He was awarded money for loss of wages and emotional distress. I don't think he lost seven figures of wages, and how much emotional distress did he suffer? At least personally, it would hard for me to say he suffered millions of dollars worth of emotional distress (which is something millions of people experience every day for free).
Half a million seems like a lot for this ordeal. He shouldn't have been fired but I'm not sure that payout is proportional. You think it's too small but I think it's too big.
You think no other potential future employers will hear about him and this case? The actions of the previous employer impugn his reputation as a future employee. While not exactly legal, I'm sure companies would find a way to say they don't think he's a good fit for their company out of fear of the consequences of what could happen should he have a panic attack.
You aren’t wrong, but future wages are mostly hypothetical and indemnification is usually for incurred pain and suffering. For example, say he typically spends 5 years on average at every job he has ever had and he was on year 4 at this job. History says he was going to move on soon. Or maybe he is 63 and they compute retirement at 65.
Another aspect, I typically see injury lawsuits for things like cervical injuries with fusions settle for like $150k so in that regard, $450k seems like he made out pretty well. Fatalities depend on age, but even then we are only talking about a few million for a young person.
the vast majority of outcomes are small. it's just that the 7-9 figure cases get all the media attention. A 9-figure case s more click-worthy than $100k.
It's incredibly difficult to get people without anxiety to fully appreciate just how debilitating and "costly" it can be for a person and I suspect the damages awarded reflect the public/jury's lack of understanding and empathy.
His "reaction" was leaving the situation to deal with his panic attack.
His employer refused to make reasonable accommodations for his disability, which in this case was no action at all. Further, they did the exact opposite of what he'd asked for in advance.
In what sense does it not apply here? The ADA requires that all employers, public and private, make reasonable accommodations for the disabilities of those they employ (modulo some exceptions, which do not seem to apply here).
IANAL, but my understanding is that following reasonable accommodations is a documented process for both parties, while the "don't throw a birthday party for me" was an informal request.
> Berling has an anxiety disorder, said his attorney, Tony Bucher, and his birthday is a source of stress, so his client went to the person at the company who throws the parties and asked them not to.
> “The person who was responsible for the birthday parties who he talked to flat out forgot about his request,” Bucher said. “She didn’t do it to be mean. She said she would accommodate it and she just forgot.”
IANAL as well, so all I can do is make a semi-educated guess at how the legal system would treat this. My only "qualification" is I raise guide dog for the blind puppies, so I see ADA stuff often.
I'd guess that that forgetting that a request was made does not mean a request wasn't made, and doesn't remove the employer's requirement to comply with the ADA. It's also unclear to me that the "informal" part of "informal request" means anything here - a request is a request, and it was made to the person in charge of birthday parties.
Regardless of if she threw the party to be mean or not (given the outcome, I don't think that's relevant) - the root problem may have come down to the company's reaction to his panic attack. They fired him for his disability. That's a clear violation of the ADA.
> “My employees de-escalated the situation to get the plaintiff out of the building as quickly as possible while removing his access to the building, alerting me and sending out security reminders to ensure he could not access the building, which is exactly what they were supposed to do,”
So they have been able to confirm they have a working layer of security theater, on top of forcing employees to receive office birthday parties? That's weird. And then they dive behind seemingly irrelevant procedural cover like that when an employee is forced to walk out in embarrassment, due to a health condition? That's creepy.
Is that really security theater if they removed his access to the building, alerted management, and sent out security reminders that he should have have access to the building? What's the "Theater" part?
That sounds like better security than most companies where they have a hard time just removing an employee's access, and even if they do, they have no established process to tell employees that he shouldn't be allowed in.
I left my badge at home once, I was wearing my company logo jacket and tailgated in behind a couple employees I didn't know, one even held the door open for me. If I'd been terminated and banned from the office, I'd have had no trouble getting back into the office.
We've instituted a "no-tailgating" policy since then, but there's no enforcement and is widely ignored.
The point is not that it was not effective - It was plenty effective. The part that makes it theatrical is that the employee was of no threat to anyone. His panic attack was caused by the (perceived) threat of being forced into a public gathering, and injury was added to insult by the actual threat of having security "escort" him from the building.
What it sounds like is a company that screwed up, offended someone who was easily upset, made that person panic, confronted him, made it worse, and then used company policies that are only necessary in the USA to stop him returning in case he returned to do harm.
It's not theatre but it sure sounds theatrical, when they could have apologised, given him some time to regroup his emotions and then left it at that.
When I was much younger I had a nervous breakdown at work during a period of extreme personal stress -- I really absolutely and totally lost the plot. Quite probably upset a lot of people, many of whom did not see me the same afterwards. Though more fallout for me personally; it was difficult to be there and my reaction undermined me.
I was treated with enormous -- and I must say on reflection completely unearned -- respect and at no point did the company feel they had to do this. Because I'm not in the USA.
It's worth considering that many places in the USA seem to think the problem in their culture with violent crime is not guns but the fact that mentally ill people can get guns and weaponry of all sorts.
What follows from that is company policy that seriously upset people must necessarily be treated as a threat.
And this sort of "bar him from the building because he panicked" outcome is the logical conclusion of this attitude.
'No-tailgating' is really, really hard to enforce. I work in a shared office building with a keycard door, and people are genuinely surprised and angry if you don't hold the door even if you don't personally know them and can't vouch for them (which is most of the time). It is a really strong bit of social conditioning not to shut a door in someone's face!
So during security audits you can now tick the box that access to the premises is secure, while in reality anyone can just follow random people in. Now carry a box that requires two hands, wear a lanyard with a card hinting at being some kind of courier, and not a soul will stop you unless the building has actual security.
Yep. Any company that tells employees to prevent tailgating and check ids is just giving them guard duties without training, pay, or weapons. My fantasy response is "I'm not a security guard."
> dive behind seemingly irrelevant procedural cover like that when an employee is forced to walk out in embarrassment
To be fair, an employee having a panic attack because one your managers did something they were informed in advance would cause a panic attack is textbook disgruntled.
This is a really inconsiderate comment. You do not know this guy at all, yet you assume that he's not a good employee because of a mental issue he has. Do you think he chooses to have panic attacks? Can you see how him asking to not have a party makes a lot of sense because he knew he may have a panic attack? If anything, him knowing about the party that he requested not happen makes it worse, because instead of just a party, it's a party full of people who don't respect him enough to listen to his wishes. On his own birthday!
Imagine if a company forced a recovering alcoholic to go to a bar and then firing him when he got drunk.
edit: the comment above is not the one I originally replied to; it has been edited. It did not originally say "textbook disgruntled," it said "not someone you'd want to have keys to your kingdom," which I assumed to mean they were right to fire him.
> Imagine if a company forced a recovering alcoholic to go to a bar and then firing him when he got drunk.
More accurately, if the employee got upset they dragged him to a bar and left, and then they fired him over that. Even more absurd, and yet closer to what happened here...
I think he was saying that the management showed bad decision making in the original situation, so it's no shocker that they continue to exhibit poor decision making while defending their original poor choices.
Edit: after OPs ninja edit, I'm not so sure anymore
> did not originally say "textbook disgruntled," it said "not someone you'd want to have keys to your kingdom," which I assumed to mean they were right to fire him
Edited to clarify. "Not someone you want to have keys to your kingdom" as in temporarily removing access credentials. Not firing.
> Imagine if a company forced a recovering alcoholic to go to a bar and then firing him when he got drunk
This would be ludicrous. Temporarily revoking his access to prod would not be.
Imagine the lawsuits if they didn’t lock him out, he went home, got his guns, and came back and killed everyone.
It’s a sad situation, and he probably deserves his award, but I think if an employee has some sort of anti-social mental episode on the job, you have a responsibility to your employees to keep them out until they are cleared by a doctor.
I think everyone is a potential mass shooter. I think the people who would have a breakdown due to a birthday party have much more potential than people who who see it as an opportunity for free food.
They could have sort of been. It sounds like the manager is an ass. It's possible the other employees were planning/participating at the boss's direction and then felt bad about the situation when they found out.
I've never suffered a panic attack personally, but being forced into a panic attack by your employer then being fired for it doesn't sound like an easy way to make money.
Edit: I'm almost certain I was wrong. As pointed out elsewhere the dates don't line up. However it's a case of the exact same thing happening in a Legal Advice thread
> When the company threw him a lunchtime party against his wishes, it triggered a panic attack and he left abruptly to spend his break in his car. Four days later, after his office managers confronted him about his reaction to the party, he was fired from the Northern Kentucky company, court records show.
The headline sounds ridiculous, but this detail explains everything. Getting fired because you had a panic attack in response to an optional thing you explicitly told them not to do? That's lunacy.
Yeah I noticed this too, and I think they're actually referring to his panic attack? I guess I can't say for sure but if that's the case I hope he somehow sues them again and they go bankrupt.
Unclear. It says later he had a panic attack upon being confronted over the previous panic attack, and that he was fired after this second panic attack.
The quote about the employees acting appropriately for office safety sounds like this second event was interpreted as violence of some sort. We weren't there so we can't know, but it's one of those things where the overall picture makes the jury decision seem likely to be reasonable.
This would be like if an employee told their boss they were allergic to peanuts, their boss knowing giving them food with peanuts, and then firing them when their allergic reaction caused too much of a scene. It is an open-and-shut case and I'm glad the employee got some form of compensation for their employer carelessly putting them through this.
Really wonder what the though process was regarding firing an employee who told them not to throw a party because they have an anxiety disorder, for having an anxiety attack.
I've been in socially-similar situations to this one, and I suspect it went a bit like this:
Person says "don't do this thing, it will hurt me." Group says, "no it won't," or otherwise dismisses/forgets. Group does the thing. Person is injured, predictably, and takes protective/evasive actions. Group or subset of group becomes offended that person has taken protective/evasive actions, correctly believing actions to implicate the group's bad behavior. Group or subset of group smears their victim, amplifies or otherwise doubles-down on their initial misunderstanding or neglect of person's request not to injure them.
Being employed means that you have to share certain personal information with the company, like your birth date, your address, your social security number, etc. But you don't expect the company to turn around and dox you to other employees. I'd argue that it was not the company's place to share this person's birth date with anyone, it was the company's place to keep private information private.
"Unwanted birthday party" is such a misleading thing to claim as the root cause, reminds me of the McDonald's coffee case, framing very legitimate lawsuits as frivolous.
