Ex-Ascension worker sues over ‘terminated’ auto-reply that ran two years

In March 2024, the two sides signed a confidential agreement. Per the settlement, Ascension agreed to treat his exit as a voluntary resignation. All reference inquiries were to be routed through The Work Number, a third-party employment verification service that would share only his job title and dates of employment. 

According to the filing, Joyce learned around June 20, 2025, that someone at Ascension had set up a custom auto-reply on his old work email. The message, the complaint says, read in part: “I regret to inform you that I am no longer with Ascension as my employment has been terminated.” It directed urgent inquiries to Orlowski’s work email. 

Joyce alleges that Ascension’s IT policy automatically transfers a departing employee’s email permissions to their supervisor, and that Orlowski had “both the motive and the means” to set up the message. The auto-reply, he says, ran for more than two years. He claims to personally know several industry colleagues who received it. 

The complaint contrasts his situation with what it describes as Ascension’s standard practice – generic auto-replies that did not mention how someone left and were typically switched off about three months after exit. 

Joyce’s lawyer flagged the message to Ascension on September 5, 2025. According to the filing, the company responded on November 19, 2025, saying “the out of office message has now been terminated” and that it was “investigating the origin of the out of office message.” Joyce says he has heard nothing further.