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Twitter lawyers overwhelmed as laid off employees file arbitration claims
- 082349872349872 3y agoSounds like at least some of those laid off employees ought to be talking to a judge about getting emergency orders?
- zapdrive 3y ago[flagged]
- WJW 3y agoNo, just the "Twitter is being run poorly" horse.
- convery 3y agoAny bets on when we'll transition to the "Twitter could be more profitable" horse?
- willcipriano 3y agoHave to get a little distance from the past few years but the "private platform" folks have been awfully quiet, I'd bet on the orthodox position will flip to "regulate Twitter to make it more balanced" pretty soon.
- foderking 3y agorun poorly? what about the previous management, I bet they did a better job
- WJW 3y agoNot really, they got bashed too.
- anoonmoose 3y agoAccording to this article, there are more former employees of Twitter suing Twitter, than there are current employees at Twitter. Seems noteworthy!
- klyrs 3y agoIf twitter is already dead, there will be no juice for these 2k employees to squeeze. Here's hoping twitter isn't dead yet.
- mtmail 3y agoI see it as interesting case of arbitration process, being about Twitter secondary. Another commenter points to DoorDash having been in a similar situation.
- SilverBirch 3y agoI can't imagine that a deposition lasts more than a few hours and there are only 1,986 claims so Elon should be finished with it in a mere 248 days, assuming he doesn't eat drink or sleep for those 8 months...
- BeefWellington 3y agoSeems reasonable. As a leader he was asking that of his employees for a while.
- ncphil 3y ago"I can't imagine that a deposition lasts more than a few hours..." Heh. No. A good litigator will be prepared with enough questions to keep him testifying for most of the day on each case. No doubt there will be many objections along the way that will stretch that time out even more. There's zero chance that the boss's testimony (and Twitter's other corporate witnesses) will be consistent even in a single deposition, let alone 100s. Even the most craven arbitrator is going to have a hard time ignoring that, so the strategy will reap huge, literal, rewards. With costs and attorneys fees.
- WJW 3y ago> Apparently Twitter’s lawyers hasn’t met with the other law firms that have brought arbitration claims yet. But, it seems they’re freaked out by the prospect of having to handle 1,848 separate discovery efforts. Separate but largely identical discovery efforts, surely? That sounds like a job for one of the leftover devs (who by now must all be extremely hardcore rockstars sleeping in the office, since Elon fired everyone else) to generate 1848 separate zip files of documentation.
- Waterluvian 3y agoI thought that for this reason any party can ask for it to become a class action, not just the complainants.
- SketchySeaBeast 3y agoBased upon one of the letters sent by one of the law firms to Twitter[1] it seems that the arbitration agreement requires filing a separate individual arbitration agreement? "with each employee filing a separate individual agreement, as required by the terms of your arbitration agreement"? It seems like Twitter's own arbitration terms is going to be the thing that hurts them here? [1] https://twitter.com/AkivaMCohen/status/1598487532764798983/photo/1 https://twitter.com/AkivaMCohen/status/1598487532764798983/p...
- papercrane 3y agoIf these were before a court then Twitter could try and have them combined into a class action suit. Twitter's contracts with these employees included arbitration clauses though. Normally companies prefer this because it heads off class action suits, but here Twitter has been hoist with his own petard. Twitter demanded the arbitration and now is paying the cost for that.
- Waterluvian 3y agoHah. That’s amazing. Arbitration clauses need to be punished.
- deleted 3y ago
- remote_phone 3y agoMusk’s MO is to use the legal system in bad faith. That’s his primary tactic. He even does this with his vendors and his customers. With his vendors he just stops paying and then waits until legal action is threatened and then tries to negotiate a deal. With his customers an example are the solar roof customers where he tried to double the costs even with a signed contract and threatened them until the customers signed a new contract agreeing to pay double the costs. So the opponents to twitter should use this to show that musk is always trying to have his cake and eat it too so that their request for consolidation of discovery can be denied.
- mensetmanusman 3y agoI haven’t seen a situation where anyone on the other side of a legal suite thinks their opponents are using the legal system in good faith.
- ayemel 3y agoHow is this relevant to what they said? They are not one of the two parties involved so they don’t fall into the “other side”, you’re just trying to dilute the argument.
- mensetmanusman 3y agoIf someone states as fact that the legal system is being used in bad faith in a particular case, they can metaphorically be on the other 'side' even if they aren't one of the parties involved. This is because the legal system itself is the arbiter of whether it is being done in bad faith. I don't believe a court has finally judged that Musk has used the system in bad faith, but Musk has argued that funnily enough: https://casetext.com/case/oareilly-v-musk https://casetext.com/case/oareilly-v-musk
- CoastalCoder 3y agoI've seen at least one comment arguing that the plaintiffs would be better off with a true legal trial, than with arbitration. But is that necessarily true? IIUC, class-action participants typically get screwed over because the class attorneys negotiate a settlement that optimizes their profit. Is arbitration subject to the same problem?