Employer put him into a bad situation against his will, when he'd warned them and it wasn't necessary for his job, and then fired him when he had the reaction he'd foreseen. Obvious wrongful termination and horrific management.
Why was the McDonald's one not frivolous? Was it just because it was 185 degrees?
Edit: Why are people disagreeing with this? It's literally 2 questions and it seems the temperature was the issue when looking at culpability.
Edit 2: someone here provided the additional type of information that I was interested in. It wasn't just the temperature, but also that the cup had a design flaw that made it likely to collapse if you took the lid off. Thanks!
The coffee was much hotter than the industry standard.
McDonalds already had multiple successful suits against them about this very thing.
The lady in question got incredibly serious burns on her legs.
She originally sued only for medical expenses, and McDonalds wasn't interested in settling.
The award was later reduced.
If the answer to bad corporate behaviour is not regulation, but rather lawsuits, then that lawsuit perfectly encapsulated the series of legal escalations necessary to deal with a bad corporate actor, that has been alerted of a problem in their product, and refuses to resolve it.
"McDonalds already had multiple successful suits against them about this very thing."
Ok, then I want to hear the reasoning behind those rulings/awards.
"The lady in question got incredibly serious burns on her legs."
That's an outcome/result. That has no real bearing on the culpability.
"She originally sued only for medical expenses, and McDonalds wasn't interested in settling."
Again, nothing speaking to culpability here.
"The coffee was much hotter than the industry standard."
Ok, so this is basically what my comment said. It seems 185 is about 20 degrees higher than other restaurants. It also has a warning on it (jury said it's not big enough, but maybe we should have everyone sign waivers first?).
"legal escalations necessary to deal with a bad corporate actor"
I'm not sure what you mean. All I wanted to know was the reasoning behind the culpability. Saying "other successful suites" is like saying "because it always worked that way". It doesn't show the reasoning.
The part about bad corporate actors was not specific to the McDonalds example. I was merely saying that we could label any company as bad. For example, some might say abortion clinics are bad, while others might say gun makers are bad.
I think people are just somewhat annoyed because your comments seem argumentative. This is a very famous case and there is tons of material online to read, including the court documents themselves! I have also heard from friends who went to law school that this is used as an example of a case that isn't a frivolous lawsuit despite appearances.
It just seems like you are very set in your views and are demanding that we all argue with you, and if that's the case, make a new post about the mcdonald's case because this thread isn't even about that.
Genuinely not sure if you're trolling or not, but....
> Ok, then I want to hear the reasoning behind those rulings/awards.
...
> Edit: why disagree with this?
You're asking internet randos to explain something to you that is an easily researched matter of public record. I too used to think the McDonald's coffee case was a punchline for an overly litigious America. Then I read the horrifying details.
All the links I got talked about the temperature or were random opinions about the case. Someone else in this thread brought up the defective cup design as the other point of culpability. That's the sort of information that I was looking for but couldn't find.
There's a lot more context that can't be explained easily in the size of the average HN comment. When the McD representative was asked by the judge when/how they were planning to fix these burning/scalding issues the McDonald's employee was extremely nonchalant and casual, and indicated that they didn't really care about it. That was also a major factor in the case.
Also I don't know if you realize it but your comments are making you come across as a major <rude adjective of choice> which is likely why you're getting downvotes.
It is because people who were around at the time got to watch much of the media joke around this woman's suffering, never acknowledging the severe harm she suffered. Many people joked that they, too, were going to burn themselves and collect their reward. The minimization of her injury and shock at the size of the initial reward was used as part of a campaign to make other legitimate lawsuits difficult and protect clearly bad actors.
Then, the case was rediscovered by a popular podcast ("You're Wrong About") so a lot of people now have the opposite perspective and anger at how it all played out.
None of this justifies downvoting and I upvoted you. But I can understand how people might see someone asking questions as performing a "just asking questions!" legerdemain.
>Then, the case was rediscovered by a popular podcast ("You're Wrong About") so a lot of people now have the opposite perspective and anger at how it all played out
I'd say online communities have been having this reaction for at least a decade. In 2011 a documentary came out partially about the case, Hot Coffee, and since then most mentions of the McDonalds case I've seen have turned into a version of this conversation.
Actually, it probably even predates that film. The first Wikipedia entry for the case in 2003 says
>Based on this summary, the case has become emblematic of frivolous and outrageous lawsuits for many people, and is often used as an example of the need for tort reform in the United States legal system. The summary, however, omits a large amount of relevant information.
It would be interesting to know how many people have been "converted" by which debunking. I remember the case and everyone I knew, everyone, looked at it as an example of tort litigation gone awry. I didn't hear the opposite opinion in liberal NY. Then I believe I read an article somewhere along the way and it changed my perspective. Nevertheless, I still hear the "can you believe someone spilled coffee on themselves and made millions of dollars, and that's why we can't have nice things" bit all the time, so there are a lot more people who may eventually discover it.
If the coffee is overly hot and multiple people have been severely burned, at some point, the company selling an obviously dangerous product and handing it to people in cups that are flimsy enough to crush between your legs is partially to blame. What if the coffee was 220 degrees and still boiling when they hand it to you, but you warn people on the cup? You still don't see any culpability?
I would imagine the legal cases decided that McDonalds was not taking reasonable precautions to account for their much hotter than usual coffee. No amount of written warnings or even signed waivers will protect you from negligence, at least in most US states.
>> People did not realize how seriously they could be burned. All McDonald's restaurants served coffee between 180 and 190 degrees. At this temperature, spilled coffee causes third degree burns in less than three seconds. Other restaurants served coffee at 160 degrees, which takes twenty seconds to cause third degree burns. That is usually enough time to wipe away the coffee.
>> As noted above, the jury found that McDonald's had sold a defective product and had also breached implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. A warranty is like a promise. An implied warranty is something that exists whether or not you have a piece of paper titled "Warranty". An implied warranty of merchantability means that the goods sold conform to the ordinary standards of care and that they are of average grade, quality and value as similar goods sold under similar circumstances. Put more simply, when you buy a cup of coffee at McDonald's, you have a right to expect that it will be pretty much the same as the coffee you could buy at any similar drive-thru. An implied warranty of fitness for a particular purpose exists when the retailer, distributor, or manufacturer has reason to know the particular purpose for which the consumer goods are required, and that the buyer is relying on the skill and judgment of the seller to select and furnish suitable goods. In the case of coffee purchased at its drive-thru, McDonald's would know that the buyer of the coffee wanted to drink it and that the buyer is relying on McDonald's to sell coffee that the buyer can drink. When the McDonald's employee hands the customer the cup of coffee, it is as if McDonald's is saying, "I promise this coffee is drinkable and that the cup it is served in is suitable." If the warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose are breached, or the promise is broken, then the manufacturer, distributor, and/or seller of the product are liable or responsible for the consequences.
Because they had multiple warnings that the near boiling coffee was likely to cause severe burns but didn't heed them cause it meant less refills from people dining in.
> she had suffered third-degree burns on six percent of her skin and lesser burns over sixteen percent.[14] She remained in the hospital for eight days while she underwent skin grafting. During this period, Liebeck lost 20 pounds (9.1 kg) (nearly 20 percent of her body weight), reducing her to 83 pounds (38 kg). After the hospital stay, Liebeck needed care for three weeks, which was provided by her daughter.[15] Liebeck suffered permanent disfigurement after the incident and was partially disabled for two years.
I'd highly recommend looking up details of the case if you think it was frivolous.
First, I never said it was frivolous. I asked a question. It seems the temperature of the coffee is the reason. The other stuff you mentioned are outcomes and don't necessarily speak to the culpability portion that I was questioning.
It quite literally burnt/melted part of her vagina onto her leg/part of body that was not her vagina. I think pictures are out there if you google for them, it’s been quite a while but IIRC pretty gruesome.
> It seems the temperature of the coffee is the reason.
Well, yes and no. The temperature of the coffee was only partially the reason. What made McDonald's actions appear malicious rather than accidental (therefore increasing their culpability) was the fact that McDonald's knew the coffee was too hot but continued to serve it anyway.
I've never really understood this. Too hot for what? That's the temperature I brew my coffee at and it's the temperature I expect coffee to be when I buy it. Of course it's "too hot" to douse your crotch with, but McDonalds probably assumed its customers knew to take care with a hot beverage.
> Since Liebeck, McDonald's has not reduced the service temperature of its coffee. McDonald's current policy is to serve coffee at 176–194 °F (80–90 °C),[37] relying on more sternly worded warnings on cups made of rigid foam to avoid future liability, though it continues to face lawsuits over hot coffee.[37][38] The Specialty Coffee Association of America supports improved packaging methods rather than lowering the temperature at which coffee is served. The association has successfully aided the defense of subsequent coffee burn cases.[38] Similarly, as of 2004, Starbucks sells coffee at 175–185 °F (79–85 °C), and the executive director of the Specialty Coffee Association of America reported that the standard serving temperature is 160–185 °F (71–85 °C).
So according to this page you've linked, the coffee was not unusually hot and McDonalds and Starbucks are presently serving coffee just as hot that could give you 3rd degree burns today.
(Since people in this thread seem so jumpy, let me explicitly disclaim that I think the lawsuit and outcome were warranted because she was severely burned as a consequence of McDonald's defective cup design.)
I seem to remember as well that the coffee was reported as instantly boiling when sugar was added.
If that's the case (and no reason to disbelieve the plaintiff), that's a superheated liquid. In other words, it is a liquid above its own boiling point and waiting for a cavitation event (something for bubbles to hold on to) to instantly boil. And this seems to coincide with the coffee explosion and burns from the plantiff.
"Other documents obtained from McDonald's showed that from 1982 to 1992 the company had received more than 700 reports of people burned by McDonald's coffee to varying degrees of severity, and had settled claims arising from scalding injuries for more than $500,000."
We know why coffee vendors make the coffee so hot. It expresses more caffeine. It is very simple. They decided that the value in keeping consumers addicted was worth the risk.
The culpability is two parts. First part is serving a beverage that was much hotter than what an average consumer would expect, without a warning such as "this product will cause third degree burns within 3 seconds of touching your skin".
But the biggest issue that I don't see mentioned most times this case is brought up is that the coffee cups at that time were defective by design. They relied on the lid for structural integrity. When you grasped the cup and squeeze it hard enough to keep it from falling, then if the lid pops off the cup collapses and the cup falls, spilling scalding liquid on you. Notice that the current cups don't crush as easily even without a lid on, they still hold their structure when squeezing it hard enough to pick it up.
