Tesla loses bid to move sexual harassment lawsuit to arbitration | Hacker News Reader

Tesla loses bid to move sexual harassment lawsuit to arbitration

reuters.com

58 pointsmzs37 comments

I agree with this judge. People should be able to sue their employers if they get sexually harassed by their supervisors or coworkers. Mandatory arbitration is a bad idea.

I'd go a step further and say that binding arbitration clauses between employers and their employees probably shouldn't be allowed in general. Employer/employee disputes will frequently touch upon labor law, and should be heard by a court familiar with the relevant statutes -- not by a private-sector arbitrator.

Yeah I think that the agreement to enter arbitration should only be allowed _after_ the dispute in question as arisen. That way each side needs to gain something by entering into it.

> Tesla has said it does not tolerate harassment and has disciplined and fired workers who engaged in misconduct.

Apparently except by its CEO.

Or you know, the person who's been under the most personal attacks by the most people in the world had a personality assassination attempt made on him, surprise surprise.

This literally is "I heard this from my friend" type of story, but everyone automatically believes this.

Between Elongate harassment, the steady stream of safe workplace violation claims in past years, and Elon now building a crack team of aggressive street fighter lawyers, it seems rather than correct the behaviors all accused entities are doubling down.

What does it signal?

That the media doesn't like being teased by Musk, and the establishment is doing it's best to push out people who don't play along?

I find it impossible to believe people actually think like this and aren't just aggressively defending something terrible because they are invested in the person's companies.

Have you considered that some people believe most everyone is wrong, that they won’t be told what to do by others, that they are or should be in complete control their lives, that they live by their own rules, that The Man is keeping them down, etc? Musk personifies that belief system.

> they won’t be told what to do by others, that they are or should be in complete control their lives

"You have to work in the factory even though there's a deadly virus spreading around." - Musk to his employees

But hey, pandemic shamdemic right, since the Musk said so :)

You do realize that the "sexual harrasment" allegation is that Musk asked for a handjob from a massage therapist who was already massaging him as he lay naked... and she declined and that was the end of it... right?

> You do realize that the "sexual harrasment" allegation is that Musk asked for a handjob from a massage therapist who was already massaging him as he lay naked... and she declined and that was the end of it... right?

I am not sure why you put sexual harassment in quotes like that: having your boss, let alone the wealthiest man in the world, make unwanted sexual advances is basically a textbook case of sexual harassment.

> Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitutes sexual harassment when submission to or rejection of this conduct explicitly or implicitly affects an individual's employment, unreasonably interferes with an individual's work performance or creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment. > > https://www.eeoc.gov/fact-sheet/facts-about-sexual-harassmen...

Plenty of people get massages and disrobe without sexually harassing their masseuse.

He then showed his erect penis to her.

And paid $250K of company money for her to keep quiet about it.

He said she said situation that could well be entirely fabricated. But it would take a million to bring it to trial and waste a few weeks of his life, and he has nothing to gain. Legalized extortion-if she had to jail if she lost, you'd see fewer of these

> He said she said situation that could well be entirely fabricated. But it would take a million to bring it to trial and waste a few weeks of his life, and he has nothing to gain. Legalized extortion-if she had to jail if she lost, you'd see fewer of these

And she wins Elon has to go to jail...?

I could reasonably see it being accidental. Boners can happen at quite bad times. I could also see the asking for a handjob being a badly done joke.

Still, for the courts to decide.

>badly done joke

"Badly done jokes" can still absolutely be straight up sexual harassment. You can't "it's just a prank bro" your way out of putting someone in that terrible position

Well, obviously. Hence, "for the courts to decide"

The facts are that there is an allegation without any proof right now. It only takes one person to make such an allegation. Tesla/Elon fanboyism side, I don't know how you are so sure of what really happened that you feel comfortable equating the defense of due legal process to supporting sexual harassment.

If I were to do a "Bad Take of the Week" kind of thing, this would have won it already, and it's only Tuesday.

It signals that the man who sells a line of cars named "S3XY" likes sex a lot.

> and Elon now building a crack team of aggressive street fighter lawyers

Well he did promise that they would only fight for good and never for evil. And if I know Musk, he would never make a promise he wouldn't deliver on for 8 years and running. (dripping sarcasm)

It signals that Musk has gotten some powerful enemies who are pulling strings. But my bet is that he'll get away with a slap on the wrist - he's too valuable to DoD.

There wasn't any elongate harrasment.

I'm curious. What is best practice here. Set up HR tribunals? Fire anyone who has a complaint made against them? Arrange counseling for affected parties? Offer voluntary arbitration?

Remote works solves many ills.

Handle it in court. Sexual harassment is a crime, and we already have a legal system to deal with it.

Arbitration / counseling / punishment within the company is ok as long as its voluntary (by the victim). If whatever occurred isn't actually a crime, then you handle it with arbitration which is not voluntary (because the company doesn't technically need to do anything).

If the company wants to fire the accused even if they're potentiality innocent it's ultimately up to them. In an ideal world, the accused wouldn't be forced out until they're convicted (in a court of law or internal tribunal). But in practice, the accusation itself could create drama and negative reputation, so even if the accused is 100% innocent it may be best for them to need to leave anyways.

The issue is that the standards of proof is much higher in criminal cases. There's no way to defend against fraudulent or frivolous accusations

These two sentences directly contradict each other? If an accusation is fraudulent or frivolous it won't meet the high standard of proof for criminal cases.

Hell, many sexual assault, harassment, and rape cases don't meet the standards of criminal proof because there's often not good physical evidence and "they did it" "no I didn't" isn't proof either.

Sexual harassment, generally, is not a crime. Before we start going off the deep end here. In the US in general sexual harassment is a civil matter, not a criminal one.

Lawsuits are an astoundingly inefficient way to resolve these issues. It can easily take more money than the worker will earn in his/her career to take this to trial, and the trial will rely more on caricatures and stereotypes than the worker's actual day-to-day experience. Imagine trying to convince the next 6 people that you meet that your side is right -- it comes down to looks, sympathy, emotions, etc, all of which have no relationship to what actually happened.

The reason that employment lawyers want to get these things out of arbitration is that juries are more susceptible to emotional arguments, and the lawyers can sometimes get the company to pay their (inflated) legal fees if they win.

Arbitration is quick, fast, final, and doesn't require all the legal machinations of court. Hopefully this is not a precedent.

I agree with you.

For this kind of thing it would've been best for them to go to arbitration and the plaintiff writing down a number on what is pretty much a blank check handed to her. That's all she could get out of this, if we're honest, and the amount could be quite generous too. The last thing Tesla/Musk want at the moment is bad PR.

Unless she wants to see Musk behind bars (highly unlikely) I don't see the point of this going to trial.

And sure, lawyers on both sides are rubbing their hands ...

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