5 ms·

Reading the complaint, ADP is not likely come close to winning. The defamation they claimed happened is that Zenefits "alleged that ADP intentionally sought to

Reading the complaint, ADP is not likely come close to winning. The defamation they claimed happened is that Zenefits "alleged that ADP intentionally sought to cause harm to ADP’s clients solely to gain an unfair competitive advantage against Zenefits.” Even if you argue this is defamation per se (and not per quod), about a matter of private concern, they'd still have to prove "4. That [name of defendant] failed to use reasonable care to determine the truth or falsity of the statement(s). " (california jury instructions for this charge will be here: https://www.justia.com/trials-litigation/docs/caci/1700/1704.html https://www.justia.com/trials-litigation/docs/caci/1700/1704...) There is a near 0% chance they can prove a lack of reasonable care here. Plus, they open themselves up to discovery on any memos, etc they've written about this decision internally, which almost certainly show the statement is truth. Note the above is the best case. If it's determined to be a matter of public concern, or defamation per quod, ADP's chances go down.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
peteretep 11y ago
> ADP is not likely come close to winning Are they trying to win the case, or a longer game involving customer confidence?
- DannyBee 11y ago
  Probably the latter, but this is a dumb way to do it :) As a customer, my takeaway would be "If ADP doesn't like what i tell people about it, it's going to actually sue me".
  - jusben1369 11y ago
    I like your posts here but think this one missed the mark. I think as ADP you want "Uncertainty startup Zenefits uncertainty sued Zenefits incumbent ADP uncertainty Zenefits" in the minds of every non startup CFO or VP of HR who was thinking there might be something worth investigating with Zenefits raising $500 mil at a huge valuation.
    - DannyBee 11y ago
      Sure, i know that is what they are going for, but at least in my case, it wouldn't accomplish that :) Suing competitors rarely makes people think you are wonderful. Suing competitors to create uncertainty is in fact, a great way to end up in a huge antitrust lawsuit.
  - jsmthrowaway 11y ago
    Quite the contrary. ADP wins a PR coup as long as they keep Conrad talking in public. That's the play you're missing, and it will work -- just look at this thread. I see the lawsuit as a stretch too but it certainly turned the PR table on Zenefits and rapidly. There is far more cleverness in ADP's strategy than is obvious.
nostrademons 11y ago
I'm curious, do you know something about the facts of this case that hasn't appeared on Hacker News before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9679312 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9679312 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9688442 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9688442 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9686175 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9686175 It looks like they were asking for users' login credentials to scrape ADP's frontend, and that Zenefits had never talked directly to ADP. The scraping broke when ADP added DOS protection to their portal; they claim that Zenefits was responsible for 25% of their traffic despite serving only 0.25% of their clients. I kinda want Zenefits to win here, because I one day dream of having employees and from what I've seen Zenefits is much easier to deal with than ADP. But the specific actions they've taken here look really bad. It's as if a third-party site asked users for their Google logins and then used it to aggressively scrape personalized search results off the SRP; such usage would get blocked by DOS protection, and it'd have nothing to do with Google targeting a competitor and everything to do with them protecting the security and integrity of their systems.
- xsmasher 11y ago
  The parent is addressing whether ADP will win a defamation suit; it's possible that Zenefits violated TOS and that ADP shut them down with good reason, but that doesn't mean that Zenefits defamed ADP.
