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Google says its sex misconduct policy change doesn't apply to claims in progress

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Re: Google says its sex misconduct policy change doesn't apply to claims in progress

#81

Post by 013a »

cromulo wrote: post #79
013a wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is there a known metric that shows how profitability increases after a given percentage of harassed workers? Oh my goodness yes. Getting sued? Public relations? Decreased productivity from a hostile work environment? These all affect the bottom line. Seriously, for the love of all that matters in this universe: Take this notion that any company operates on a moral compass and throw it in the garbage. None of them d…

> Google is easily the most morally dubious company out there. I mean, I might have put some tobacco, arms, oil, coal, chemical, and surveillance companies up there. Particularly since I don't see them leading the way on harassment, inequity, diversity, or any of the other things Google is being criticized for. It sort of seems as though they have all the same issues plus body counts. But perhaps I've missed the news…

I did use the word "dubious" on purpose. There are certainly more strictly evil companies out there, but the moral ground Google operates on is the definition of Dubious. Its shaky and doubtful. They're self-righteous about their morality, dating back to their classic motto "Don't Be Evil", but startlingly few of their actions, especially those directly related to their products, ever feel in line with this now tossed-aside motto. In other words, they're managed by a handful of children with Computer Science degrees and relentless ambition; the moment something goes wrong they throw up their hands and yell "we're solving problems no one else has attempted" without any introspection that maybe the problem wouldn't even exist if they didn't.

But that's not really an option for any company. So they continue on.

Re: Google says its sex misconduct policy change doesn't apply to claims in progress

#82

Post by starbeast »

zeroname wrote: post #8
starbeast wrote: post #5

>“Google announced a prospective policy change that applies going forward to individual sex harassment and sex assault claims. This policy change does not apply retroactively to claims already compelled to arbitration.” Given the context, the phrase "already compelled to arbitration" sounds pretty fucking disgusting. It gave me nausea just reading it. Perhaps Google's lawyers should take slightly more care over these…

Forced arbitration should simply be illegal. As long as it's legal, you can't expect individual companies to not make use of it, that would be a competitive disadvantage.

I've heard this argument applied before to many different things in many different situations before and I view it to be just as much of an intellectually and morally bankrupt position to take, as when I first heard it.

Re: Google says its sex misconduct policy change doesn't apply to claims in progress

#83

Post by starbeast »

fareesh wrote: post #2

I suspect it boils down to one of the following? 1) Lawyers advised them to do this, and they did (Very likely) 2) Lawyers advised them otherwise, but they did this instead (Unlikely) 3) Lawyers not involved in this decision at all (Highly unlikely) So essentially, Google follows the advice of their lawyers?

You have presumably not read the article.

This article is discussing a message directly from one of google's lawyers.

Pointing out that google's lawyers give the advice of google's lawyers is somewhat less than helpful, as far as observations go.

Re: Google says its sex misconduct policy change doesn't apply to claims in progress

#84

Post by starbeast »

zeroname wrote: post #76
0x262d wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ok, here's a citation: Google made this change to their rules in the first place because a bunch of their employees got angry and shamed and criticized them publicly, which those employees were encouraged to do by the past 1-2 years of public criticism and shaming of rapists. I know companies generally follow market incentives. That doesn't mean those are good or should be excused as acceptable human behavior which i…

> ok, here's a citation: Google made this change to their rules in the first place because a bunch of their employees got angry and shamed and criticized them publicly, which those employees were encouraged to do by the past 1-2 years of public criticism and shaming of rapists. No, where's the citation that this all this shaming in criticism causes things to become illegal? Google is always in the media spotlight, th…

>where's the citation that this all this shaming in criticism causes things to become illegal?

The USA has had a civil war on this one.

Re: Google says its sex misconduct policy change doesn't apply to claims in progress

#85

Post by esquivalience »

docker_up wrote: post #50

If Google is somehow reluctant to allow current claims to relitigate their claims, does that mean that their plan going forward is to somehow restrict the top of the funnel for claims, so that the ones that do get litigated aren't as explosive or damaging as the current claims in progress? It seems weird to me that they wouldn't retroactively apply the policy unless there's something to hide within whatever currently…

It's very rare for new rules to apply retroactively — why is this surprising?

Google isn't a legislator but its policies do affect many people. For example, in the context of laws, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_post_facto_law

"In the United States, Congress is prohibited from passing ex post facto laws by clause 3 of Article I, Section 9 of the United States Constitution. The states are prohibited from passing ex post facto laws by clause 1 of Article I, Section 10. [...] Thomas Jefferson described them as "equally unjust in civil as in criminal cases"."

