Good ol' Judge William Alsup. His decisions are always fun to read. He was the judge that learnt how to code so he could understand the Google Oracle case.
I wonder if consumers could use forced arbitration in the same way.
I don't see why this is getting downvoted – it seems like a materially correct claim:
> “You’re going to pay that money,” U.S. District Judge William Alsup said [to DoorDash] in court. “You don’t want to pay millions of dollars, but that’s what you bargained to do and you’re going to do it.”
There really isn't much room for interpretation, is there? Patreon is a tiny company, $5 million is ~1% of their value. If nothing else it would cause trouble with the liquidity.
It's probably being down voted for a couple of reasons.
1. The claim in the link that Patreon banning someone from using them to receive funding is tortious interference with a business relationship giving the people who wanted to donate that person a cause of action is extremely tenuous at best.
For an act to be tortious interference there has to be something wrong about that act other than just that it impacted the relationship between two other parties.
For example, if Patreon decided to kick off all black creators, that would be wrong regardless of whether or not it impacted any business relationships between those creators and others. A claim for tortious interference might be viable.
The bannings being complained about don't fall into any such protected category as far as I know.
2. The link is to a site that is generally unreliable. The author is a major pusher of conspiracy theories, pedophilia accusations, and the like which almost never stand up to scrutiny. For those rare things he publishes that are not those kind of things, there should always be a better source you can link to.
No one has time to fact check every article they read, so you want to get your articles from places that are mostly right with at most a rare goof, not places that are the other way around. Many people down vote for linking to the later kind of site, even if the particular article is one of their rare reasonable ones, because it makes more work for the reader than linking to a better site would have.
That is absurd. If you can't be bothered to read the comment, why vote on it? If you can't be bothered to click the link and skim it over, then how does your opinion add anything of value to the site's ranking system it doesn't already know?
Although I find the claim of tortuous interference as extremely tenuous as you do your description of what is required for an act to be "wrong" is poor bordering on incorrect.
An act can be wrong for the purposes of tortuous interference if it is done to appropriate the benefits of the plaintiff's contract, is an independent or illegal wrong, or if the conduct was done for the sole purpose of injuring the plaintiff.
In this case it will be extremely difficult to proof that Patreon acted solely to injure the defendants.
What I was trying to get at was the idea stated by the Supreme Court of Oregon in Top Serv. Body Shop, Inc. v. Allstate Ins. Co., 582 P.2d 1365 (1978) [1], cited by the California court in Della Penna v. Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc., 11 Cal. 4th 376 (1995) [2]:
> In summary, such a claim is made out when interference resulting in injury to another is wrongful by some measure beyond the fact of the interference itself. Defendant's liability may arise from improper motives or from the use of improper means. They may be wrongful by reason of a statute or other regulation, or a recognized rule of common law, or perhaps an established standard of a trade or profession
which I came across in this article on the elements of tortuous interference claims under California law [3].
"Defendant's liability may arise from improper motives or from the use of improper means." Given this quote from your source the description you presented of what is required to meet the standard is still inaccurate. Based upon the quote the action taken doesn't have to be improper. Only the motivation for the action has to be improper.
>The author is a major pusher of conspiracy theories, pedophilia accusations, and the like which almost never stand up to scrutiny.
I counter your ad hominem with a substantive appeal to authority and evidence to the contrary: the author is not only a lawyer, but the one who broke open the Epstein case (pedophilia accusation conspiracy theory that stood up to scrutiny) with a Florida filing alongside the Miami Herald.
> If the court orders a case to arbitration (following a stipulation or at the Case Management Conference), and the parties elect to use an arbitrator on the court's Arbitration Panel, the court pays the arbitrator ($150 for up to four hours and a maximum of $300 regardless of the number of arbitration sessions).
> If the parties choose a private arbitrator, they will be required to pay the arbitrator's regular hourly rate and other charges. The market rates for private arbitrators can range from $200-$1,000 per hour.
If it's not by court order, but in the clause of a contract, then the company just never bothers to schedule the arbitration at all. That's actually going on with some companies.
So no law suit and no arbitration. Win-win for the company.
The slur seems totally justified considering the company is trying to exploit workers and uses the arbitration clause to prevent them from suing (though it now backfired on them).
The sad part is that they're not alone. Most of these new "disruptive" startups are equally nasty.
Phrases like "exploit workers" and "nasty" are judgements, not factual descriptions. Some argue that every employer since the beginning of history has been an exploiter. Others argue, you are a free agent and if you dislike the conditions of employment you can simply go elsewhere. This is particularly true in the highly fluid gig economy.
The state of California implemented AB5 to prevent further worker exploration perpetrated by gig economy companies. It stands to reason that the exploitation is not a judgment, but observable fact and therefore the impetus for the legislation I mention.
It's still a judgement. The difference is the judgement is coming from legislators like Lorena Gonzalez who have the power to propose and pass laws, and who use such issues to raise their public profile and as fodder for re-election campaigns.
In my judgement, you're calling this judgement an "observable fact" because you've got a non-trivial amount of money invested in Tesla based on information divulged in past comments and positions you've taken in those comments. As such, you have a vested interested in the AB5 rules because they impact ride sharing companies that will likely compete with Tesla in the future autonomous rides market.
