@Dave Austin ... Re: Was it wise to fire him?
Yes it was wise.
No there is no chance for a Constructive dismissal.
Uber's butt is already covered:
In footnotes, Judge William Alsup explained that his order should not be misconstrued as an attempt to punish Levandowski for asserting his Fifth Amendment rights; rather it directs Uber, as a private employer, to take all necessary steps to ensure that its employees cooperate.
"If Uber were to threaten Levandowski with termination for noncompliance, that threat would be backed up by only Uber's power as a private employer, and Levandowski would remain free to forfeit his private employment to preserve his Fifth Amendment privilege," the judge wrote.
Essentially Levandowski screwed himself.
He's insubordinate by refusing to cooperate.
So Uber can fire him.
Since this is already documented in the court case between Uber / Google... no lawyer would consider trying to fight it. Its an already lost cause.
Levandowski has a major problem that he allegedly created.
1) Google's claim of 14K docs taken from them when he went to start his own company.
2) His start up was bought by a Google competitor.
So he's a little guy caught between two giants.
Had Levandowski not stolen the docs, and cooperated... it would still be a battle between Google and Uber and the burden would be on Google to show that the theft occurred and Levandowski was responsible or benefited from it.