What Happens When You Try to Sue Your Boss • Hacker News Board

Re: What Happens When You Try to Sue Your Boss

#91

Post by ldiracdelta » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 8:46 AM UTC

kyrieeschaton wrote: post #46

ldiracdelta wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about we reduce the court load by instituting loser-pays tort reform.

This effectively makes it impossible for a small plaintiff (or defendant!) to justify the risk of fighting anyone with a multi million dollar legal team at their disposal.

If the case is likely to win, then a lawyer or investor will pony up his own cash for a cut of the outcome. This means that only cases that people feel are overwhelming will be litigated. Marginal cases to bleed your enemy dry do not work, because they work against you.

Re: What Happens When You Try to Sue Your Boss

#92

Post by jsmith99 » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 9:09 AM UTC

kyrieeschaton wrote: post #46

ldiracdelta wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about we reduce the court load by instituting loser-pays tort reform.

This effectively makes it impossible for a small plaintiff (or defendant!) to justify the risk of fighting anyone with a multi million dollar legal team at their disposal.

In the UK, claimants using a 'no win no fee' deal usually buy After The Event insurance to protect them against having to pay the other sides' costs.

Re: What Happens When You Try to Sue Your Boss

#93

Post by piokoch » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 9:11 AM UTC

I didn't know that it is legal to force someone to resign from being able to go to the court. I thought that right to use court to defend ones right is a right that cannot be revoked by some agreement. For me it looks as if someone would sign an agreement that company might kill employee if sales target is not met or enslave him and his family.

Re: What Happens When You Try to Sue Your Boss

#94

Post by C1sc0cat » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 9:26 AM UTC

Traubenfuchs wrote: post #86

I have very little sympathy and connection with people who forfeit a 500k bonus to fight for a million instead, knowing they gonna have a hard time doing so. They should have portrayed someone from the nurses they mentioned instead. Small amounts or problems someones life depends on make for a dramatic story, a rich guy and his fight for hundred thousands of extra compensation make me scoff.

If they do it to a rich person what do you think happens to the average worker. ie me and you

You cant in any sane country have a legal system that has one rule for "cute" nurses or any other group that the tabloids moon over and one for the average person.

Re: What Happens When You Try to Sue Your Boss

#95

Post by zuppy » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 9:30 AM UTC

jonstewart wrote: post #55

temp231239 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

from what I understand, arbitration is a way to come up with a resolution if possible before taking case to court. If arbitrator decision doesn't seem just to employee then why don't they appeal for court? Who own the cost of court proceedings in such scenario, company or employee? But given the exorbitant legal fees its not is favor of employee to take this route.

Because you signed a contract to abide by the outcome of the arbitration proceedings (i.e., it's "binding"). If you appeal, the judge will toss it out and you'll have wasted your money.

that should be illegal, it should be impossible to waive a basic right. this will affect poorer people much more, as they have less experience, money to invest into a good lawyer and job options. it's not a fair process.

Re: What Happens When You Try to Sue Your Boss

#96

Post by bloak » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 9:59 AM UTC

ldiracdelta wrote: post #32

jedberg wrote: post #10

Ok, so the reason we have arbitration at all is to save the courts time. This makes sense. This seems like such an easy problem to solve too. Just don't let the company or the worker pick the arbitrator. Require by law that the arbitrator be picked by a judge, or be randomly assigned by the court system, who has presumably vetted the arbitrator. The main problem with these things is that the arbitrator is picked by t…

How about we reduce the court load by instituting loser-pays tort reform.

Beware of this. "Loser pays", implemented literally, would be a bad thing. What you should do, which is what England has, is "the party whose unreasonable behaviour led to the case coming to court pays". Can someone suggest a concise way of expressing that, to help voters avoid a bad tort reform?

In case it's not obvious, here's an example of where it matters. Alice damages Bob's car. Bob offers to settle for £100. Alice says, no, I want £500. Bob says, don't be silly, you can have £150, though that's too much, in my opinion. Alice sues Bob. The court decides that Alice should be compensated, so Alice "wins", and damages should be £80. Who should pay the court costs of £500? (And what if the damages were £300?)

Perhaps everyone already understands that "loser pays" means "the party whose unreasonable behaviour led to the case coming to court pays", but I can't help being suspicious that a reform of the legal system that would drastically reduce the number of cases coming to court might be sabotaged in some way by the people with vested interests who will implement it.

Re: What Happens When You Try to Sue Your Boss

#97

Post by clhodapp » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 10:04 AM UTC

URSpider94 wrote: post #75

User23 wrote: post #70

Can a lawyer here explain how these arbitration clauses aren't unconscionable?

Not a lawyer, but the Supreme Court has ruled that they are Constitutional, and that’s pretty much that.

The Supreme Court isn't an unquestionable authority on what is right. They are our pragmatic system of determining what our laws (including the constitution) actually mean in a given context. Sometimes they do great at that. Sometimes they do terribly. We don't all agree on which is which! Even when they rule on something (rightly or wrongly), the law can be changed afterward to undo the effects of their ruling (even the constitution). In this case, many (including me) would argue that that was a terrible ruling and that laws should be passed to clarify that you can't sign away your right to a trial preemptively.

Re: What Happens When You Try to Sue Your Boss

#98

Post by LiquidFlux » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 10:08 AM UTC

wiradikusuma wrote: post #45

"(the) firm Proskauer Rose LLP who specializes in defending finance companies" — I wonder what would happen if _their_own_ employees sue them, it would be hilarious. Also: Apparently, I can't select the text to copy/paste—and I've tried disabling JavaScript. I wonder what's the reason for this?

There exists a CSS property to disable highlighting, user-select: none; I believe, but in this case ( with JS enabled ) the highlight colour is simply not WCAG AA2 compliant and is nearly the same colour as the background

See the paragraph starting "After Chinn's rebuttal..." - https://i.imgur.com/M02ob3O.png

Re: What Happens When You Try to Sue Your Boss

#99

Post by arethuza » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 10:19 AM UTC

jbottoms wrote: post #73

jedberg wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is that companies favor arbitration because arbitration tends to favor companies. That's only because they are paid by the companies (and picked by the companies). If the companies didn't pick and the payment came out of the disputed amount or the loser paid, then they wouldn't have an incentive to favor the company.

An article in Harvard Negotiation Law Review points out that courts can order arbitration if both parties agree to it, but cannot control the mechanisms of the arbitration. Therefore, if the company is paying any portion of the arbitrator's fee and the company is not leading in the process, they can elect to not pay the arbitrator's fee. In which case the arbitration fails and the case is dismissed. It appears to be…

Think about it from the arbitrator's point of view - who are they going to get repeat business from?

Re: What Happens When You Try to Sue Your Boss

#100

Post by arethuza » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 10:21 AM UTC

kyrieeschaton wrote: post #46

ldiracdelta wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about we reduce the court load by instituting loser-pays tort reform.

This effectively makes it impossible for a small plaintiff (or defendant!) to justify the risk of fighting anyone with a multi million dollar legal team at their disposal.

Certainly litigation in the UK can be very difficult to stop once started as if either side gives up there is a good chance they will be expected to pay the other sides fees up to that point.