- bombcar 3y agoThe common consensus is that arbitration is biased toward the company. I am not sure this is actually true, but if the arbiter is not company favorable they'd probably find a new arbiter. However, it is probably biased toward saving the company money, which may actually involve giving small settlements relatively often. What has been discovered is that you can basically DDoS the arbitration system because they cannot move to make it a class action lawsuit (a class action suit is almost always better for the defendant - assuming they did actually do the bad thing - because it is one and done, and once done nobody else can bring the same lawsuit unless they explicitly opted out of the class).
- CoastalCoder 3y ago> What has been discovered is that you can basically DDoS the arbitration system because they cannot move to make it a class action lawsuit Perhaps in the past, but it looks like the article reaches a different conclusion. (See the "Rule 6" part, at the very bottom of the article.)
- sowbug 3y agoCoordinated discovery would still be within the arbitration process.
- ChrisMarshallNY 3y agoGiven Twitter's ... pithy ... relationship with invoicers, I don't know if the arbitration firm would want to have them as a continuing client.
- 3y ago
- dylan604 3y agoIt's a common tactic by lawyers to bury opposing counsel with mounds of paperwork that is used to overwhelm or bury a smoking gun. Seeing the Twitter legal team overwhelmed from the reverse of a thousand paper cuts type of situation is pretty funny from my chair. The popcorn is quite tasty.
- voytec 3y agoLawyer DoS
- n3m4c 3y agoDDoS in this case
- madeofpalk 3y agoWeaponising "forced arbitration" to overload the company's legal resources is an increasingly common tactic https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/1/22463550/amazon-lawsuit-arbitration-terms-of-service-update-alexa https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/1/22463550/amazon-lawsuit-ar... https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/12/21135474/doordash-workers-forced-arbitration-william-alsup https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/12/21135474/doordash-workers... https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/postmates-drops-parallel-appeals-in-mass-arbitration-disputes https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/postmates-d...
- mensetmanusman 3y agoLegal firms will be able to soon compare the size of their supercomputers that have to respond and overwhelm the opposition. From law to bits.
- user_named 3y agoThis was linked in the comments, worth a read: https://twitter.com/AkivaMCohen/status/1598487532764798983 https://twitter.com/AkivaMCohen/status/1598487532764798983
- fbdab103 3y agoThis lawyer is maximum snark. Which must mean he is an idiot or supremely confident the law is on his side. "...Twitter then communicated that promise to each of its employees by email and in its Acquisition FAQ, and detailed in writing what they could expect in severance if they statyed through the merger and were laid off: a minimum of two months of salary, accelerated vesting of their RSUs (paid in cash at $54.20 a share), payment of their pro-rated bonuses, and continued contribution to their healthcare. Instead, the severance and benefits you've since offered in various iterations - in your first communication to the laid of employees in your FAQ communications to employees who didn't "click the button" in your second round of layoffs - falls far, far short of your promises: one month of salary, no bonus, no accelerated vest, and no contribution to healthcare." "...The doctrine of promissory estoppel means that Twitter can't promise its employees a severance package to get them to stay at the company through the merger, and then renege on that promise once they do. Your insistence on including that "no third party beneficiaries" clause in Section 6.9(e) suggests that you were always planning on playing this game, so we'll be including a cause of action for fraud in our arbitration demands - and seeking punitive demands on top of pre- and post-judgement interest".
- p_j_w 3y ago"And to be clear, Elon, you will lose, and you know it." Holy shit, the spice levels here are off the charts. This isn't the level of swagger I expect to read in a legal letter.
- AlexandrB 3y agoFrom the outside this looks like a pretty clear-cut breach of contrast on Elon's part. Would be interesting to see what the counter-argument from Twitter's legal team will be and what kind of decision arbitrators will make. I'm guessing that since this is arbitration and not a trial we won't get to know many of these details.
- DoesntMatter22 3y ago[flagged]
- detaro 3y agoFor not providing severance payments as contractually agreed. It's explained in the article and the articles it links.
- phpisthebest 3y agoThat is not what the article says. The article is attempting to say the 2 Mo's of legally required WARN severance should not run concurrent with the 3mos of contracted severance, there is no legal basis for that. basically Twitter was obligated to provide 3mos of severance under the employment agreement, and separately WAN requires 2mos, So the employees claim the 3+2 = 5mos is what they are "entitled to" Sorry that is not how any of this works.