Also, the old cups would cause discomfort when holding them, which indicates that the liquid lost a lot of its thermal energy to the environment in a short amount of time. Due to that, customers that had to transport their coffee for some distance before wanting to drink it would want it to be served hotter than normal. Then it would be the perfect temperature when they get to their classroom / office. The newer cups have much better insulation properties, so this is less necessary.
Yeah, there's much less burns from hot coffee nowadays, but it's not necessarily from serving coffee colder (as far as I know coffee is usually held at extremely hot temperatures still).
1) The cup design is much, much sturdier. Not just at McDonald's, almost everywhere has sturdier cups.
2) The store usually puts cream and sugar in it rather than handing it to the customer to put it in themselves - that's what Stella was doing at the time she spilled.
3) cup holders are now plentiful and ubiquitous in cars - the car that Stella's grandson was driving didn't have cup holders so she had to grip the cup with her knees to open the cream/sugar.
Culpability “refers to the blameworthiness of the accused,” according to the definition provided by USLegal. When the court determines that the accused is culpable for a crime, the accused is considered to have an appropriate understanding that what the person did was wrong.
Being culpable implies that an action (or neglect of an action) is immoral, wrong or illegal. It does not, however, always imply malicious intent on the part of the wrongdoer. It simply means liable or blamable. A liable person is answerable for inappropriate actions.
For example, if you are driving on a busy street, lose focus and crash into another vehicle, then you are responsible for your action. Because you didn’t mean to cause harm, it’s called culpable negligence. It’s understood to have been unintentional, but you are still held accountable.
> Because you didn’t mean to cause harm, it’s called culpable negligence.
Strong disagree.
It comes to duty of care, and failing that duty is the culpable act. It has nothing to do with intent to cause harm, rather with the lack of intent to pay enough attention to avoid a collision. Otherwise fault is not found (e.g. a third car pushed them into the first)
"Other documents obtained from McDonald's showed that from 1982 to 1992 the company had received more than 700 reports of people burned by McDonald's coffee to varying degrees of severity, and had settled claims arising from scalding injuries for more than $500,000."
Oh I see. I thought maybe you were indicating it was an excuse that would preclude the woman from having a claim in her lawsuit. It was actually the opposite.
But Mcdonald’s has not reduced the serving temperature of their coffee after this lawsuit. Are you suggesting that there was something wrong with this woman in particular?
If I ordered a drink to consume and it was (intentionally!) almost boiling, not only is that reckless and wildly unsafe, it's neglectful. I order Starbucks and gingerly sip my coffee, expecting it to be quite hot. If it literally gave me second or third degree burns, I would also sue and so would you. "Hot things are hot" is a naive defense of an intentional and malicious act (literally to get people to order fewer refills) that dismisses the fact that there is a threshold where the item is dangerous.
AFAIK the plaintiff didn't get second or third degree burns from sipping the coffee. It spilled on her lap. Might have been a defective cup or maybe her fault, idk I haven't researched it enough to say, but I'm pretty confident it wasn't just from gingerly sipping.
It was a combination of factors, including the coffee being intentionally way too hot. The coffee was hot enough to give third degree burns in a couple seconds: you don't need to drop that in your lap to get burned.
All coffee served hot is hot enough to cause 3rd degree burns in seconds, particularly to children and the elderly who have thinner skin that burns quicker.
>The severity of tap water scalds depends on the temperature of the water and the length of time the skin is exposed. Human exposure to hot water at 140°F can lead to a serious burn within 3 seconds, whereas at 120°F a serious burn takes about 10 minutes. Because thinner skin burns more quickly, children and older adults are at increased risk. Young children are disproportionately affected by scald burns, as approximately 21,000 children are treated for scald burns from all causes each year, and scald burns represent an estimated 65% of burn hospitalizations for children ages 4 and under. Hot tap water causes nearly 25% of all scald burns and is associated with more scald burn deaths and hospitalizations in children than any other hot liquid.
I found that even trying to discuss this case like reasonable human beings immediately attracts downvotes, be it here or on Reddit - it's like "how dare you even question this! Of course McDonald's was in the wrong and even asking 'why' is a violation of some kind"
Edit: case in point - this comment is currently in negative and I literally have no idea why, I've been commenting on this site for almost 10 years and this is one topic that is always guaranteed to attract downvotes no matter the context.
I don’t think the OP is discussing in good faith. They’re projecting a rather tangential opinion disguised as an innocent question. Their opinion is then being undermined by facts, thus they are being downvoted, and complaining about the downvotes.
There’s a lot of behaviour there that goes against the guidelines of most forums.
HN's rules around faux-politeness make it extremely susceptible to this kind of attack: not everyone is actually acting in good-faith and it makes discussions extremely tedious dealing with sealions who exploit that to drag the discussions of interest to a halt while the bad-faith user demands that we engage in a lengthy discussion of basic underlying points to keep from engaging the actual topic of discussion. Oh, but if you say it then you're the bad guy, because we have this rule!
Again, why are we re-litigating a discussion about mcdonald's coffee on a topic about workplace harassment? Literally the only connection is they're both lawsuits. There's been a ton of words written about something that is entirely off-topic, because of this sealioning from the parent. That is textbook, open-and-shut, exactly what this tactic is designed to do.
> There is no harm done by answering a bad faith question in good faith.
That is the primary misconception which is exploited by the sealion tactic. It allows a bad-faith individual to reverse the position of offender and victim - because what harm is there in just asking a good-faith question?
Questions are still part of an argument, they are "leading" the reader. And addressing it carries the implication that it's a valid position worthy of respect and time to address it.
And some questions can be very noxious indeed and do need to be stifled outright - "what good has [minority group] ever done for us" is quite a harmful question even if the answer is legitimately "lots"! And again, even merely by bringing it up, and by addressing it in response, you've given it legitimacy both as a question around that particular group, and to the idea that groups need to justify their existence/presence in society. Those are both very harmful things done merely by "answering a bad-faith question in good faith".
Again, perhaps a more core value disagreement is that "good-faith discussion" can legitimately solve all woes, including malicious actors. That is really the basis of your "no harm can be done by answering a bad-faith question in good faith", is it not? That seems like magical thinking to me.
Anyway, "no harm can ever be caused by answering a bad-faith question with a good-faith response" is quite a broad position, perhaps you can cite some evidence or studies on that one, because there's rather trivial examples like hate speech that definitely run against it.
> HN's rules around faux-politeness make it extremely susceptible to this kind of attack
Not if people downvote rather than responding to nonproductive contributions. The problem isn't the rules around good faith when responding, the problem is people feeling obliged to respond.
One is not obligated to respond, something it took me an excessively long time to learn. The correct thing to do if you feel it is being done in bad faith -- or for any reason feel it's unproductive -- is stop replying.
I'll give you reddit is rude about this but IMO on HN questioning is perfectly reasonable. In this case, though, I imagine most would agree the parent comment came off as needlessly arrogant and defensive, especially since they could easily Google the answer.
> Edit: Why are people disagreeing with this? It's literally 2 questions and it seems the temperature was the issue when looking at culpability.
Downthread? Because you're being obtuse and, when people answer, asking a bunch more questions that you could easily google the answers to. It's not coming off as a good-faith discussion.
As someone slightly on the spectrum, I regularly get accused of being "obtuse" when I'm asking honest questions to make sense of something.
Of course some people really do intentionally be difficult, but OP's question was not near enough info to conclude that, and his additional responses were after he got slammed with downvotes (which usually bother people)
> Why was the McDonald's one not frivolous? Was it just because it was 185 degrees?
The questions read as slanted. This is a warning sign that you're dealing with someone who's already made up their mind and is just looking to argue. That "just" especially is... a red flag.
That on its own might not mean much, but then, there's this entire post:
Which looks like a continuation of exactly that kind of thing. Asking questions in a one-sided way, demanding others do things for you even when they already pointed you in the right direction, hostile tone, et c. Even if done innocently, this style of posting can't be tolerated because it's a beloved trolling/shitposting tactic.
I think there was a communication issue. My post could have been worded better. I was specifically interested in the culpability portion. To my knowledge at that time it was simply about the temperature of the coffee. People were bringing up the injury portion. I wasn't questioning that part.
Someone else on here brought up that the design of the cup was defective. That was the type of information I was looking for. Even some Google searching was not bringing up that for me, probably because like this thread, most people are focused on just the injury and the temperature. The cup issue really added to my understanding of the case, and answered my question about why it was not a frivolous case.
Apologies for any offense my post gave you, then. I sincerely hope you have a great rest of your day (and to be extra clear, because writing on the Internet is hard, that's not sarcasm).
I'll let it stand as a general description of why people may react negatively to certain kinds of post.
>As someone slightly on the spectrum, I regularly get accused of being "obtuse" when I'm asking honest questions to make sense of something.
I'm similar, but I've come to recognize that the default of communication is asshole, and the best method to avoid that is to ensure you're meeting others halfway in a conversation.
I imagine most would agree that the parent comment's statement "Why was the McDonald's one not frivolous? Was it just because it was 185 degrees?" comes off as somewhat ignorant in that they could have done a quick Google search or asked less defensively if they genuinely wanted an answer. Their followup comment is even worse.
I realize now that my wording could have been different. Just as my comment made the assumption we were talking about the culpability portion of the case, many other commenters assumed we were talking about just the injury portion of the case. I did try to search for info. But like this thread, I was only finding stuff about the temperature and the injury.
Another commenter brought up the defective cup design here. This was the type of info I was looking for related to culpability that I couldn't find. This is what I like about HN - the google search results were not useful since it's (appearently) such a divisive topic, but a well informed HN'er had the additional info.
I think on HN, you have to go out of your way to ask a question. Most people are using questions to imply that the comment they're replying to is wrong, thus when people see it, they think you're taking that angle. I've run into this a couple times. Something like "I'm genuinely asking." can be helpful here, but even then, people are battle-hardened enough to think that's sarcastic too.
I think what I'd do here is start a new top-level comment like "Some other comments are talking about the McDonalds thing. Does anyone have any more details on this? Was it just that the coffee was too hot, or where there other factors that made that a lawsuit?"
Purely anecdotal and worth nothing as evidence, but I remember how hot that damn coffee was. It was insane. We would literally take the lid off and hold it in front of an A/C vent to try and cool it off and it still took 20 mins before you could drink it. It burned the hell out of our hands lol. But, it was good coffee once it cooled down.