They are indeed judgements but they are based on facts you are welcome to look up, like Wag (a dog-walking-as-a-service startup) trying to silence with an NDA a customer whose dog was killed in an accident, or KitSplit which uses misleading claims regarding their insurance (that doesn't actually insure against theft) to lure customers in and then fobs them off when the renters steal their gear (but issues a bullshit apology and promises to change their policies when the media gets wind of the story), or Airbnb which does nothing to help customers scammed on the platform until they go to the media (which results in the usual BS apology), or even my own experience with Uber Eats which tried to fob me off for incorrect food being delivered multiple times until I complained hard enough at which point they refunded me because they didn't want me to escalate the matter (they clearly planned on most people not taking things that far and just accepting their loss, thus free profit despite "breaking things").
In theory, the parties both agree to arbitration and mutually waive their right to trial in the contract at the beginning, voluntarily, before any dispute arises.
You're not forced to work for DoorDash in the first place, so it's not really forcing anyone. In theory.
31 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 70.0 ms ] threadI wonder if consumers could use forced arbitration in the same way.
That's not actually true. He'd been coding since 1985 [1].
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/19/16503076/oracle-vs-googl...
> “I couldn't have told you the first thing about Java before this trial,” said the judge
Reading any past there sheds light on the judge.
They can. Patreon is about to be hit really hard for playing thought policeman.
https://www.cernovich.com/patreon-mandatory-arbitration/
> “You’re going to pay that money,” U.S. District Judge William Alsup said [to DoorDash] in court. “You don’t want to pay millions of dollars, but that’s what you bargained to do and you’re going to do it.”
There really isn't much room for interpretation, is there? Patreon is a tiny company, $5 million is ~1% of their value. If nothing else it would cause trouble with the liquidity.
1. The claim in the link that Patreon banning someone from using them to receive funding is tortious interference with a business relationship giving the people who wanted to donate that person a cause of action is extremely tenuous at best.
For an act to be tortious interference there has to be something wrong about that act other than just that it impacted the relationship between two other parties.
For example, if Patreon decided to kick off all black creators, that would be wrong regardless of whether or not it impacted any business relationships between those creators and others. A claim for tortious interference might be viable.
The bannings being complained about don't fall into any such protected category as far as I know.
2. The link is to a site that is generally unreliable. The author is a major pusher of conspiracy theories, pedophilia accusations, and the like which almost never stand up to scrutiny. For those rare things he publishes that are not those kind of things, there should always be a better source you can link to.
No one has time to fact check every article they read, so you want to get your articles from places that are mostly right with at most a rare goof, not places that are the other way around. Many people down vote for linking to the later kind of site, even if the particular article is one of their rare reasonable ones, because it makes more work for the reader than linking to a better site would have.
An act can be wrong for the purposes of tortuous interference if it is done to appropriate the benefits of the plaintiff's contract, is an independent or illegal wrong, or if the conduct was done for the sole purpose of injuring the plaintiff.
In this case it will be extremely difficult to proof that Patreon acted solely to injure the defendants.
> In summary, such a claim is made out when interference resulting in injury to another is wrongful by some measure beyond the fact of the interference itself. Defendant's liability may arise from improper motives or from the use of improper means. They may be wrongful by reason of a statute or other regulation, or a recognized rule of common law, or perhaps an established standard of a trade or profession
which I came across in this article on the elements of tortuous interference claims under California law [3].
[1] https://law.justia.com/cases/oregon/supreme-court/1978/283-o...
[2] https://law.justia.com/cases/california/supreme-court/4th/11...
[3] https://www.businessjustice.com/what-are-the-elements-for-a-...
"Defendant's liability may arise from improper motives or from the use of improper means." Given this quote from your source the description you presented of what is required to meet the standard is still inaccurate. Based upon the quote the action taken doesn't have to be improper. Only the motivation for the action has to be improper.
I counter your ad hominem with a substantive appeal to authority and evidence to the contrary: the author is not only a lawyer, but the one who broke open the Epstein case (pedophilia accusation conspiracy theory that stood up to scrutiny) with a Florida filing alongside the Miami Herald.
> 5. How much does arbitration cost?
> If the court orders a case to arbitration (following a stipulation or at the Case Management Conference), and the parties elect to use an arbitrator on the court's Arbitration Panel, the court pays the arbitrator ($150 for up to four hours and a maximum of $300 regardless of the number of arbitration sessions).
> If the parties choose a private arbitrator, they will be required to pay the arbitrator's regular hourly rate and other charges. The market rates for private arbitrators can range from $200-$1,000 per hour.
http://www.sdcourt.ca.gov/portal/page?_pageid=55,1555406&_da...
If it's not by court order, but in the clause of a contract, then the company just never bothers to schedule the arbitration at all. That's actually going on with some companies.
So no law suit and no arbitration. Win-win for the company.
this is a gratuitous and useless slur.
The sad part is that they're not alone. Most of these new "disruptive" startups are equally nasty.
In my judgement, you're calling this judgement an "observable fact" because you've got a non-trivial amount of money invested in Tesla based on information divulged in past comments and positions you've taken in those comments. As such, you have a vested interested in the AB5 rules because they impact ride sharing companies that will likely compete with Tesla in the future autonomous rides market.
You're not forced to work for DoorDash in the first place, so it's not really forcing anyone. In theory.