(To be fair, the article cites exceptions)

Re: Google says its sex misconduct policy change doesn't apply to claims in progress

#86

Post by mbrumlow »

dfxm12 wrote: post #36
mbrumlow wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect your view on this matter will be ill taken. But beyond that. It probably is not legally possible.

It probably is not legally possible. I wonder what legal standing a private company's "policy" has. Is it written into a contract of some sort, "if you are accused of sexual misconduct, we will follow policy X "? Are all those contracts now being updated? Realistically, Google can handle this how they want, so I don't see why they can't change how they handle current claims (within reason, of course, I'm sure if your…

At my company I sign documents. That are tied to money. If the terms were to change -- it would be s problem.

Just because it is called a policy does not mean it can be changed without notice and back dated.

How would you feel if your insurance company retroactively changed their policies on how active auto claims were handed ? Good thing it's not legal for them to do that.

In any case. Google can't always do what the want. The have to follow laws too.

You might be able to void a policy if both the plaintiff and defendant agreed.

I agree. That this is now just a dog and pony show.

Re: Google says its sex misconduct policy change doesn't apply to claims in progress

#87

Post by gnicholas »

Former lawyer here. My understanding is that the new rules do away with mandatory confidentiality agreements.

So it’s possible that Google made statements in pending cases that they would not have made had they known that it could become public.

As a result, they wouldn’t want to grandfather in these cases, and reasonably so (IMO).

Re: Google says its sex misconduct policy change doesn't apply to claims in progress

#88

Post by cromulo »

docker_up wrote: post #50

If Google is somehow reluctant to allow current claims to relitigate their claims, does that mean that their plan going forward is to somehow restrict the top of the funnel for claims, so that the ones that do get litigated aren't as explosive or damaging as the current claims in progress? It seems weird to me that they wouldn't retroactively apply the policy unless there's something to hide within whatever currently…

The most relevant information I see on this is Google's comment that future claims about past events will not be subject to binding arbitration. That implies that the special circumstance which will be different going forwards is not about underlying events, but about the actual current status of the claims.

If the announcement set Day 0 based on the date of the claimed harassment, that would be extremely suspicious, and I think the most natural reading would be some specific issue that's been resolved, but could produce exceptional damages. With a date-of-claim threshold, that seems much less likely; any kind of serial misbehavior or other mishandling that Google expects to avoid in the future could still create liability via claims not yet filed.

A few legally-inclined people elsewhere in the comments have pointed out that "adding the option to leave arbitration" behaves differently than "not forcing arbitration to begin with". Most non-forced arbitration is still binding, which means that neither party can start arbitration and then pursue a lawsuit after seeing the result. Opening a one-time option to leave ongoing arbitration would be much more similar to entering non-binding arbitration, a move lawyers frequently counsel against.

The proceedings of non-binding arbitration are almost never admissible in subsequent court cases, and the process lacks formal discovery. As a result, there are unpleasant tactics like entering non-binding arbitration, obtaining useful information (e.g. someone's schedule, or information of who knew about a behavior), and then pursuing a lawsuit with added or altered claims based on that information.

Re: Google says its sex misconduct policy change doesn't apply to claims in progress

#89

Post by starbeast »

esquivalience wrote: post #85
docker_up wrote: post #50

If Google is somehow reluctant to allow current claims to relitigate their claims, does that mean that their plan going forward is to somehow restrict the top of the funnel for claims, so that the ones that do get litigated aren't as explosive or damaging as the current claims in progress? It seems weird to me that they wouldn't retroactively apply the policy unless there's something to hide within whatever currently…

It's very rare for new rules to apply retroactively — why is this surprising? Google isn't a legislator but its policies do affect many people. For example, in the context of laws, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_post_facto_law "In the United States, Congress is prohibited from passing ex post facto laws by clause 3 of Article I, Section 9 of the United States Constitution. The states are prohibited from passin…

>It's very rare for new rules to apply retroactively — why is this surprising?

Surely you would only be applying rules retroactively if you were engaged in reopening finished arbitration?

Cancelling a current process that is still in open session, on the basis that you have already publicly agreed that employees being forced into that process is unfair, is not being retrospective.

Re: Google says its sex misconduct policy change doesn't apply to claims in progress

#90

Post by zeroname »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #16
zeroname wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forced arbitration should simply be illegal. As long as it's legal, you can't expect individual companies to not make use of it, that would be a competitive disadvantage.

I agree that forced arbitration should be illegal. But just because something is legal doesn't mean we can't criticize a company for doing it!

I didn't say you can't criticize it. I said you can't expect anything else. Are you going to go down the list of companies from A to Z criticizing everyone of them? Is that going to fix the problem?
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