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"Do this only orally" is always to hide evidence from a future court discovery. I don't think Tesla would do this unless management consider it very serious.

peeters 3y ago
That kind of policy should mean that in any court case where a customer's version of events/conversations differs from Tesla's, the customer is assumed to be telling the truth until definitely proven otherwise. The legal liability of this policy should be so great that no sane company would have this policy over just creating a paper trail in the first place.
- jejeyyy77 3y ago
  lol, thats not how it works at all.
  - vikramkr 3y ago
    I think that's why the parent comment was using the word "should" a lot
    - Zarathustra30 3y ago
      For those unclear on the definitions, https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2119 https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2119
  - singleshot_ 3y ago
    How would you interpret the following: if electronically stored information that should have been preserved in the anticipation or conduct of litigation is lost because a party fails to take reasonable steps to preserve it, and it cannot be restored or replaced through additional discovery, the court only upon finding that the party acted with the intent to deprive another party of the information to use in the litigation may presume that the lost information was unfavorable to the party.
maffydub 3y ago
In previous employment (as a software engineer), I've been told to do this too - mainly around inventions we were trying to patent. The reason is slightly less nefarious than you might think - for example, someone might casually say that some aspect of their patent is "obvious" but they're saying that as an expert in their field who may have spent months or years thinking about the problem and alternative solutions. However, if it came to court, "even the inventor said this was obvious" is a pretty hard thing to respond to.
- HumblyTossed 3y ago
  I don't think these two scenarios are the same.
  - hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
    I agree, and was originally going to downvote the parent comment for the same reason, but then realized I think they were replying to this more general point in the GP's post: > "Do this only orally" is always to hide evidence from a future court discovery. That is, I've followed enough court cases and news reports to have seen things taken egregiously out of context to agree there could be valid reasons to limit discoverable communications (though not in Tesla's specific case), especially because so few people seem to argue in good faith anymore. For example, lots of times in long email or slack threads people throw out ideas, even if they're not particularly well thought out, because that's part of what being in an open, healthy organization entails. And then I've seen these communications presented as some sort of official corporate position instead of brainstorming.
    - salawat 3y ago
      Counterpoint: What you're describing is still fine because a solid defense is to look at someone taking something out of context and going, "would you mind continuing reading?" where someone else follows up shooting down $controversial_thing because liability etc. The only reason not to create that record in the first place is because you weren't interested in compliance from the get go, and you were banking on the "naive first violation" defense. Been there, seen it in action, left because of it. Ethical abandonment, no matter how it is gussied up, is ethical abandonment. There is always time for doing what you should to keep your nose clean.

peeters 3y ago

That kind of policy should mean that in any court case where a customer's version of events/conversations differs from Tesla's, the customer is assumed to be telling the truth until definitely proven otherwise. The legal liability of this policy should be so great that no sane company would have this policy over just creating a paper trail in the first place.

jejeyyy77 3y ago
lol, thats not how it works at all.
- vikramkr 3y ago
  I think that's why the parent comment was using the word "should" a lot
  - Zarathustra30 3y ago
    For those unclear on the definitions, https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2119 https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2119
- singleshot_ 3y ago
  How would you interpret the following: if electronically stored information that should have been preserved in the anticipation or conduct of litigation is lost because a party fails to take reasonable steps to preserve it, and it cannot be restored or replaced through additional discovery, the court only upon finding that the party acted with the intent to deprive another party of the information to use in the litigation may presume that the lost information was unfavorable to the party.

maffydub 3y ago

In previous employment (as a software engineer), I've been told to do this too - mainly around inventions we were trying to patent. The reason is slightly less nefarious than you might think - for example, someone might casually say that some aspect of their patent is "obvious" but they're saying that as an expert in their field who may have spent months or years thinking about the problem and alternative solutions. However, if it came to court, "even the inventor said this was obvious" is a pretty hard thing to respond to.

HumblyTossed 3y ago
I don't think these two scenarios are the same.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  I agree, and was originally going to downvote the parent comment for the same reason, but then realized I think they were replying to this more general point in the GP's post: > "Do this only orally" is always to hide evidence from a future court discovery. That is, I've followed enough court cases and news reports to have seen things taken egregiously out of context to agree there could be valid reasons to limit discoverable communications (though not in Tesla's specific case), especially because so few people seem to argue in good faith anymore. For example, lots of times in long email or slack threads people throw out ideas, even if they're not particularly well thought out, because that's part of what being in an open, healthy organization entails. And then I've seen these communications presented as some sort of official corporate position instead of brainstorming.
  - salawat 3y ago
    Counterpoint: What you're describing is still fine because a solid defense is to look at someone taking something out of context and going, "would you mind continuing reading?" where someone else follows up shooting down $controversial_thing because liability etc. The only reason not to create that record in the first place is because you weren't interested in compliance from the get go, and you were banking on the "naive first violation" defense. Been there, seen it in action, left because of it. Ethical abandonment, no matter how it is gussied up, is ethical abandonment. There is always time for doing what you should to keep your nose clean.