- dangus 3y agoRead it again. The article says that Twitter has to provide severance payments and benefits equivalent to or better than those it had been offering prior to the acquisition. The article even bolded it for you. > Parent shall provide, or shall cause the Surviving Corporation or any of their Affiliates to provide severance payments and benefits to each Continuing Employee whose employment is terminated during such period that are no less favorable than those applicable to the Continuing Employee immediately prior to the Effective Time under the Company Benefit Plans.
- NelsonMinar 3y agoThis article focusses on the procedural mess Musk has gotten Twitter in to. But it skips over something more important. Former Twitter employees have suffered real harm. They deserve justice either via courts or arbitration to get back pay, expense reimbursements, and severance that they were promised. It's a shame that Musk has stripped the company down so much it can't respond to legal requests. It's a shame that the pre-Musk Twitter's binding arbitration means that the company now has a lot of arbitration cases to handle. The ex-employees deserve a fair and rapid hearing regardless. That, or a summary judgement if the company can't respond to the claims of the people it fired in a timely fashion.
- jfengel 3y agoMusk seems to have a very tech bro way of handling things. "Don't tell me what can't be done. You're just stuck thinking inside the box." Sometimes you are in the box, and if you don't recognize it, you smash into it. We valorize the people who break out and accomplish great things that were thought impossible, but we never get to hear about the things that actually were impossible. More importantly, the people who did were often more lucky than smart. Over and over we see the ones who got rich and famous screw up everything they try after that. Musk succeeded more than once, and was surely smart as well as lucky. But that's exactly the kind of situation that convinces you that you're the only smart one because nobody else did it. The world will not stop while he figures out how to deal with the colossal ramifications of his own actions. And that will cost him even more.
- palata 3y ago> And that will cost him even more. I kind of agree with everything, but this. Rich people usually don't have to pay, that's how it works. That's also probably why they don't learn, in many cases.
- don_neufeld 3y agoI think you’d be surprised. Just because you don’t hear about the payments doesn’t mean they didn’t happen. Many settlement agreements include clauses prohibiting those involved from discussing the case, or even disclosing that a settlement exists. Ask me how I know, or better yet - don’t.
- brycewray 3y agoQ: What is "JAMS"? A: https://www.jamsadr.com/about-the-jams-name/ https://www.jamsadr.com/about-the-jams-name/
- irrational 3y agoWhy is the number so low? Why aren’t the other 4,500 former employees suing also?
- NelsonMinar 3y agoSuing an employer is hard. It's emotionally draining. It's expensive. It potentially harms you; future employers are going to look at that lawsuit and wonder if they should take the risk of hiring you.
- Aeolun 3y agoI’m fairly certain most employers are firmly on the side of the employees here (unless they’re already evil assholes, but you shouldn’t work for them anyway)
- throwaway202351 3y agoOne thing I've envious about former Twitter employees is that they have a lot of evidence that they weren't laid off because of anything they actually did. Really helps with the "why are you leaving your current position?" kind of questions.
- Ekaros 3y agoI wonder if they will pay the arbitrators?
- asylteltine 3y ago[dead]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- stuckinhell 3y agoThe metaconversations around Twitter are just fascinating to me from a business perspective and personal one. It's astounding to see the difference between what Executives, Normal People, and Tech People think of Twitter these days. Executives are truly impressed with Twitter these days from an operations stand point. The mass layoffs, the strategic regrouping, and the fact new features are being added with reduced staff. They don't see the technical issues behind the video platform or even this kinda of overwhelmed lawyer stuff as major issues. These are just part of the growing pains. Normal people are just checked out. I was asked a lot about Twitter and its layoffs around the time by friends and family in other fields when the media was getting hysterical. After all Twitter didn't go down, is still getting new features, and the vast majority people are still using it fairly the same as they always have. I think that was a very damaging blow to the tech media. The Tech people seem to driven from a strong place of fear. I think they are right to feel afraid too. I've been asked repeatedly about plans to reduce headcount, with Executives quoted Twitter's success or emerging AI. The most surprising part is the increase of admiration I'm seeing for Elon Musk from "non-tech" people and executives for "putting tech people in their place". I guess there was a lot more bitterness from everyone else, and a feeling of too much entitlement from "silicon valley".
- tsunamifury 3y agoOn that last point. It’s incredible that as one crab is about to climb out of the bucket (tech workers becoming financially independent) and is pushed back down, the others take so much joy in it. While idolizing the fisherman that pushed that crab back down. They never, ever, seem to think — wow someone almost escaped this bucket, maybe we should try too. It’s incredible how self sabotaging we humans are.