  - nostrademons 11y ago
    Yeah, but DannyBee's post explicitly mentions that they'll fail based on 4. "That Zenefits failed to use reasonable care to determine the truth or falsity of the statement(s)". I wanted to know if he knows something factually about what went on other than what's been reported here, because if I were a jury member and the facts were that Zenefits used their customers' login credentials (against ADP's TOS) to access ADP's internal systems, and then were shut off for generating 100x more traffic than a normal human user, and then responded to that shutoff with an open letter to their customers alleging bad faith rather than shooting ADP a "Hey, our customers can't access your service through our portal. What's up? Can we work with you to make our customers happy again?" - I would consider that a lack of reasonable care, barring legal instructions (perhaps "reasonable care" has a specific meaning different from the layperson's?) or facts to the contrary.
DannyBee 11y ago
And here's the part where ADP likely loses: http://blog.zenefits.com/adp-2/ http://blog.zenefits.com/adp-2/ If Zenefits had knowledge of this product prior to making their statement (quite likely), then this is nearly certain to be good enough to support the statement they made. (Note: I really could care less either way, i'm just trying to give an objective legal viewpoint :P)
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
rhino369 11y ago
>There is a near 0% chance they can prove a lack of reasonable care here. Plus, they open themselves up to discovery on any memos, etc they've written about this decision internally, which almost certainly show the statement is truth. But discovery cuts both ways. They could easily find a Zenefits email that says "lets blast them for this, who cares if it is true or not, it's about perception." I agree they probably won't win, but never rule out a smoking gun.
gamblor956 11y ago
There's also a good chance that ADP will win. The reasonable cause comes down to the truth or falsity of all of the statements that Zenefits made in its original post, not just the ones that relate to the launching of a competitor. Basically, Zenefits accuses ADP of blocking access solely because of a single traffic spike. On top of that, it accuses ADP of changing their reasons for cutting off Zenefit's access. They then accuse ADP of "spreading FUD"--and lying--about Zenefits for the purposes of quashing the competition. That last statement, especially, is pretty dangerous under defamation law as it's pretty close per se defamation, in which case ADP would only have to prove the statement was made in court to win. There's no defense to that except proving that ADP was lying about Zenefits. Based on what both parties have said, and what we know about how Zenefit's system actually works, a jury could definitely find that Zenefits defamed ADP and I would say, based on prior experience with juries, that there is at worst a 50/50 chance from ADP's perspective if this goes to trial.
larrys 11y ago
"Reading the complaint, ADP is not likely come close to winning." Maybe it's not about winning the lawsuit though. Could be about a PR play to show that ADP is serious enough about what they said prior to the lawsuit to follow it up with a lawsuit. Could be about forcing the other side to take what they are asking them to do (retract) seriously and perhaps and take back the negative comments. And so on.
pbreit 11y ago
Seems like lawsuit is the only way we'll find out the truth. I'm not inclined to believe Zenefits at this point. Was it really scraping ADP rather than using the normal integration methods made available to all brokers?
hobbyjogger 11y ago
The complaint[1] includes five claims: (1) Defamation, (2) Intentional Interference with Prospective Economic Relations, (3) Unfair Competition, (4) False Advertising and (5) Lanham Act Violation. Without getting into the legal contours of each, I'd say the defamation claim is at the bottom of the list of Zenefit's legal concerns here. [1] http://www.scribd.com/doc/268286803/ADP-v-Zenefits-Defamation-Complaint#scribd http://www.scribd.com/doc/268286803/ADP-v-Zenefits-Defamatio...