The wikipedia article for this lawsuit claims that McDonalds has not reduced the temperature of their coffee, and that it continues to cause 3rd degree burns to this day.
You need to read about what happened to that lady. She got 3rd degree burns. That is not "185" degrees. It was concluded that the coffee had to be right near boiling when it was poured on her. It was not frivolous at all. It is an easy google search away. I don't know why anyone would wait possibly hours for a response on HN on something like that?
Yes, I'm sympathetic towards the circumstances that maybe led to the party happening anyway, but it seems like there was harsh retaliation against him for an issue that he forewarned against.
I think we need more information about what he did that violated the "workplace violence policy" before we can say the retaliation was harsh. If he bumped into somebody on his way to the car, then definitely harsh. If he beat the shit out of a coworker, termination is probably appropriate. Tragic, and really sucks that the supervisor didn't listen, but as HR/management you can't expect to make a person/people (we don't know cause article didn't cover it at all) work with someone who beat the shit out of them, even if the person's supervisor had a warning. Whole situation just sucks.
I forgot to note that caveat, fair point. But it's implied he returned to work after lunch in his car, and that he was "confronted and criticized" for his reaction to the party, which seems like a light response to significant violence, so I'm leaning towards the less violent end of the spectrum there, on the order of something like a shove on the high end. Without clarification, that's just an assumption, but generally, the burden for proof lies with the employer.
Edit: Actually, the Link NKY article referenced in OP clears this up, and it appears that no evidence or testimony of any violence was ever offered. The first set of opinions are obviously one-sided, but it seems clear from the last paragraph in quotation here that there was no real violence.
> “They way [the Gravity Diagnostics employees] say it, they believed he was enraged and possibly about to get violent,” Bucher said.
> Berling has never demonstrated any violence, Bucher said, and someone who is suffering a panic attack becomes almost paralyzed with fear; they don’t often lash out.
> “Basically what the argument was is he was fired for having a panic attack,” Bucher said. “They made assumptions that he was dangerous based off of his disability and not off of any evidence that he was violent.”
> If he had made violent gestures, Bucher said, Gravity Diagnostics would have had grounds to fire him, but he didn’t do anything threatening.
> ...
> With ever-increasing incidents of workplace violence, Brazil said, the verdict sets a dangerous precedent for employers and employees that unless physical violence occurs, workplace violence is acceptable.
I agree, circumstantial evidence and "reasonable" logic would lead you to conclude that if he was violent or threatening, they would have called the police, not pulled him aside for a stern talking to; especially in a state as open/free about guns as Kentucky is.
> sets a dangerous precedent for employers and employees that unless physical violence occurs, workplace violence is acceptable
This is the stupidest thing I have ever read. "This sets a dangerous precedent that violence is OK so long as it doesn't actually happen." Lady, what have you been smoking??
> With ever-increasing incidents of workplace violence, Brazil said, the verdict sets a dangerous precedent for employers and employees that unless physical violence occurs, workplace violence is acceptable.
In this case the company forced an employee against his expressed will to be the center of attention of a “party” and triggered his condition.
This IS violence - from the side of the employer.
> “Basically what the argument was is he was fired for having a panic attack,” Bucher said. “They made assumptions that he was dangerous based off of his disability and not off of any evidence that he was violent.”
> If he had made violent gestures, Bucher said, Gravity Diagnostics would have had grounds to fire him, but he didn’t do anything threatening.
If there had been any real violent act, I doubt he would have won his lawsuit. To me, this seems like one of those bullshit cases of "So-and-so is a little weird and his weirdness makes me feel uncomfortable." A sadly typical case of a neurotypical bullying somebody on the spectrum by framing any deviation from the norm as an implicit violent threat.
>He started to have another panic attack, Bucher said.
>“At this point he starts employing other coping techniques that he’s worked on for years with his therapist,” Bucher said. “The way he described it is he started hugging himself and asked them to please stop.”
>Bucher said the two employees in the conference room asked Berling to stop, and when he didn’t, they walked out. Once the panic attack had subsided, Bucher said, Berling walked out of the conference room and was asked to leave the building. He was let go a couple of days later.
>“They way [the Gravity Diagnostics employees] say it, they believed he was enraged and possibly about to get violent,” Bucher said.
Except the McDonalds coffee case isn’t represented in a misleading way, and can very reasonably be viewed as frivolous no matter how much you study the facts.
And how cruel for this to be so widely publicized.
> The employee, who was hired in October 2018 by Gravity Diagnostics, did not want a celebration because “being the center of attention” can trigger his disorder, the documents state.
And now it's all over the news where he'll be the unwanted center of attention all over again.
As someone who also does not like being the center of attention, I wish this man got more money, and that this company would go bankrupt. FUCK these people. They directly caused this man to have two panic attacks, BOTH of which could have been avoided by literally doing nothing, and then they fire him?
Something that drives me absolutely nuts is that most people assume that anyone who wishes to avoid social interaction is actually really just too afraid to be social, and that forcing them to do so is an acceptable thing to do. It's not! It's incredibly callous and insensitive and it's something that should only ever be considered by extremely close friends. Please respect people's wishes when they say they don't want a party, especially if you are just coworkers!
the lawyer will get probably a good chunk of it and the company will drag its feet to avoid payment or reduce the amount . not that much money. Goes to show how most outcomes are much smaller than headlines about tens or hundred million dollar settlements.
After an award is given in a judgement, the time for a company to reduce the amount is long past, and they can only drag their feet for so long. With the proper filing, the plaintiff can put a lien on the company's bank accounts, and in egregious cases can even walk up with a cop and start taking stuff from the company to satisfy the award (a "sheriff's sale").
You're right that the lawyer will probably get a good chunk of it, though.
> As someone who also does not like being the center of attention, I wish this man got more money, and that this company would go bankrupt.
Bear in mind that when a company goes bankrupt, usually it's not only the owners who feel pain. It's also employees, creditors, their suppliers, their customers, etc.
Do you get violent when you have panic attacks? I don't, but I'm wondering how other people experience those and if this person was more or less like mine.
Thank you for the source - it was surprising to me that the word "violent" was used in the original article but the behavior was not elaborated on in any way.
I'm not sure why people keep asking about this -- it was a transparently desperate ploy by the defendant to portray themselves as victims, and it didn't work.
People kept asking because the original article doesn't address the "violence" accusation at all. It does link to one that does, but while I do think it's reasonable to expect commenters to have read the article, I don't think it's reasonable to expect that they also followed every link and read all of those articles too. The other article link that provides the information came after the thread had already developed quite a bit. It might be helpful to look at the time timestamps on the comments.
It does sound like the violence accusation was a BS excuse, so the original anger is justified. But gathering all information before grabbing a pitchfork is a responsible thing to do.
Meh, I am glad he got a decent settlement. I don't agree that 100 people getting laid off and the damage that does is called for though. That's not really justice as I understand the concept.
There is a certain sort of hyper-social office worker that seems utterly incapable of respecting personal boundaries. Unfortunately, this sort of person is often found in management or HR, where they are positioned to make themselves a true menace to others. I'm glad to see this sort of office personalty become a financial liability for companies, and I hope there are more big lawsuits like this in the near future.
Same here. Even moreso considering they tried to say that his "outburst" was in violation of their workplace violence policy. I'd love to see them drilled for defamaiton, perjury (if they tried to push that lie on the stand), etc.. What truly amazes me is their plan to appeal this instead of taking it on the mouth and learning a lesson.
Too bad the appeal process isn't a "double-or-nothing" type of deal. I'd love to see them take more of a financial hit from this.
According to the Link NYK article: “The person who was responsible for the birthday parties who he talked to flat out forgot about his request,” Bucher said. “She didn’t do it to be mean. She said she would accommodate it and she just forgot.”
I see no reason to disbelieve this; mistakes happen.
I do think the subsequent actions such as "reading him the riot act and accused him of stealing other coworkers’ joy" and firing him were completely bonkers and devoid of empathy though. It's weird that this escalated like this and didn't just end with an apology and "are you okay?"
So it’s a wrongful dismissal suit, not even “just” having a party after being explicitly told not to.
Person has an anxiety disorder, so explicitly said not to have a party. His manager had a party anyway, triggering a panic attack. He ran away to his car to recover and they fired him.
The article doesn't give enough information to determine whether this was a reasonable judgment. What actually happened when they discussed the event afterwards that led to his termination? That could have been completely justified even if they had originally been in the wrong for ignoring his request.
Dumb title. He was fired because of his reaction to the birthday party. And he won the lawsuit because of the termination, rightfully so. He didn’t win the lawsuit because of the party, he won because of wrongful termination.
He got 120,000 for lost wages and the other 300,000 dollars was for mental distress. You could attribute that exclusively to the firing, or more reasonably, to his company causing him to had 2 panic attacks related to a birthday party.
Good for him. The callous disregard for _pre-stated_ wishes and then trying to claim that "akstually HE was the real risk to OUR employees" shows that any sense of "friendly workspace" they are trying to encourage by having birthday parties (??!) for employees is just a thin-veneer over what is more reminiscent of a scene from "Office Space".
Strangely, this did not stop the jury from ruling in his favor. At what point can we give this person the benefit of the doubt that he was mistreated by his employer?
There seem to be some missing facts. The statement from the business indicates that their defense for firing him was that they reasonably believed his flip-out could be the start of going postal.
Without knowing what he said, it’s hard to judge. Since the jury found for plaintiff, I’m going to guess they didn’t see it as a credible threat.
If you were an employer who fired someone in this situation for no reason other than having a panic attack without hurting anyone, you'd probably lie and say that the panic attack put you in fear that he'd hurt someone.
there are tons of comments here lambasting the company, which was my first reaction too, but then I noticed something important and think maybe the article might be leaving out some pretty important information. "Panic attack" can be pretty vague. I have them and it's usually just trouble breathing. However, everyone experiences them differently. A possible hint that the article is possibly omitting is here (emphasis mine):
> “My employees de-escalated the situation to get the plaintiff out of the building as quickly as possible while removing his access to the building, alerting me and sending out security reminders to ensure he could not access the building, which is exactly what they were supposed to do,” Brazil told Link NKY. “As an employer who puts our employee safety first, we have a zero-tolerance policy and we stand by our decision to terminate the plaintiff for his violation of our workplace violence policy.