- jonhohle 3y agoI think a lot of middle America sees a tech crab kicking blue collar crabs down to get themselves out of a bucket (true or not). Having spent all of my career outside of SV (worked remote for a company in SV for a while), but having spent a reasonable amount of time interviewing technical people from SV, I came away with a general sense of hubris that was not justified that I never saw from other parts of the country (n = several hundred at a FAANG and unicorn startup). Perhaps I was unlucky, but 9 times out of 10 I was astounded to find individuals commanding 6-figure engineering salaries who couldn’t code or even seemed put out that I was asking them to write code in an interview… for a role that required writing code. From an outsiders perspective, if one was laid off from Twitter (with a generous severance package), they either will find themselves in a new role fairly quickly and it’s Twitter’s loss, or they were dead weight and may or may not want to consider adjusting their career path. In either case they’ll have more job opportunity than a laid off factory worker typically has. The whining about it only reinforces the perception of petulance.
- User23 3y ago> They also included gag orders and giving up legal rights. This indicates that the author is writing in bad faith. There’s no company in America with even vaguely competent lawyers that isn’t going to condition any severance payment on a general release. That’s literally the consideration the employee is providing. You’re certainly free to decline the deal and sue or arbitrate, but in the absence of punitive damage it’s not going to be more than about three months.
- jiveturkey 3y agoAs of Feb 1 2023, there is. https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-story/board-rules-that-employers-may-not-offer-severance-agreements-requiring https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-story/board-rules-th... Of course this event occured before then, so yes, it was de riguer. (even if retroactively invalid)
- User23 3y agoInteresting. But isn't that law about union stuff? Does it somehow apply if a union isn't involved? It seems reasonable to me that a company asks for an agreement to not sue for wrongful termination if it offers a buyout. If you accept the buyout it's basically an out of court settlement. And any settlement includes an agreement to not pursue further legal action, otherwise by definition it's not a settlement. If you don't accept the buyout then as I said you're free to sue or arbitrate. So where is the problem?
- jiveturkey 3y agoDon't quote me, but it's a regulation not a law. It's indifferent to union status. I agree, it seems fair to ask for non-disparagement etc in exchange for severance. If you don't want the restrictions, you needn't accept the money. But here we are.
- SoftTalker 3y agoYou know, if I'm a person laid off from Twitter, I'd be thinking pretty hard about whether my take-home award from an arbitration claim (after legal fees, etc.) is really life-changing money. If not, I'd just move on. Life is pretty short and to spend time and stress over a few months of severance pay in the long run might not be worth it. I'm not at all saying employees don't deserve to get what they are due, but if you have to get lawyers involved, for any amount less than six figures you aren't really going to be going home with a lot of money. Let's say a Twitter employee was making $300k. Three month's severance at full pay would be $75,000. By the time you pay the lawyers you might have enough left for a modest new car. And that's assuming you get the full award, my experience with arbitration is you agree to meet somewhere in the middle, because a full-on lawsuit after a failed arbitration will cost you even more. Rather than deal with all of that, just move on. Get a new job, don't look back.
- paulcole 3y agoWhat legal fees? Aren’t there lawyers who are going to take this on contingency given that it looks like a slam dunk (assuming Twitter has the money to pay)?
- indymike 3y agoMaybe. But there is always the possibility that the case gets sucked into some bigger legal action (e.g. a reorganization), and when that happens, compensation amounts may drop substantially.
- badwolf 3y agoAlternately, you can demand the terms of your contract instead of letting one of the richest people in the world not pay what's owed.
- pjc50 3y agoI think you're overlooking the value of vindictiveness and vindication, compared to donating money to a billionaire who's in the wrong.
- simiones 3y ago
- epups 3y agoThe article doesn't give out numbers, but we can estimate. As per levels.fyi, an average Software Developer at Twitter earns approximately $160,000/year. Not everyone laid off was a developer but some were also more senior, so let's accept the aforementioned salary as a baseline, roughly $13,000 a month per employee. There are approximately 2000 litigants so far, and they are each charging for two months of severance that was not paid. So, we approach a figure of $50M USD for collective damages here. I don't know how much added punitive charges would be added in this case, but at first glance it seems that even at double or triple this estimate would be a rather cheap way of quickly firing a third of your staff for an organization like Twitter.
- dghlsakjg 3y agoI suspect the RSUs will make a few months of salary look like peanuts…
- londons_explore 3y agoIn arbitration cases, costs are rarely awarded. The best you will usually get is '$50 awarded for inconvenience'. That means the claimants will also want the discovery process shared between all of them, simply so that all of their award isn't eaten by legal costs.
