Termination of Mozilla CEO Likely Violated California Law | Hacker News Reader

Termination of Mozilla CEO Likely Violated California Law

vtzlawblog.com

31 pointsduked26 comments

He resigned - he was not terminated. He says so right on his personal blog:

https://brendaneich.com/2014/04/the-next-mission/

More details: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/05/faq-on-ceo-resignat...

He was involved in Mozilla from the beginning. My gut tells me he did what he thought was right to allow Mozilla to move forward once he realized the bad PR was not going away no matter how hard he tried to fix or assure folks they had nothing to worry about. Obviously this is conjecture on my part.

That is in line with what I've read from people closer to the matter.

To the people who say he resigned and was not fired: there is such a thing as "constructive dismissal", which basically means "forced to resign".

Yes, and no one with any basis for knowledge has suggested that the fact pattern which supports constructive dismissal existed. If you have actual facts supporting a claim that Eich's resignation was an instance of constructive dismissal, rather than pure speculation, go ahead and present them.

Wiki says California's definition of that is:

> "In order to establish a constructive discharge, an employee must plead and prove, by the usual preponderance of the evidence standard, that the employer either intentionally created or knowingly permitted working conditions that were so intolerable or aggravated at the time of the employee's resignation that a reasonable employer would realize that a reasonable person in the employee's position would be compelled to resign."

I'd imagine that's somewhat hard to argue as the CEO.

Van Vleck Turner & Zaller LLP specializes in all aspects of California labor and employment law.

It would be surpising for a law firm to publish something blatantly obtuse on the subject.

More likely, the departure was negotiated with a non-disparagement clause and a payout.

A legal action by the disgruntled employee would be terminal for mozilla's mission and brand. The could not risk a trial--it would be worse publicity--so they would settle. But this should have been anticipated and already settled, however. This is why HR people are employed and why executive failures are typically quiet.

On the merits, there is public evidence that The Mozilla Foundation chief executive was publicly hostile to the departed executive of MoCo.Due to the corporate structure of mozilla, the Foundation executive can be hostile to MoCo ceo without being in a position of legal unsubordination.[+] Which basically render's your point moot.

_________

[+] The foundation is the 100% owner (and thus in a Parent-child relation) of MoCo.

The board could just say "total breakdown in trust between employer and employee" or "bringing the company into disrepute" as grounds for dismissal.

And constructive dismissal is a really hard thing to prove and you have to sue for breach of contract.

> The board could just say "total breakdown in trust between employer and employee" or "bringing the company into disrepute" as grounds for dismissal.

The courts usually see through obvious window-dressing like that.

Er actually I do know quite a bit about how employment law works and both of those grounds I mentioned are can be valid reasons to dismiss fairly.

And that is not considering the fact that CA is an "at will" state

He wasn't terminated, he resigned.

Anyway, can you imagine the ruckus that would ensue if Eich took Mozilla to court?!

How would that damage him/his reputation any more than it's already damaged?

Do you believe "people who worry about a lawsuit" is entirely subsumed by "people who are vociferously pro gay marriage"?

Well, at the moment, Eich is unpopular with some people because he supported a cause they really didn't agree with, and because his failure to deal with the fallout risked causing harm to Mozilla.

If he actively took steps which caused more damage in the respect, I think it's fair to say that he wouldn't come out of it well.

Oh that's and easy task! You can always create a career out of offending half of the country and making the other half passionately support you. The talkshow pundit circus could certainly need somebody who positioned himself as "exposing the hypocrisies of the liberal valley elite.

Both Mozilla and Eich publicly claim it was a true resignation and not a constructive dismissal: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/05/faq-on-ceo-resignat... https://brendaneich.com/2014/04/the-next-mission/

The article assumes he was terminated. Is there good evidence to think this?

In such situations, it's impossible to tell whether it's a forced resignation or not, unless the people who really know (the board and CEO) want to talk about it.

Note that labor law sometimes treats even explicit resignations as equivalent to dismissal - "constructive termination" - when pressured by a intolerable situation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_dismissal#United_S...

However, the relationship between a board and CEO, and the power and discretion of the CEO, is quite different than the situation of most employees, so a lot of the same worker-protection logic would not likely apply.

So I find this an interesting item about how California law is so explicitly protective of political participation by general employees... but not likely a cause for action in the Eich situation.

There is evidence to the contrary.

The beginning of this blog post screams that the author doesn't care about facts.

"Mozilla (the maker of the Firefox search engine)"

Really?

The article itself says he resigned. Probably with a nice fat golden parachute in return for waiving any rights to litigation.

> a nice fat golden parachute

best ROI on a 1K spent 5 years ago :)

In serious, it sounds and looks like a witch hunt, which i happily have added my [anonymous] voice to.

Didn't he resign though?

It is also possible they told him that if he didn't resign, he would be terminated.

From the article, "No employer shall coerce or influence or attempt to coerce or influence his employees through or by means of threat of discharge or loss of employment to adopt or follow or refrain from adopting or following any particular course or line of political action or political activity."

Unless he wants to make a mess for Mozilla (and I don't think it sounds like he does), we'll probably never know what really happened.

In that case where are all the successful court cases for the Union members sacked for trying to organize in walmart etc?

Personally it would be interesting to sue OKCupid for promting the boycott to compel Mozilla to violate employment laws.

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