It sounds like he may have done something physically violent to somebody. Of course it's terrible that they put him in that situation to begin with, but it does seem pretty plausible to me that if he became violent and injured a person (who may not have been his supervisor that ignored his request) that does sound like their reaction isn't nearly as unreasonable as it sounds when you omit all detail of violence.
It would be great to get some more details. For the record I'm not saying the firing was justified - I have no idea. Obviously a jury who does know decided it wasn't justified, and they have a lot more information than I/we do so they're probably right. All I'm saying is there may be some important information that we don't have that makes it a little less clear-cut evil.
Yes, to be clear I (and I don't think parent) is disputing the jury's decision. I'm pointing out that the article (which is what everybody here is reacting to) isn't providing any info about what the "violence" was, or even acknowledging that it exists other than the part where they quoted the company rep.
If the "violence" was him saying something mean/inappropriate or something (which I don't consider violence but many people do think speech can be violence) that would be largely irrelevant. But if he beat the shit out of somebody, that would make this case far less egregious and IMHO would make many of the reactionary comments here look terrible.
> “At this point he starts employing other coping techniques that he’s worked on for years with his therapist,” Bucher said. “The way he described it is he started hugging himself and asked them to please stop.”
> Bucher said the two employees in the conference room asked Berling to stop, and when he didn’t, they walked out. Once the panic attack had subsided, Bucher said, Berling walked out of the conference room and was asked to leave the building. He was let go a couple of days later.
> “They way [the Gravity Diagnostics employees] say it, they believed he was enraged and possibly about to get violent,” Bucher said.
> Berling has never demonstrated any violence, Bucher said, and someone who is suffering a panic attack becomes almost paralyzed with fear; they don’t often lash out.
Just adding for clarity (I'm GP), this linked article is great and puts to bed any doubts I had. This firing and treatment of the plaintiff was outrageous.
> All I'm saying is there may be some important information that we don't have that makes it a little less clear-cut evil.
Like what? A judge and a jury investigated claims on both sides in adversarial court. Are you proposing that the defense of General Gravity was less than zealous?
I want to know more. This quote is really strange:
> As an employer who puts our employee safety first, we have a zero-tolerance policy and we stand by our decision to terminate the plaintiff for his violation of our workplace violence policy
Did the man really react violently? Or is Gravity Diagnostics not willing to admit that they handled the situation incorrectly?
That would certainly change things. Did they fire him pettily because they felt he didn't appreciate the party enough since he left? Or did his panic attack cause him to, say, punch someone in the face? There's so little detail in the article that one could imagine a scenario where firing the employee doesn't sound like a 100% asshole move.
If someone says "do not do this no job-function related thing, it will be bad for me" and you do that, there's very few reactions that I feel would not still be the company's fault. Someone wanted cake and some goof off time and was using this man's birthday to meet that want in spite of it causing him distress.
Everything after that is because of this cause. "This guy physically attacked me after I chose, against warning, to put him in a panic state" is an admission of guilt not a deflection of blame in my mind. Pretty classic neuro-typical behavior tbh.
It's really strange... If you read the linked article (where that quote came from) it explains it further. This article is just reporting on the linked article.
He had a second panic attack the next day when he was confronted about it in a conference room. Rather than leave the conference room and go to the car like the previous day he self soothed by hugging himself (?) which apparently cased the other employees to think he was going to become violent. Not sure why... other than it was "weird" behavior? So they escorted him out of the building and wouldn't let him back in, which was apparently the policy.
If I give Gravity Diagnostics the benefit of the doubt then I’m guessing that the panic attack caused him to react in a “violent outburst” that wouldn’t be appropriate in a professional environment leading to his dismissal.
That doesn’t absolve them of an ADA complaint. A birthday party is not a required work event and this was preventable on their part.
Someone further down posted a link with more details, but to summarize:
>“They way [the Gravity Diagnostics employees] say it, they believed he was enraged and possibly about to get violent,” [his attorney] Bucher said.
>Berling has never demonstrated any violence, Bucher said, and someone who is suffering a panic attack becomes almost paralyzed with fear; they don’t often lash out.
>“Basically what the argument was is he was fired for having a panic attack,” Bucher said. “They made assumptions that he was dangerous based off of his disability and not off of any evidence that he was violent.”
The phrase "zero tolerance" is often abused as an attempt to abdicate all responsibility for being reasonable, while making it sound like willful blindness is a virtue. It's a common enough usage that the phrase has become a red flag indicating the possible presence of an out of control bureaucracy. And in this case, it certainly appears that the company is trying to use a stupidly simplistic policy to reframe callous behavior as not only good but required.
Or, to put it another way: a "zero tolerance" policy should not be a "shoot first, ask questions never" policy.
I can definitely empathize with this person. Anxiety issues are no joke. I've had panic attacks and they felt substantially more terrifying than the times where I've been in legitimate danger. And the triggers are so mundane. I once spent 20 minutes sitting on the floor in a grocery store after seeing an old friend, because, one of my triggers is seriously seeing people outside of the context where I normally do.
This is emotionally equivalent to your coworkers putting you in a room with a lion as your birthday celebration. I'm sure people won't believe me. Even if you don't, if someone ever tells you that they don't like being the center of attention, just take their word for it.
That is so interesting that you can react worse than when in real danger and I think that probably matches some of the people I know who struggle with anxiety. I wonder if that is simply because most of the time one gets into real danger, there is no lead up to it, it just happens quickly and unexpectedly - no time to dwell on it.
I've nearly drowned, been hung by the neck, threatened with a knife, jumped by a gang, strangled to unconsciousness, been stuck in a hole and almost fallen off a few cliffs. An anxiety reaction feels nearly identical to a near death experience except it lasts way longer and there is no point where you escape to safety.
However, I think the near death experiences were worse because they would cause even more anxiety later. I still freak out near knives and hate when anyone comes up behind me. People touching my neck will send me off kicking and screaming.
There's not enough detail or background here to make confident armchair readings about anything. Having long ago experienced panic disorder that overlapped with my professional life, I am grateful for having been accommodated and sympathetic to anyone who experiences it. But it's not clear here that the employee explained the full situation to their boss. Just that they said they didn't want a party, which a lot of people would say. Enduring some uncomfortable and unexpected social situations at work is a reasonable expectation of an employee. Enduring unexpected work stress in general is a reasonable expectation of an employee. It's not inherently evil to fire an employee who has poor reactions to workplace stress. Panic attacks as a result of an unwanted birthday party are not that far off from panic attacks from having to meet a new co-worker, boss, or give a talk to even a small group.
But again, there's not enough in this article to really anlalyze. It's infotainment contrasting of the inanity of a birthday party with the firing/damages.
There's not enough detail or background here to make confident armchair readings about anything.
When someone asks for something you should respect their wishes, and this company chose to ignore that and follow the protocol despite being asked not to. From that alone I know that this company is not somewhere good to work. Putting following the rules when you don't need to ahead of people's welfare is a huge red flag.
Maybe. The other story says that the person coordinating the birthdays forgot and didn't intend to contravene this person's wishes. What you're advocating is etiquette and politeness, and as such it's not really possible to disagree with it. But part of etiquette and politeness is tolerating other parties' mistakes.
If they had apologized to him after the mistake, they might have received forgiveness. But instead they berated him, then fired him for having a second panic attack. At that point, the situation is no longer a mistake to be tolerated.
Why is it not a legitimate cause for firing that an employees can't fit in socially amongst the other employees and take part in company functions? Companies have all sort of annoying requirements and tasks employees must do, how is this one different? Isn't company culture a thing many find necessary to uphold? Maybe birthday parties are part of this company's culture.
One might say it's not necessary to the job, but is this true? Social events and employee camaraderie are arguably necessary to a well functioning workplace. I'm not even arguing that parties are necessary but that a company can decide for themselves if they are no? And that if someone is so uncomfortable taking part then perhaps they don't belong at the company.
Why is it a legitimate expectation that a company and its employees must accommodate your problems to such a degree?
In the US, the americans with disabilities act requires workplaces to provide reasonable accommodation for disabilities. They're not required to hire you if you're incapable of doing your job as per it's description, and they're not required to accommodate to an unreasonable degree.
Not throwing someone a birthday party sounds like a perfectly reasonable accommodation.
Beyond that, people have to push back at those annoying requirements. Should a company be allowed to have whatever requirements it wants to have? Should I? Do we belong to them?
They fit in fine, as far as job functions are concerned.
It's explicitely not ok for 'social fit' to be a firing offence, isn't it? That's another word for "Not our kind of person" which opens an ugly door.
Parties targeting one person are so, so problematic. Nobody asked anybody to 'accomodate' this person. They asked to be left alone, which is literally zero accomodation.
> explicitely not ok for 'social fit' to be a firing offence, isn't it?
Most employment is at will. That permits firing someone for not being a good fit. (You can't define "fit" however you feel. But someone not getting along with their colleagues and not responding to feedback would generally be fireable for it.)
> When the company threw him a lunchtime party against his wishes, it triggered a panic attack and he left abruptly to spend his break in his car. Four days later, after his office managers confronted him about his reaction to the party, he was fired from the Northern Kentucky company
Julie Brazil, the founder and [COO] said ...
> My employees de-escalated the situation to get the plaintiff out of the building as quickly as possible while removing his access to the building, alerting me and sending out security reminders to ensure he could not access the building, which is exactly what they were supposed to do, we have a zero-tolerance policy and we stand by our decision to terminate the plaintiff for his violation of our workplace violence policy.
The plantiff's lawyer said ...
> I believe (he) was so happy and relieved that the jury recognized that he was not some violent and menacing person and that it was not okay for Gravity Diagnostics to just assume that he was without any evidence to support those misconceptions.
So the case seems less about
> @manager please can we not have a birthday party for me please
and more about the
> @employee you're fired for being violent even though we do not have evidence to back this statement up
...
Whole article smells to me like the company blaming the employee for something he warned them about anyway, but that's just my opinion.
271 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 270 ms ] threadAnother aspect, I typically see injury lawsuits for things like cervical injuries with fusions settle for like $150k so in that regard, $450k seems like he made out pretty well. Fatalities depend on age, but even then we are only talking about a few million for a young person.
PS: I'm just justifying the 450k reward as being fired for no reason (his reaction). It's understandable
His employer refused to make reasonable accommodations for his disability, which in this case was no action at all. Further, they did the exact opposite of what he'd asked for in advance.