- TeMPOraL 3y agoThat's assuming they're in for damages, and not for retaliation. It's been an open secret for the past year or two that arbitration process only favors the company if triggered sparingly, as costs to the company grow rapidly with the number of simultaneous claimants. At this scale, and with Twitter being in the shape it is, I wouldn't put it past those claimants to be acting in hope of sinking Twitter entirely - if I were in their position, I'd definitely consider it.
- londons_explore 3y agoIf they sink twitter, they probably won't be getting much in any bankruptcy proceedings... They've already been paid for all the actual hours they have worked, and anything extra isn't given priority in bankruptcy. Remember twitter probably has $40B of bank loans...
- TeMPOraL 3y agoMy implied point is that they are tech workers earning tech salaries. They're unlikely to be in financial distress, and can afford forgoing some change money for the sake of killing the company that fired them.
- seanhunter 3y agoThat's not true in my experience. Here's what the JAMS IAR (the arbitration rules applicable here) have to say: > 36.4 The Tribunal will fix the arbitration costs in its award. The Tribunal may apportion such costs among the parties if it determines that such apportionment is reasonable, taking into account the circumstances of the case. https://www.jamsadr.com/international-arbitration-rules/english#Article-36 https://www.jamsadr.com/international-arbitration-rules/engl... In the arbitration case I was a part of, the other side had to pay our costs (which were 7 figures).
- rgbrenner 3y agoNot mentioned in the article: Twitter asked for this. The plaintiffs filed a class action lawsuit, and Twitter got it thrown out a few months ago.. saying each plaintiff needed to file an arbitration claim.[0] Now they want to group depositions and other over lapping work to save money... what they're really asking is for plaintiffs to cooperate with Twitter's attempt to pick and choose which parts of a class action claim Twitter would like to take advantage of while depriving the other side of the same. Twitter is big enough to hire more lawyers. Musk's stinginess is not a problem the plaintiffs need to handle. 0. https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/16/23557210/twitter-workers-class-action-severance-lawsuit https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/16/23557210/twitter-workers-...
- martin8412 3y agoAs a result, Twitter should be forced to put enough money into escrow to pay when they lose arbitration.
- Slava_Propanei 3y ago[dead]
- gumby 3y agoI'm sorry but this just made me laugh. Hoisted on their own petard! Arbitration actually worked out well for me the one time I was sued, but the practice here of using arbitration to thwart staff has to stop.
- incahoots 3y agoI figure we'll see more of this as times goes on. When Ned basically bailed as Twitter's CFO and Musk taking on the role, I immediately knew their finances would be in trouble. You basically have Twitter without really anyone in their finance department, it's amazing how well a company will coast after a hostile takeover like this. I feel for the people still drudging along in the various departments, though I hope most have an exit strategy.
- ephemeralkey 3y agoThe ex-employees should have their day in court, or in this case arbitration. While adding the arbitration clause to employment contracts, Twitter probably did not anticipate the scenario of thousands of laid off employees opting to go to arbitration (as those employment contracts were entered into long before Musk took over). At least in this round of the battle it is Ex-Employees: 1 / Twitter: 0.
- TrapLord_Rhodo 3y agoWhat i read on the layoffs previously, is he gave the smallest amount of severance applicable by law. Also, one of my friends at Twitter says he would send random emails asking everyone to do something. Send code snippets, give ideas towards a certain topic, generally giving assignments to the whole company. Some people would laugh at the tasks... "HAHA, did you see Elons message about who's a real coder here? He said to send 5 screenshots of code 'you are most proud of', how ridiculous!' "Well, did you do it?" "No! like i said, it's ridiculous. i'm not doing that!" If in these pile of tasks that he sent out, you never did them and he laid you off, can that be used in discovery/arbitration to show that laying you off with severence was better than firing you for cause? Elon does alot of dumb things, that have the potential to not be so dumb if analyzed at the level of the game he's playing. Obviously musk is an egotist, with little regard for others but you can't deny he's smart.
- guax 3y agoI would not be surprised if this would fly as US has terrible worker protection laws. In most of the world this would never work. It could also backfire for twitter if this caracterizes them hunting for reasons to fire for cause to save money. There is a strong difference in individually firing someone for performance or systematically creating conditions to bypass mass layoff laws (which might not be hard to prove in twitters case)
- TrapLord_Rhodo 3y agoAgain, due to the arbitration here, and not being a class action lawsuit the 'Courts' don't decide anything They 'Settle'. I can use any number of tactics, tricks and manipulation to get you to settle for some number lower than your original offer.