COMES NOW PLAINTIFF MARK WEATHERS for causes of action, and alleges as follows: I. ALLEGATIONS
1. Plaintiff Mark Weathers ("Mr. Weathers" or "Plaintiff") resides in California and is a former employee of Defendant Yelp Inc. At all relevant times herein, Mr. Weathers worked for Defendant in San Francisco.
2. Defendant Yelp Inc. ("Yelp" or "Defendant") hosts an online database of user-generated reviews of local businesses and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.
3. The true names and capacities, whether individual, corporate or otherwise, of DOES 1 through 10 are at this time unknown to Plaintiff, who therefore sues* said Defendants by such fictitious names. Plaintiff will ask leave to amend this complaint for damages to reflect their true names and capacities when* the same have been ascertained. Plaintiff is informed and believes, and thereon alleges, that each of said Defendants is responsible, jointly and severally, for the events and injuries described herein and caused damages thereby as alleged herein.
4. Plaintiff is informed and believes, and thereon alleges, that at all times mentioned herein each and every co-Defendant was and is the predecessor-in-interest, successor-in-interest, agent, counselor, employee, servant, partner, franchisee and/or joint venturer of each of other co Defendant, and in doing the actions hereinafter mentioned, was and/or is acting within the scope of its authority within such agency, employment, counseling, service, partnership, franchise and/or joint venture or single enterprise, and with the permission and consent of each co-Defendant. Plaintiff alleges that each of said Defendants is responsible, jointly and severally, for the events and injuries described herein and caused damages thereby to Plaintiff as alleged herein.
5. In October of 2016, Yelp offered Mr. Weathers the position of Security Manager starting on November 14, 2016, and reporting to the Head of Security Rick Lee.
6. Mr. Weathers' duties included overseeing several site managers located throughout the country. His compensation included an annual salary, an equity award, a relocation bonus, and a benefits package that included health, dental, vision, life insurance, long term disability, and 401(k).
7. At all times, Mr. Weathers fulfilled the expectations of his . position. In January of 2018, Yelp increased Mr. Weathers' compensation and granted him stock.
8. On Saturday, March 31, 2018, which was Easter weekend, Mr. Lee called Mr. Weathers about an email he had sent the previous night (Good Friday) at 11:49 p.m. Mr. Lee wanted to know why Mr. Weathers had not yet responded to an email. Mr. Weathers indicated that he had not checked his email because it was Easter weekend and he was spending time with his family and attending church services. In fact, Mr. Weathers was attending a church-sponsored event when he answered Mr. Lee's phone call. Mr. Lee was upset that no one, including Mr. Weathers, had responded to an employee's ticket request for after-hours access to Yelp's offices in Phoenix the prior evening after normal business hours. Mr. Lee said Mr. Weathers needed to be responsive, even while he was attending church services.
9. At 12:40 p.m. on Easter Sunday, April 1, while Mr. Weathers was attending church services with his family, Mr. Lee emailed Mr. Weathers and the site managers regarding this situation. He instructed Mr. Weathers to contact each of the site managers to find out what had happened with the ticket request and how to prevent the situation from recurring. He demanded that Mr. Weathers provide an "after action review" to him by the close of business the following day, necessitating that Mr. Weathers contact each of his co-workers on Easter Sunday. In addition, Mr. Lee admonished, "Each leader on this email should make a regular practice of checking email and setting cell phones to take inbound calls 24/7/365 ... so that your phone still rings even if you set it to 'do not disturb' mode." Otherwise, he threatened to "make some changes" if employees could not "commit to being attentive to [their] inbound communiques."
10. On April 2, Mr. Weathers timely provided the information that Mr. Lee had requested. As part of this information, Mr. Weathers explained to Mr. Lee that, "I made a choice to focus on Easter Weekend (Good Friday, Easter Sunday), a very important weekend for me ... I did not check email as I usually would on other weekends." Mr. Lee responded, "You should be checking emails and vmails/inbound calls every day (regardless of weekend or holiday). I understand that church services likely require you to turn off devices. However, a 12-hour gap of non-checking is not acceptable. (Recall that I worked on an incident for 4 hours on Christmas Eve when my personal priority was to be with my family.)" Mr. Lee also verbally told Mr. Weathers, "I don't care about your PTO, religious holidays, your kids or your birthday. I expect a response to my emails." He made this statement despite knowing that Mr. Weathers is a person of faith who is pursuing a degree in ministry leadership and whose son is severely autistic.