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/odep/program-areas/employers/ac...
> Berling has an anxiety disorder, said his attorney, Tony Bucher, and his birthday is a source of stress, so his client went to the person at the company who throws the parties and asked them not to.
> “The person who was responsible for the birthday parties who he talked to flat out forgot about his request,” Bucher said. “She didn’t do it to be mean. She said she would accommodate it and she just forgot.”
https://linknky.com/news/2022/04/14/man-awarded-450k-after-f...
I'd guess that that forgetting that a request was made does not mean a request wasn't made, and doesn't remove the employer's requirement to comply with the ADA. It's also unclear to me that the "informal" part of "informal request" means anything here - a request is a request, and it was made to the person in charge of birthday parties.
Regardless of if she threw the party to be mean or not (given the outcome, I don't think that's relevant) - the root problem may have come down to the company's reaction to his panic attack. They fired him for his disability. That's a clear violation of the ADA.
So they have been able to confirm they have a working layer of security theater, on top of forcing employees to receive office birthday parties? That's weird. And then they dive behind seemingly irrelevant procedural cover like that when an employee is forced to walk out in embarrassment, due to a health condition? That's creepy.
That sounds like better security than most companies where they have a hard time just removing an employee's access, and even if they do, they have no established process to tell employees that he shouldn't be allowed in.
I left my badge at home once, I was wearing my company logo jacket and tailgated in behind a couple employees I didn't know, one even held the door open for me. If I'd been terminated and banned from the office, I'd have had no trouble getting back into the office.
We've instituted a "no-tailgating" policy since then, but there's no enforcement and is widely ignored.
It's not theatre but it sure sounds theatrical, when they could have apologised, given him some time to regroup his emotions and then left it at that.
When I was much younger I had a nervous breakdown at work during a period of extreme personal stress -- I really absolutely and totally lost the plot. Quite probably upset a lot of people, many of whom did not see me the same afterwards. Though more fallout for me personally; it was difficult to be there and my reaction undermined me.
I was treated with enormous -- and I must say on reflection completely unearned -- respect and at no point did the company feel they had to do this. Because I'm not in the USA.
It's worth considering that many places in the USA seem to think the problem in their culture with violent crime is not guns but the fact that mentally ill people can get guns and weaponry of all sorts.
What follows from that is company policy that seriously upset people must necessarily be treated as a threat.
And this sort of "bar him from the building because he panicked" outcome is the logical conclusion of this attitude.
So during security audits you can now tick the box that access to the premises is secure, while in reality anyone can just follow random people in. Now carry a box that requires two hands, wear a lanyard with a card hinting at being some kind of courier, and not a soul will stop you unless the building has actual security.
To be fair, an employee having a panic attack because one your managers did something they were informed in advance would cause a panic attack is textbook disgruntled.
Imagine if a company forced a recovering alcoholic to go to a bar and then firing him when he got drunk.
edit: the comment above is not the one I originally replied to; it has been edited. It did not originally say "textbook disgruntled," it said "not someone you'd want to have keys to your kingdom," which I assumed to mean they were right to fire him.
More accurately, if the employee got upset they dragged him to a bar and left, and then they fired him over that. Even more absurd, and yet closer to what happened here...
Edit: after OPs ninja edit, I'm not so sure anymore
Edited to clarify. "Not someone you want to have keys to your kingdom" as in temporarily removing access credentials. Not firing.
> Imagine if a company forced a recovering alcoholic to go to a bar and then firing him when he got drunk
This would be ludicrous. Temporarily revoking his access to prod would not be.
It’s a sad situation, and he probably deserves his award, but I think if an employee has some sort of anti-social mental episode on the job, you have a responsibility to your employees to keep them out until they are cleared by a doctor.
Are you implying that anyone with anxiety disorders is a potential mass shooter?
As such, your employer should obviously revoke you access to their facilities until you are cleared by a doctor.
What the actual hell? Who is this alien impostor? Calling sus on Julie Brazil.
I’ll trade a panic attack for $450k any day.
Interesting thought exercises when it comes to interpretation of how law applies.
Here is the summary thread regarding it. It's worse than the article makes it out to be. The OP almost committed suicide due to the stress
https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/topi...
Edit: I'm almost certain I was wrong. As pointed out elsewhere the dates don't line up. However it's a case of the exact same thing happening in a Legal Advice thread
The headline sounds ridiculous, but this detail explains everything. Getting fired because you had a panic attack in response to an optional thing you explicitly told them not to do? That's lunacy.
Humans do.
Given, but it's understood that certain places have narrower ranges of 'perceived acceptable behavior', no?
Simply stated: I would get less odd stares while on my unicycle on the streets of San Francisco than I would elsewhere.
(no, I can't ride a unicycle :( )
I don't think there's any place on earth where this doesn't apply.
The quote about the employees acting appropriately for office safety sounds like this second event was interpreted as violence of some sort. We weren't there so we can't know, but it's one of those things where the overall picture makes the jury decision seem likely to be reasonable.
What a bizarre and totally avoidable situation.
Person says "don't do this thing, it will hurt me." Group says, "no it won't," or otherwise dismisses/forgets. Group does the thing. Person is injured, predictably, and takes protective/evasive actions. Group or subset of group becomes offended that person has taken protective/evasive actions, correctly believing actions to implicate the group's bad behavior. Group or subset of group smears their victim, amplifies or otherwise doubles-down on their initial misunderstanding or neglect of person's request not to injure them.
Employer put him into a bad situation against his will, when he'd warned them and it wasn't necessary for his job, and then fired him when he had the reaction he'd foreseen. Obvious wrongful termination and horrific management.
Edit: Why are people disagreeing with this? It's literally 2 questions and it seems the temperature was the issue when looking at culpability.
Edit 2: someone here provided the additional type of information that I was interested in. It wasn't just the temperature, but also that the cup had a design flaw that made it likely to collapse if you took the lid off. Thanks!
McDonalds already had multiple successful suits against them about this very thing.
The lady in question got incredibly serious burns on her legs.
She originally sued only for medical expenses, and McDonalds wasn't interested in settling.
The award was later reduced.
If the answer to bad corporate behaviour is not regulation, but rather lawsuits, then that lawsuit perfectly encapsulated the series of legal escalations necessary to deal with a bad corporate actor, that has been alerted of a problem in their product, and refuses to resolve it.
Ok, then I want to hear the reasoning behind those rulings/awards.
"The lady in question got incredibly serious burns on her legs."
That's an outcome/result. That has no real bearing on the culpability.
"She originally sued only for medical expenses, and McDonalds wasn't interested in settling."
Again, nothing speaking to culpability here.
"The coffee was much hotter than the industry standard."
Ok, so this is basically what my comment said. It seems 185 is about 20 degrees higher than other restaurants. It also has a warning on it (jury said it's not big enough, but maybe we should have everyone sign waivers first?).
"legal escalations necessary to deal with a bad corporate actor"
Depends on your viewpoint as to who is "bad".
Edit: why disagree with this?
The part about bad corporate actors was not specific to the McDonalds example. I was merely saying that we could label any company as bad. For example, some might say abortion clinics are bad, while others might say gun makers are bad.
It just seems like you are very set in your views and are demanding that we all argue with you, and if that's the case, make a new post about the mcdonald's case because this thread isn't even about that.
> Ok, then I want to hear the reasoning behind those rulings/awards. ... > Edit: why disagree with this?
You're asking internet randos to explain something to you that is an easily researched matter of public record. I too used to think the McDonald's coffee case was a punchline for an overly litigious America. Then I read the horrifying details.
Also I don't know if you realize it but your comments are making you come across as a major <rude adjective of choice> which is likely why you're getting downvotes.
Then, the case was rediscovered by a popular podcast ("You're Wrong About") so a lot of people now have the opposite perspective and anger at how it all played out.
None of this justifies downvoting and I upvoted you. But I can understand how people might see someone asking questions as performing a "just asking questions!" legerdemain.
I'd say online communities have been having this reaction for at least a decade. In 2011 a documentary came out partially about the case, Hot Coffee, and since then most mentions of the McDonalds case I've seen have turned into a version of this conversation.
Actually, it probably even predates that film. The first Wikipedia entry for the case in 2003 says
>Based on this summary, the case has become emblematic of frivolous and outrageous lawsuits for many people, and is often used as an example of the need for tort reform in the United States legal system. The summary, however, omits a large amount of relevant information.
I would imagine the legal cases decided that McDonalds was not taking reasonable precautions to account for their much hotter than usual coffee. No amount of written warnings or even signed waivers will protect you from negligence, at least in most US states.
>> People did not realize how seriously they could be burned. All McDonald's restaurants served coffee between 180 and 190 degrees. At this temperature, spilled coffee causes third degree burns in less than three seconds. Other restaurants served coffee at 160 degrees, which takes twenty seconds to cause third degree burns. That is usually enough time to wipe away the coffee.
and https://corporate.findlaw.com/litigation-disputes/products-l...
>> As noted above, the jury found that McDonald's had sold a defective product and had also breached implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. A warranty is like a promise. An implied warranty is something that exists whether or not you have a piece of paper titled "Warranty". An implied warranty of merchantability means that the goods sold conform to the ordinary standards of care and that they are of average grade, quality and value as similar goods sold under similar circumstances. Put more simply, when you buy a cup of coffee at McDonald's, you have a right to expect that it will be pretty much the same as the coffee you could buy at any similar drive-thru. An implied warranty of fitness for a particular purpose exists when the retailer, distributor, or manufacturer has reason to know the particular purpose for which the consumer goods are required, and that the buyer is relying on the skill and judgment of the seller to select and furnish suitable goods. In the case of coffee purchased at its drive-thru, McDonald's would know that the buyer of the coffee wanted to drink it and that the buyer is relying on McDonald's to sell coffee that the buyer can drink. When the McDonald's employee hands the customer the cup of coffee, it is as if McDonald's is saying, "I promise this coffee is drinkable and that the cup it is served in is suitable." If the warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose are breached, or the promise is broken, then the manufacturer, distributor, and/or seller of the product are liable or responsible for the consequences.
From the wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_Restau...
> she had suffered third-degree burns on six percent of her skin and lesser burns over sixteen percent.[14] She remained in the hospital for eight days while she underwent skin grafting. During this period, Liebeck lost 20 pounds (9.1 kg) (nearly 20 percent of her body weight), reducing her to 83 pounds (38 kg). After the hospital stay, Liebeck needed care for three weeks, which was provided by her daughter.[15] Liebeck suffered permanent disfigurement after the incident and was partially disabled for two years.