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

peteretep 11y ago

> ADP is not likely come close to winning Are they trying to win the case, or a longer game involving customer confidence?

DannyBee 11y ago
Probably the latter, but this is a dumb way to do it :) As a customer, my takeaway would be "If ADP doesn't like what i tell people about it, it's going to actually sue me".
- jusben1369 11y ago
  I like your posts here but think this one missed the mark. I think as ADP you want "Uncertainty startup Zenefits uncertainty sued Zenefits incumbent ADP uncertainty Zenefits" in the minds of every non startup CFO or VP of HR who was thinking there might be something worth investigating with Zenefits raising $500 mil at a huge valuation.
  - DannyBee 11y ago
    Sure, i know that is what they are going for, but at least in my case, it wouldn't accomplish that :) Suing competitors rarely makes people think you are wonderful. Suing competitors to create uncertainty is in fact, a great way to end up in a huge antitrust lawsuit.
- jsmthrowaway 11y ago
  Quite the contrary. ADP wins a PR coup as long as they keep Conrad talking in public. That's the play you're missing, and it will work -- just look at this thread. I see the lawsuit as a stretch too but it certainly turned the PR table on Zenefits and rapidly. There is far more cleverness in ADP's strategy than is obvious.

nostrademons 11y ago

I'm curious, do you know something about the facts of this case that hasn't appeared on Hacker News before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9679312 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9679312 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9688442 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9688442 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9686175 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9686175 It looks like they were asking for users' login credentials to scrape ADP's frontend, and that Zenefits had never talked directly to ADP. The scraping broke when ADP added DOS protection to their portal; they claim that Zenefits was responsible for 25% of their traffic despite serving only 0.25% of their clients. I kinda want Zenefits to win here, because I one day dream of having employees and from what I've seen Zenefits is much easier to deal with than ADP. But the specific actions they've taken here look really bad. It's as if a third-party site asked users for their Google logins and then used it to aggressively scrape personalized search results off the SRP; such usage would get blocked by DOS protection, and it'd have nothing to do with Google targeting a competitor and everything to do with them protecting the security and integrity of their systems.

xsmasher 11y ago
The parent is addressing whether ADP will win a defamation suit; it's possible that Zenefits violated TOS and that ADP shut them down with good reason, but that doesn't mean that Zenefits defamed ADP.
- nostrademons 11y ago
  Yeah, but DannyBee's post explicitly mentions that they'll fail based on 4. "That Zenefits failed to use reasonable care to determine the truth or falsity of the statement(s)". I wanted to know if he knows something factually about what went on other than what's been reported here, because if I were a jury member and the facts were that Zenefits used their customers' login credentials (against ADP's TOS) to access ADP's internal systems, and then were shut off for generating 100x more traffic than a normal human user, and then responded to that shutoff with an open letter to their customers alleging bad faith rather than shooting ADP a "Hey, our customers can't access your service through our portal. What's up? Can we work with you to make our customers happy again?" - I would consider that a lack of reasonable care, barring legal instructions (perhaps "reasonable care" has a specific meaning different from the layperson's?) or facts to the contrary.

DannyBee 11y ago

And here's the part where ADP likely loses: http://blog.zenefits.com/adp-2/ http://blog.zenefits.com/adp-2/ If Zenefits had knowledge of this product prior to making their statement (quite likely), then this is nearly certain to be good enough to support the statement they made. (Note: I really could care less either way, i'm just trying to give an objective legal viewpoint :P)

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

rhino369 11y ago

>There is a near 0% chance they can prove a lack of reasonable care here. Plus, they open themselves up to discovery on any memos, etc they've written about this decision internally, which almost certainly show the statement is truth. But discovery cuts both ways. They could easily find a Zenefits email that says "lets blast them for this, who cares if it is true or not, it's about perception." I agree they probably won't win, but never rule out a smoking gun.

gamblor956 11y ago

There's also a good chance that ADP will win. The reasonable cause comes down to the truth or falsity of all of the statements that Zenefits made in its original post, not just the ones that relate to the launching of a competitor. Basically, Zenefits accuses ADP of blocking access solely because of a single traffic spike. On top of that, it accuses ADP of changing their reasons for cutting off Zenefit's access. They then accuse ADP of "spreading FUD"--and lying--about Zenefits for the purposes of quashing the competition. That last statement, especially, is pretty dangerous under defamation law as it's pretty close per se defamation, in which case ADP would only have to prove the statement was made in court to win. There's no defense to that except proving that ADP was lying about Zenefits. Based on what both parties have said, and what we know about how Zenefit's system actually works, a jury could definitely find that Zenefits defamed ADP and I would say, based on prior experience with juries, that there is at worst a 50/50 chance from ADP's perspective if this goes to trial.

larrys 11y ago

"Reading the complaint, ADP is not likely come close to winning." Maybe it's not about winning the lawsuit though. Could be about a PR play to show that ADP is serious enough about what they said prior to the lawsuit to follow it up with a lawsuit. Could be about forcing the other side to take what they are asking them to do (retract) seriously and perhaps and take back the negative comments. And so on.

pbreit 11y ago

Seems like lawsuit is the only way we'll find out the truth. I'm not inclined to believe Zenefits at this point. Was it really scraping ADP rather than using the normal integration methods made available to all brokers?

hobbyjogger 11y ago

The complaint[1] includes five claims: (1) Defamation, (2) Intentional Interference with Prospective Economic Relations, (3) Unfair Competition, (4) False Advertising and (5) Lanham Act Violation. Without getting into the legal contours of each, I'd say the defamation claim is at the bottom of the list of Zenefit's legal concerns here. [1] http://www.scribd.com/doc/268286803/ADP-v-Zenefits-Defamation-Complaint#scribd http://www.scribd.com/doc/268286803/ADP-v-Zenefits-Defamatio...