintenance.” The 2022 Commission Plan further clarified that “Renewals are not considered New Customers.”

“Renewal” was defined as “a Booking for any years of Subscription Deal or an Order for Maintenance beyond the term of the initial Booking.” The sales manager’s commission plan provided eligibility only on bookings classified as “New Business,” and he conceded during his deposition that he was never eligible for commissions on bookings classified as “Renewals.”

Versant Health RFP. In or around July 2022, the sales manager was asked to assist with an existing CXone customer, Versant Health, which had recently issued a request for proposal (RFP) seeking more favorable contract terms in its next contract for CXone solutions. And around September 2022, inContact informed him that the Versant deal was a “Renewal.”

Concerns raised. He alleged that he repeatedly raised concerns that went unanswered through September, October, and November 2022, however, regarding whether he would receive any compensation for the Verdant deal. He continued to work on the Verdant deal, which ultimately was signed around October 2022. He raised several complaints with his supervisor, inContact’s Regional Vice President of Marquee Sales, about the fact that he was not eligible for quota credit or commission on the Versant deal.

Planned presentation. Separately, on or around November 29, 2022, the VP asked the sales manager to prepare a presentation and deliver it on December 2, 2022, for the VP and inContact’s Senior VP of Marquee Sales. The two rehearsed the presentation on multiple occasions, but at the December 2, 2022, meeting the sales manager raised complaints about his lack of commissions from the Versant deal and other issues with the 2022 Commission Plan.

The senior VP requested that the sales manager complete the planned presentation instead and set up a meeting later to discuss commission concerns. The sales manager, however, refused to conduct the planned presentation until the senior VP reviewed all the concerns outlined in a compensation-related presentation he gave during the meeting. The senior VP warned him during the meeting that his employment may be terminated if he refused to do the planned presentation at that time.

Discharge. And indeed, after he failed to deliver the planned presentation, the senior VP made the decision to terminate his employment, pointing to his insubordination during the meeting and unwillingness to present the pitch as scheduled. Nor did the parties dispute that he would not have been fired if he had completed the presentation as planned.

Lawsuit. The former sales manager sued in Massachusetts Superior Court in July 2023, and the defendants removed the case to federal district court and moved for summary judgment.

Massachusetts Wage Act claim. The court found that the former sales associate failed to substantiate his Massachusetts Wage Act claim. Under Massachusetts law, commissions are “due and payable” only if any contingencies relating to their entitlement have occurred. And “[w]hen a compensation plan specifically sets out the contingencies an employee must meet to earn a commission, courts apply the terms of the plan.” Here, the terms of the former sales manager’s 2022 Commission Plan provided that commissions are earned only if the sale is classified as “New Business” rather than a “Renewal.” And the defendants “correctly characterize the Versant deal as a “Renewal” under [the sales manager’s] Commission Plan,” observed the court.

There was no dispute that Versant had an active contract for CXone solutions with inContact tentatively set to expire in September 2022. As such, any sale for CXone solutions to Versant in 2022 would be classified as a “Renewal” under the terms of the 2022 Commission Plan, not “New Business.” Though the former sales manager argued that he was originally told that the deal would be treated as New Business due to Versant’s RFPs to competitors and decision not to renew with inContact, neither the definitions of “New Business” nor “New Customer” provided an exception for such deals that would otherwise be a Renewal, according to the court. Further, the former sales manager actually conceded in his deposition that “the Company characterizing [Versant][sic] as a renewal was correct.”

Retaliation. The former sales manager’s retaliation claim fared similarly. The defendants did not dispute that he was subject to an adverse employment action when he was fired, but they contended that there was no genuine dispute of material fact as to whether he engaged in protected conduct, whether he was terminated because of it, and whether the basis for his termination was pretextual.

The court found that the former sales manager failed to identify a factual dispute that could show that the companies’ justification for his termination was pretextual. They identified undisputed evidence that they fired him due to his refusal to complete the December 2, 2022, presentation and he did not identify any evidence that that basis for termination was pretextual. In fact, he even testified that the senior VP offered to discuss his complaints at a later time but stated that the sales manager needed to complete the planned presentation or would face termination.

The defendants’ motion for summary judgment was thus granted.

The case is No. 23-12394-BEM.

Judge: Murphy, B.

Attorneys: Jamie Goodwin (Duddy, Goodwin & Pollard) for Gary Bean. Erik J. Winton (Jackson Lewis) for NICE Systems, Inc.

Companies: NICE Systems, Inc.

Cases: WageHour Retaliation Discharge EvidenceDiscovery MassachusettsNews