I'd highly recommend looking up details of the case if you think it was frivolous.
It quite literally burnt/melted part of her vagina onto her leg/part of body that was not her vagina. I think pictures are out there if you google for them, it’s been quite a while but IIRC pretty gruesome.
Well, yes and no. The temperature of the coffee was only partially the reason. What made McDonald's actions appear malicious rather than accidental (therefore increasing their culpability) was the fact that McDonald's knew the coffee was too hot but continued to serve it anyway.
> Since Liebeck, McDonald's has not reduced the service temperature of its coffee. McDonald's current policy is to serve coffee at 176–194 °F (80–90 °C),[37] relying on more sternly worded warnings on cups made of rigid foam to avoid future liability, though it continues to face lawsuits over hot coffee.[37][38] The Specialty Coffee Association of America supports improved packaging methods rather than lowering the temperature at which coffee is served. The association has successfully aided the defense of subsequent coffee burn cases.[38] Similarly, as of 2004, Starbucks sells coffee at 175–185 °F (79–85 °C), and the executive director of the Specialty Coffee Association of America reported that the standard serving temperature is 160–185 °F (71–85 °C).
So according to this page you've linked, the coffee was not unusually hot and McDonalds and Starbucks are presently serving coffee just as hot that could give you 3rd degree burns today.
(Since people in this thread seem so jumpy, let me explicitly disclaim that I think the lawsuit and outcome were warranted because she was severely burned as a consequence of McDonald's defective cup design.)
If that's the case (and no reason to disbelieve the plaintiff), that's a superheated liquid. In other words, it is a liquid above its own boiling point and waiting for a cavitation event (something for bubbles to hold on to) to instantly boil. And this seems to coincide with the coffee explosion and burns from the plantiff.
Mythbusters video of an example of superheated water: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_OXM4mr_i0
"She was hospitalized for eight days while undergoing skin grafting, followed by two years of medical treatment."
We know why coffee vendors make the coffee so hot. It expresses more caffeine. It is very simple. They decided that the value in keeping consumers addicted was worth the risk.
But the biggest issue that I don't see mentioned most times this case is brought up is that the coffee cups at that time were defective by design. They relied on the lid for structural integrity. When you grasped the cup and squeeze it hard enough to keep it from falling, then if the lid pops off the cup collapses and the cup falls, spilling scalding liquid on you. Notice that the current cups don't crush as easily even without a lid on, they still hold their structure when squeezing it hard enough to pick it up.
Also, the old cups would cause discomfort when holding them, which indicates that the liquid lost a lot of its thermal energy to the environment in a short amount of time. Due to that, customers that had to transport their coffee for some distance before wanting to drink it would want it to be served hotter than normal. Then it would be the perfect temperature when they get to their classroom / office. The newer cups have much better insulation properties, so this is less necessary.
1) The cup design is much, much sturdier. Not just at McDonald's, almost everywhere has sturdier cups.
2) The store usually puts cream and sugar in it rather than handing it to the customer to put it in themselves - that's what Stella was doing at the time she spilled.
3) cup holders are now plentiful and ubiquitous in cars - the car that Stella's grandson was driving didn't have cup holders so she had to grip the cup with her knees to open the cream/sugar.
https://online.vwu.edu/news/criminal-justice/culpability/
WHAT IS CULPABILITY?
Culpability “refers to the blameworthiness of the accused,” according to the definition provided by USLegal. When the court determines that the accused is culpable for a crime, the accused is considered to have an appropriate understanding that what the person did was wrong.
Being culpable implies that an action (or neglect of an action) is immoral, wrong or illegal. It does not, however, always imply malicious intent on the part of the wrongdoer. It simply means liable or blamable. A liable person is answerable for inappropriate actions.
For example, if you are driving on a busy street, lose focus and crash into another vehicle, then you are responsible for your action. Because you didn’t mean to cause harm, it’s called culpable negligence. It’s understood to have been unintentional, but you are still held accountable.
Strong disagree.
It comes to duty of care, and failing that duty is the culpable act. It has nothing to do with intent to cause harm, rather with the lack of intent to pay enough attention to avoid a collision. Otherwise fault is not found (e.g. a third car pushed them into the first)
> "Normally you don't get 3rd degree burns..."
It was normal.
"Other documents obtained from McDonald's showed that from 1982 to 1992 the company had received more than 700 reports of people burned by McDonald's coffee to varying degrees of severity, and had settled claims arising from scalding injuries for more than $500,000."
>The severity of tap water scalds depends on the temperature of the water and the length of time the skin is exposed. Human exposure to hot water at 140°F can lead to a serious burn within 3 seconds, whereas at 120°F a serious burn takes about 10 minutes. Because thinner skin burns more quickly, children and older adults are at increased risk. Young children are disproportionately affected by scald burns, as approximately 21,000 children are treated for scald burns from all causes each year, and scald burns represent an estimated 65% of burn hospitalizations for children ages 4 and under. Hot tap water causes nearly 25% of all scald burns and is associated with more scald burn deaths and hospitalizations in children than any other hot liquid.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3605550/
Edit: case in point - this comment is currently in negative and I literally have no idea why, I've been commenting on this site for almost 10 years and this is one topic that is always guaranteed to attract downvotes no matter the context.
There’s a lot of behaviour there that goes against the guidelines of most forums.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning
http://wondermark.com/1k62/
HN's rules around faux-politeness make it extremely susceptible to this kind of attack: not everyone is actually acting in good-faith and it makes discussions extremely tedious dealing with sealions who exploit that to drag the discussions of interest to a halt while the bad-faith user demands that we engage in a lengthy discussion of basic underlying points to keep from engaging the actual topic of discussion. Oh, but if you say it then you're the bad guy, because we have this rule!
Again, why are we re-litigating a discussion about mcdonald's coffee on a topic about workplace harassment? Literally the only connection is they're both lawsuits. There's been a ton of words written about something that is entirely off-topic, because of this sealioning from the parent. That is textbook, open-and-shut, exactly what this tactic is designed to do.
The person who asked the question didn't even bring it up.
There is no harm done by answering a bad faith question in good faith. But there is harm done in treating a good faith question as bad faith.
Unless someone is repeatedly spamming a venue, this whole sealioning thing is just people caring too much about who "wins" on the internet.
There absolutely can be.
That is the primary misconception which is exploited by the sealion tactic. It allows a bad-faith individual to reverse the position of offender and victim - because what harm is there in just asking a good-faith question?
Questions are still part of an argument, they are "leading" the reader. And addressing it carries the implication that it's a valid position worthy of respect and time to address it.
And some questions can be very noxious indeed and do need to be stifled outright - "what good has [minority group] ever done for us" is quite a harmful question even if the answer is legitimately "lots"! And again, even merely by bringing it up, and by addressing it in response, you've given it legitimacy both as a question around that particular group, and to the idea that groups need to justify their existence/presence in society. Those are both very harmful things done merely by "answering a bad-faith question in good faith".
Again, perhaps a more core value disagreement is that "good-faith discussion" can legitimately solve all woes, including malicious actors. That is really the basis of your "no harm can be done by answering a bad-faith question in good faith", is it not? That seems like magical thinking to me.
Anyway, "no harm can ever be caused by answering a bad-faith question with a good-faith response" is quite a broad position, perhaps you can cite some evidence or studies on that one, because there's rather trivial examples like hate speech that definitely run against it.
Not if people downvote rather than responding to nonproductive contributions. The problem isn't the rules around good faith when responding, the problem is people feeling obliged to respond.
One is not obligated to respond, something it took me an excessively long time to learn. The correct thing to do if you feel it is being done in bad faith -- or for any reason feel it's unproductive -- is stop replying.
Downthread? Because you're being obtuse and, when people answer, asking a bunch more questions that you could easily google the answers to. It's not coming off as a good-faith discussion.
Of course some people really do intentionally be difficult, but OP's question was not near enough info to conclude that, and his additional responses were after he got slammed with downvotes (which usually bother people)
The questions read as slanted. This is a warning sign that you're dealing with someone who's already made up their mind and is just looking to argue. That "just" especially is... a red flag.
That on its own might not mean much, but then, there's this entire post:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31042870
Which looks like a continuation of exactly that kind of thing. Asking questions in a one-sided way, demanding others do things for you even when they already pointed you in the right direction, hostile tone, et c. Even if done innocently, this style of posting can't be tolerated because it's a beloved trolling/shitposting tactic.
Someone else on here brought up that the design of the cup was defective. That was the type of information I was looking for. Even some Google searching was not bringing up that for me, probably because like this thread, most people are focused on just the injury and the temperature. The cup issue really added to my understanding of the case, and answered my question about why it was not a frivolous case.
I'll let it stand as a general description of why people may react negatively to certain kinds of post.
I'm similar, but I've come to recognize that the default of communication is asshole, and the best method to avoid that is to ensure you're meeting others halfway in a conversation.
I imagine most would agree that the parent comment's statement "Why was the McDonald's one not frivolous? Was it just because it was 185 degrees?" comes off as somewhat ignorant in that they could have done a quick Google search or asked less defensively if they genuinely wanted an answer. Their followup comment is even worse.
Another commenter brought up the defective cup design here. This was the type of info I was looking for related to culpability that I couldn't find. This is what I like about HN - the google search results were not useful since it's (appearently) such a divisive topic, but a well informed HN'er had the additional info.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/03/06/socratic-grilling/
I think what I'd do here is start a new top-level comment like "Some other comments are talking about the McDonalds thing. Does anyone have any more details on this? Was it just that the coffee was too hot, or where there other factors that made that a lawsuit?"
The coffee was turbo-hot--far in excess of standards that exist.
McDonald's had been warned about this before.
The design of the cup had it's own issues.
The woman's initial lawsuit was for perfectly reasonable medical expenses given the horrible nature of the injuries.
And, in response, McDonald's went completely nuclear.
So, when McDonald's lost, THAT'S why they got hammered.
And, even then, the award amount later got reduced, but nobody remembers that.
Edit: Actually, the Link NKY article referenced in OP clears this up, and it appears that no evidence or testimony of any violence was ever offered. The first set of opinions are obviously one-sided, but it seems clear from the last paragraph in quotation here that there was no real violence.