11. On April 3, Mr. Weathers approached human resources. He told a human resources representative about the incident that had occurred over Easter weekend, and specifically that Mr. Lee demanded that employees be responsive to work issues even during religious and family commitments. Mr. Weathers also conveyed that his direct reports had expressed concerns about being required to work on Easter Sunday or during paid time off. The human resources representative said she would follow up on this issue. She also suggested that he could include this information as part of his feedback in the manager's survey-a companywide anonymous survey completed by all employees, which he did.
12. On May 15, the day after the manager's survey results were published, Mr. Lee met with Mr. Weathers for their quarterly conversation. During this meeting, for the first time, Mr. Lee was critical of Mr. Weathers performance. He accused Mr. Weathers of needing 'recognition." He said that Mr. Weathers' work on a physical security review the previous month had been disappointing, even though at the time, he commended Mr. Weathers for having done a "great" job. When Mr. Weathers pointed this out, Mr. Lee claimed that his earlier positive feedback had been a "miscommunication." Mr. Lee also said that there had been a "ranking meeting" in February of 2018, and that he and Yelp's CFO had ranked Mr. Weathers as "third or fourth" in ''performance and potential." He never mentioned before that such a meeting had taken place, or that supposedly there were issues with Mr. Weathers' performance or career potential. In fact, Mr. Lee previously had been complimentary of Mr. Weathers' performance and told him that the CFO had praised Mr. Weathers for having a "growth mindset." Finally, Mr. Lee said that he did not like Mr. Weathers' response to the situation that had occurred over Easter Weekend-in which Mr. Weathers stated, "I made a choice to focus on Easter Weekend (Good Friday, Easter Sunday), a very important weekend for me ... I did not check email as I usually would on other weekends"-and reiterated that he was not concerned about Mr. Weathers' ::hurch or family obligations.
13. After this meeting, Mr. Lee all but stopped communicating with VJr. Weathers and sidelined Mr. Weathers from participating in work matters.
14. On May 25, 2018, Mr. Lee and the* human resources *epresentative met with Mr. Weathers. Mr. Lee advised Mr. Weathers that he Nas "not a good fit for this role" and presented him with three options: a performance plan, one month's severance, or termination. Mr. Weathers pointed out that Mr. Lee had previously told Mr. Weathers that "people do not survive [performance plans]." In fact, Mr. Lee said this on numerous occasions about various employees. Mr. Weathers pointed out that, in light of this, a performance improvement plan did not seem like a viable option.
15. On May 29, the human resources representative told Mr. Weathers that the company was "concerned" about how Mr. Lee had managed the situation and, therefore, would be investigating whether there was retaliation. She interviewed Mr. Weathers over the next few days, including about Mr. Lee's statements that Mr. Weathers and other employees are required to work during paid time off and regardless of church or family obligations.
16. On May 31, 2018, the human resources representative told Mr. Weathers that she had "looked into" the situation but supposedly determined that Mr. Lee had not said anything illegal.
17. On June 4, 2018, the human resources representative sent Mr. Weathers a meeting request and said that Mr. Lee wanted to present Mr. Weathers with a list of performance issues. Mr. Weathers asked for a copy of the list in advance, so that he could be prepared for their meeting, but no one provided him with a copy.
18. Instead, on June 5, when Mr. Weathers met with the human resources representative, she told him that given the "toxic environment," "it would be better" for Mr. Weathers to leave his employment at Yelp. Yelp terminated Mr. Weathers from his employment effective June 5, 2018.
19. Plaintiff timely exhausted his administrative remedies by filing a :harge of discrimination with the Department of Fair Employment and Housing and obtaining a right to sue.
20. Defendant's actions were undertaken for improper purposes as alleged above and were willful, oppressive and in conscious disregard of Plaintiff's rights, and were designed and intended to cause and did, in fact, cause Plaintiff to suffer severe emotional distress, pain and suffering, and substantial economic damage and, therefore, justify the awarding of exemplary and punitive damages.