
Quoting
aaron
Let's say I am an unethical, unscrupulous pet store. I know that I can significantly boost my revenues by selling pets to people who are ill-suited to care for them, but how can I make even more money.... I can institute a return policy whereby if those people bring the pet back within a specified time period they are limited to a 50% refund.
When I sell somebody a sickly, poorly socialized pet which has been forced to learn to "potty" in the same place it eats and sleeps (consider the cage design in this type of pet store), the odds are pretty good that a lot of them will be coming back. I then give the buyer a 50% refund, put the animal back in its cage, and sell it to the next sucker to come along. Maybe I'll be lucky and my animals will be so sickly, poorly socialized, and inured against being housebroken, that I can sell them several times before somebody keeps them or, due to their advancing age, I ship them back to the puppy mill that spawned them.
Let's say that a customer gets angry with this policy and decides, "I am not going to return this pet to you. I'm going to make a gift of it to... this employee I like." At that point it's the customer's pet - their property - and they can dispose of it as they wish (within the confines of animal cruelty laws). I don't know of any basis for the employer to sue an employee who receives the gift of such a pet. However, Michigan is an at-will state and the employer could fire the employee.
Am I close to the mark as to what's going on in the pet store where you work?