> “They way [the Gravity Diagnostics employees] say it, they believed he was enraged and possibly about to get violent,” Bucher said.
> Berling has never demonstrated any violence, Bucher said, and someone who is suffering a panic attack becomes almost paralyzed with fear; they don’t often lash out.
> “Basically what the argument was is he was fired for having a panic attack,” Bucher said. “They made assumptions that he was dangerous based off of his disability and not off of any evidence that he was violent.”
> If he had made violent gestures, Bucher said, Gravity Diagnostics would have had grounds to fire him, but he didn’t do anything threatening.
> ...
> With ever-increasing incidents of workplace violence, Brazil said, the verdict sets a dangerous precedent for employers and employees that unless physical violence occurs, workplace violence is acceptable.
Sounds like the violence was NOT a real thing.
This is the stupidest thing I have ever read. "This sets a dangerous precedent that violence is OK so long as it doesn't actually happen." Lady, what have you been smoking??
In this case the company forced an employee against his expressed will to be the center of attention of a “party” and triggered his condition. This IS violence - from the side of the employer.
> “Basically what the argument was is he was fired for having a panic attack,” Bucher said. “They made assumptions that he was dangerous based off of his disability and not off of any evidence that he was violent.”
> If he had made violent gestures, Bucher said, Gravity Diagnostics would have had grounds to fire him, but he didn’t do anything threatening.
https://linknky.com/news/2022/04/14/man-awarded-450k-after-f...
>He started to have another panic attack, Bucher said.
>“At this point he starts employing other coping techniques that he’s worked on for years with his therapist,” Bucher said. “The way he described it is he started hugging himself and asked them to please stop.”
>Bucher said the two employees in the conference room asked Berling to stop, and when he didn’t, they walked out. Once the panic attack had subsided, Bucher said, Berling walked out of the conference room and was asked to leave the building. He was let go a couple of days later.
>“They way [the Gravity Diagnostics employees] say it, they believed he was enraged and possibly about to get violent,” Bucher said.
https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/topi...
Edit: As pointed out below,not the same case, but a case of the same thing happening.
> The employee, who was hired in October 2018 by Gravity Diagnostics, did not want a celebration because “being the center of attention” can trigger his disorder, the documents state.
And now it's all over the news where he'll be the unwanted center of attention all over again.
Something that drives me absolutely nuts is that most people assume that anyone who wishes to avoid social interaction is actually really just too afraid to be social, and that forcing them to do so is an acceptable thing to do. It's not! It's incredibly callous and insensitive and it's something that should only ever be considered by extremely close friends. Please respect people's wishes when they say they don't want a party, especially if you are just coworkers!
You're right that the lawyer will probably get a good chunk of it, though.
Bear in mind that when a company goes bankrupt, usually it's not only the owners who feel pain. It's also employees, creditors, their suppliers, their customers, etc.
https://linknky.com/news/2022/04/14/man-awarded-450k-after-f...
It does sound like the violence accusation was a BS excuse, so the original anger is justified. But gathering all information before grabbing a pitchfork is a responsible thing to do.
Because fuck proportionality and fuck every employee and shareholder of the company even if they had nothing to do with this?
Too bad the appeal process isn't a "double-or-nothing" type of deal. I'd love to see them take more of a financial hit from this.
I see no reason to disbelieve this; mistakes happen.
I do think the subsequent actions such as "reading him the riot act and accused him of stealing other coworkers’ joy" and firing him were completely bonkers and devoid of empathy though. It's weird that this escalated like this and didn't just end with an apology and "are you okay?"
Person has an anxiety disorder, so explicitly said not to have a party. His manager had a party anyway, triggering a panic attack. He ran away to his car to recover and they fired him.
Title is accurate.
Without knowing what he said, it’s hard to judge. Since the jury found for plaintiff, I’m going to guess they didn’t see it as a credible threat.
The company wrongfully firing him for the resulting panic attack did.
I mean, doing the birthday party after the employee specifically asked not to for that exact reason is inexcusable to start with.
Whoever decided that should have been fired, not the employee.
> “My employees de-escalated the situation to get the plaintiff out of the building as quickly as possible while removing his access to the building, alerting me and sending out security reminders to ensure he could not access the building, which is exactly what they were supposed to do,” Brazil told Link NKY. “As an employer who puts our employee safety first, we have a zero-tolerance policy and we stand by our decision to terminate the plaintiff for his violation of our workplace violence policy.
It sounds like he may have done something physically violent to somebody. Of course it's terrible that they put him in that situation to begin with, but it does seem pretty plausible to me that if he became violent and injured a person (who may not have been his supervisor that ignored his request) that does sound like their reaction isn't nearly as unreasonable as it sounds when you omit all detail of violence.
It would be great to get some more details. For the record I'm not saying the firing was justified - I have no idea. Obviously a jury who does know decided it wasn't justified, and they have a lot more information than I/we do so they're probably right. All I'm saying is there may be some important information that we don't have that makes it a little less clear-cut evil.
If the "violence" was him saying something mean/inappropriate or something (which I don't consider violence but many people do think speech can be violence) that would be largely irrelevant. But if he beat the shit out of somebody, that would make this case far less egregious and IMHO would make many of the reactionary comments here look terrible.
> “At this point he starts employing other coping techniques that he’s worked on for years with his therapist,” Bucher said. “The way he described it is he started hugging himself and asked them to please stop.”
> Bucher said the two employees in the conference room asked Berling to stop, and when he didn’t, they walked out. Once the panic attack had subsided, Bucher said, Berling walked out of the conference room and was asked to leave the building. He was let go a couple of days later.
> “They way [the Gravity Diagnostics employees] say it, they believed he was enraged and possibly about to get violent,” Bucher said.
> Berling has never demonstrated any violence, Bucher said, and someone who is suffering a panic attack becomes almost paralyzed with fear; they don’t often lash out.
Like what? A judge and a jury investigated claims on both sides in adversarial court. Are you proposing that the defense of General Gravity was less than zealous?
> As an employer who puts our employee safety first, we have a zero-tolerance policy and we stand by our decision to terminate the plaintiff for his violation of our workplace violence policy
Did the man really react violently? Or is Gravity Diagnostics not willing to admit that they handled the situation incorrectly?
Everything after that is because of this cause. "This guy physically attacked me after I chose, against warning, to put him in a panic state" is an admission of guilt not a deflection of blame in my mind. Pretty classic neuro-typical behavior tbh.
He had a second panic attack the next day when he was confronted about it in a conference room. Rather than leave the conference room and go to the car like the previous day he self soothed by hugging himself (?) which apparently cased the other employees to think he was going to become violent. Not sure why... other than it was "weird" behavior? So they escorted him out of the building and wouldn't let him back in, which was apparently the policy.
That doesn’t absolve them of an ADA complaint. A birthday party is not a required work event and this was preventable on their part.
>“They way [the Gravity Diagnostics employees] say it, they believed he was enraged and possibly about to get violent,” [his attorney] Bucher said.
>Berling has never demonstrated any violence, Bucher said, and someone who is suffering a panic attack becomes almost paralyzed with fear; they don’t often lash out.
>“Basically what the argument was is he was fired for having a panic attack,” Bucher said. “They made assumptions that he was dangerous based off of his disability and not off of any evidence that he was violent.”
https://linknky.com/news/2022/04/14/man-awarded-450k-after-f...
Or, to put it another way: a "zero tolerance" policy should not be a "shoot first, ask questions never" policy.
This is emotionally equivalent to your coworkers putting you in a room with a lion as your birthday celebration. I'm sure people won't believe me. Even if you don't, if someone ever tells you that they don't like being the center of attention, just take their word for it.
However, I think the near death experiences were worse because they would cause even more anxiety later. I still freak out near knives and hate when anyone comes up behind me. People touching my neck will send me off kicking and screaming.
As the Buddha said: "In life there will be suffering/stress/pain/dissatisfaction."
And then there are the panic attacks caused by thinking you may have another panic attack coming on.
But again, there's not enough in this article to really anlalyze. It's infotainment contrasting of the inanity of a birthday party with the firing/damages.
That the jury ruled in his favor is a significant detail.
[1] https://linknky.com/news/2022/04/14/man-awarded-450k-after-f...
When someone asks for something you should respect their wishes, and this company chose to ignore that and follow the protocol despite being asked not to. From that alone I know that this company is not somewhere good to work. Putting following the rules when you don't need to ahead of people's welfare is a huge red flag.
One might say it's not necessary to the job, but is this true? Social events and employee camaraderie are arguably necessary to a well functioning workplace. I'm not even arguing that parties are necessary but that a company can decide for themselves if they are no? And that if someone is so uncomfortable taking part then perhaps they don't belong at the company.
Why is it a legitimate expectation that a company and its employees must accommodate your problems to such a degree?
Not throwing someone a birthday party sounds like a perfectly reasonable accommodation.
Beyond that, people have to push back at those annoying requirements. Should a company be allowed to have whatever requirements it wants to have? Should I? Do we belong to them?
It's explicitely not ok for 'social fit' to be a firing offence, isn't it? That's another word for "Not our kind of person" which opens an ugly door.
Parties targeting one person are so, so problematic. Nobody asked anybody to 'accomodate' this person. They asked to be left alone, which is literally zero accomodation.
Most employment is at will. That permits firing someone for not being a good fit. (You can't define "fit" however you feel. But someone not getting along with their colleagues and not responding to feedback would generally be fireable for it.)
> When the company threw him a lunchtime party against his wishes, it triggered a panic attack and he left abruptly to spend his break in his car. Four days later, after his office managers confronted him about his reaction to the party, he was fired from the Northern Kentucky company
Julie Brazil, the founder and [COO] said ...
> My employees de-escalated the situation to get the plaintiff out of the building as quickly as possible while removing his access to the building, alerting me and sending out security reminders to ensure he could not access the building, which is exactly what they were supposed to do, we have a zero-tolerance policy and we stand by our decision to terminate the plaintiff for his violation of our workplace violence policy.
The plantiff's lawyer said ...
> I believe (he) was so happy and relieved that the jury recognized that he was not some violent and menacing person and that it was not okay for Gravity Diagnostics to just assume that he was without any evidence to support those misconceptions.
So the case seems less about
> @manager please can we not have a birthday party for me please
and more about the
> @employee you're fired for being violent even though we do not have evidence to back this statement up
...
Whole article smells to me like the company blaming the employee for something he warned them about anyway, but that's just my opinion.