Twitter Hit with Class Action Lawsuit After Executing ‘Mass Layoff’ Allegedly Without Notice [UPDATE]
Last Updated on January 19, 2023
Cornet et al. v. Twitter, Inc.
Filed: November 3, 2022 ◆§ 3:22-cv-06857
Twitter faces a class action after executing a reportedly rushed and chaotic “mass layoff” of roughly 3,700 employees, approximately half of its workforce, on November 4, 2022.
January 19, 2023 – Ex-Twitter Workers’ WARN Act Claims Sent to Arbitration
A federal judge has ordered the plaintiffs in the proposed class action detailed on this page to handle their claims before an arbitrator, citing the arbitration agreements signed by the individuals in their employment contracts with Twitter.
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In a five-page order issued on January 13, United States District Judge James Donato relayed that the arbitration agreements in the contracts cover disputes related to the termination of employment and gave the plaintiffs an opportunity to opt out of the arrangement, which they did not do.
Judge Donato added that the agreements also contained a class action waiver, which states that the plaintiffs’ claims against Twitter must be arbitrated individually.
“The salient facts are undisputed,” Judge Donato stated.
The plaintiffs objected to the arbitration order on the grounds that the agreements are “unconscionable” and that the delegation clauses within them do not precisely say an arbitrator must decide whether the dispute is suitable for arbitration, court documents show. However, the judge determined that the signed arbitration agreements were “clear and straightforward.”
The plaintiffs also challenged the part of the class action waiver which prevents them from taking action under the Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA), the order says. The judge also threw out this objection, however, because the “operative complaint does not allege a PAGA claim” and “the Court can only address what is presently in the record.”
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December 16, 2022 – Twitter Must Inform Workers of WARN Act Class Action, Judge Orders
A federal judge this week ordered Twitter to provide thousands of employees with direct notice of the proposed class action detailed on this page before asking them to release their legal claims against the company.
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In a three-page order entered Wednesday, United States District Judge James Donato said that Twitter “did not present a good reason to reach a different conclusion” with regard to its failure to notify laid-off workers of the pendency of the case in connection with severance packages.
“On the record before the Court, a succinctly and plainly worded notice of this case is warranted,” Judge Donato wrote, calling the dispute “a textbook scenario for providing notice of a pending class action lawsuit.”
Judge Donato stated that there is no question that Twitter has the right to communicate with employees in the normal course of a workplace relationship, but those communications “should not be rendered misleading by omitting material information about a pending lawsuit.”
“That is information an employee should know before deciding to accept a severance package that contains a general release,” the judge said.
Judge Donato directed Twitter and the plaintiffs to file with the court a proposed notice form, written in “neutral and objective terms that a typical employee would understand,” about the proposed class action by December 19, 2022.
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Twitter faces a proposed class action lawsuit after executing a reportedly rushed and chaotic “mass layoff” of roughly 3,700 employees, approximately half of its workforce, on Friday, November 4.
The 10-page lawsuit, filed Thursday, November 3 in California, alleges Twitter, which was purchased by Tesla founder Elon Musk for $44 billion in October, has violated the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act and California WARN Act by laying off thousands of workers without providing the requisite 60 days’ advanced notice.
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After Musk took charge of the platform in late October, reports began to circulate that the social media company planned to lay off about 3,700 workers, or approximately 50 percent of its total workforce, the filing says. Per the lawsuit, the layoffs began with only a few employees, including the five plaintiffs, who say they were locked out of their Twitter accounts during the first week of this month.
The lawsuit contends that without action from the court, Twitter will continue to fire employees without providing 60 days’ advanced notice, as required by federal and California law for employers of a certain size. The plaintiffs are also concerned that Twitter employees will be asked to release the company from liability without being informed of their rights under federal and state law. The lawsuit alleges Musk “engaged in similar violations of the WARN Act and the California WARN Act” in early summer 2022, when Tesla rolled out its own mass layoff, allegedly without providing mandatory advanced notice, while seeking to obtain “full releases” of liability from the federal and California WARN Acts “in exchange for small severance payments” of at most two weeks’ pay.
“Plaintiffs here are reasonably concerned that, absent court intervention, Twitter will engage in similar behavior and seek releases from laid off employees without informing them of their rights or the pendency of this case,” the lawsuit states, asking for “immediate relief” to ensure Twitter does not seek releases from workers who have not been informed of their rights.
Twitter is subject to the federal and California WARN Acts given that it employed 100 or more employees, excluding part-time employees, or employed 100 or more employees who in aggregate worked at least 4,000 hours per week exclusive of overtime in the United States and California, the complaint says. Moreover, the anticipated layoffs are expected to cause the loss of employment for more than 500 people, the filing relays.
Bloomberg reported on November 6 that Twitter management, after axing roughly half the company, had asked dozens of workers who were supposedly “laid off by mistake” to come back to work. Some Twitter employees, Bloomberg wrote, were laid off before management realized that their work and experience were needed to build new features Musk had envisioned for the platform.
Last Friday, November 4, Musk tweeted that there was no way to avoid Twitter’s “reduction in force” given the company “is losing over $4M/day.” Musk stated that everyone who was laid off was offered three months of severance.
The lawsuit looks to cover anyone who worked for Twitter in the United States and was laid off without the required notice as part of the mass layoff at issue in the case.
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