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Comment by Infinitesimus | Hacker News Reader

> Indeed, why would they have anticipated that it would lead to Damore's firing? If that was obvious, then that would have been obvious to Damore when he wrote it.

Not sure I agree. There is no big tech corporation in current America where having your name tied to a memo like that won't destroy your career within the company l.

Damore certainly should have expected that if leadership disagreed with him, he was in for a bad time. However, he still is within reasonable bounds to go after whoever leaked the internal memo externally regardless of whether or not you agree with the content.

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Go after them for what? In America, you can't just sue people for "you told the truth" or "my own words made me look bad and its your fault".

In America you can sue anyone for anything at any time. Whether you will win or not is another matter, but if you've never been to jury duty the court system is absolutely packed with cases that seem absurd. In this instance, it would be perfectly plausible to sue for something like emotional distress.

One can file a case, sure. But even to get to discovery, let alone trial, the suit has to be about something for which one can actually sue. Emotional distress can be a factor in damages, but a judge would instantly throw out a case whose only basis was, "The bad man hurt my feelings."

If people here are just saying Damore should just harass people by file frivolous lawsuits that will quickly be thrown out, then fine, let them say that. But the theory that there's legitimate grounds for a lawsuit that could actually succeed is ridiculous.

There is no way a lawsuit like this would survive a motion to dismiss. Intentional infliction of emotional distress requires an underlying wrongdoing, among other things. There was no legal wrong committed when the document was leaked.

Are you a lawyer by chance? In California, infliction of emotional distress in a jury trial requires things that are plausible in this case. See CACI No. 1600, especially the OR section of #2 [1]. I am very skeptical that such a case would actually be dismissed rather than go to trial. I was a juror on a trial with similar grounds a few years ago. Perhaps you've seen something in the handling of such cases that I haven't.

[1] https://www.justia.com/trials-litigation/docs/caci/1600/1600...

Did you read that? In particular, see the Hughes vs Pair quote:

"A cause of action for intentional inﬂiction of emotional distress exists when there is ‘(1) extreme and outrageous conduct by the defendant with the intention of causing, or reckless disregard of the probability of causing, emotional distress; (2) the plaintiff’s suffering severe or extreme emotional distress; and (3) actual and proximate causation of the emotional distress by the defendant’s outrageous conduct.’ A defendant’s conduct is ‘outrageous’ when it is so ‘extreme as to exceed all bounds of that usually tolerated in a civilized community.’ And the defendant’s conduct must be ‘intended to inﬂict injury or engaged in with the realization that injury will result.'"

Quoting somebody's actual words is in no way "outrageous" under that standard. People in civilized communities quote what other people say all the time. And even if the didn't, the first amendment strongly protects political speech, and quoting somebody else's political speech is pretty obviously part of that.

So I'm guessing you're not a lawyer then and just enjoy talking about things with authority on HN as though you are an expert. I'm disappointed yet again, but not surprised since that seems to be the norm here. Please stop doing that - it makes this community worse.

Yes, I did read it, thanks for being condescending and violating HN guidelines. As I said already, I sat on the jury for a similar case that did go to trial in California so your rationale for thinking this wouldn't doesn't make sense to me and seems based on no actual experience. This is not an instance of someone simply quoting another person - the individual who posted the memo online did so deliberately to cause harm and bring unwanted media attention and public hatred toward another individual, which pretty much ruined his life. Further, your focus on the "outrageous" portion only shows you're cherry picking what you want this particular tort to say rather than the whole definition. So yes, it is reckless disregard under that standard and any lawyer could probably bring it to trial if they so desired. Whether the jury would find the tweeter guilty or not is another matter.

You have absolutely no idea what the intent of the person posting was. None. You are making things up to suit your position.

You having sat one one whole jury does not make you an expert in this topic.

I am not "cherry picking". I quoted the whole standard. It has three parts. I pointed to the part that in my view clearly does not apply. If you think it does apply, feel free to argue it. But standing on your expertise of being in the same room with lawyers once does not cut it for me.

There are multiple prongs to the tort and all of them have to be fulfilled. A reasonable jury cannot conclude that leaking the memo to the media is outrageous conduct beyond all the standards of civilised society. It no longer matters if the defendant acted intentionally; the claim fails and must be dismissed.

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