I served jury duty, and the reverse happened. The plaintiffs sued a social worker, but the case revolved around things the Department of Human Services (where he worked) advised him to do, as well as things other members of the organization did independently of him.
In that case, I found it easier to decide when the question was "is this one guy responsible for everything that happened?" rather than the more complicated "is DHS as a whole responsible?"
Thanks for that perspective. I feel like we're constantly looking through the lens of "Uber is doing something shady", so projecting a large scandal onto the company is very easy. The inverse of that being that it could be quite easy for someone, Levandowski in this case, to orchestrate something for himself illegally.
> So what if it turns out that Uber is totally innocent?
I honestly can't see this as an outcome; either Uber's wrong in they completely and miserably failed due dilligence, or they're wrong in that they actively coerced [him] to create a shell company with Google assets so it could "launder" them into Uber.
We can't say for certain which it is at this point. All we know is that Uber's trying their level best not to say which by refusing discovery and worming around the issue. That alone signals to me that the preponderance of evidence bar is going to be a fairly easy one for Google to clear here. There's just too many dots that even when left unconnected draw a pretty clear picture of what happened.
Why would Uber allow discovery if they think they are already going to win?
There is nothing wrong with Uber talking to Levandowsky while he was at Google, and nothing wrong for him to do it as long as he didn't violate his NDA. If Uber said, "hey, we really want to build a strong team for self driving, you should leave Google and come here", that's totally fine as well.
It's even fine if they say "start a separate company and recruit a team, and we'll either invest or buy it".
Google has a high bar here. They have to show their assets were "laundered" into Uber. And they have to show that Uber knew it and encouraged it. In the first case they'd only have a case against Levandowsky and a very limited one against Uber. It's only in the second where Uber's liability becomes substantial.
So what happens if Uber is "innocent" and Levandowski is guitly as an individual? Seems odd that they could benefit from him stealing the tech, even if they didn't know.
It is if you happen to buy stolen property. You might not be held responsible for stealing, but you'll have to return the property and say good buy to the money, I think.
IANAL, but... They owe you and it is a question if they can get it back to you, but the rightful owner has precedence in many (most?) cases. That's the setup for many kinds of scam. The scammed party buys something, but the transaction of the property is in some way faulty, while the money quickly disappears.
The law is also going to ask hard questions about "unknowingly". If you're walking around Market St. at 11 PM and some dude stops you and tries to sell you a fancy new bike for $200, complete with a U-lock holder but no U-lock, the law is probably going to say that you should have expected it to be stolen property. If you gave the guy $200 in cash without asking any questions, you probably won't get away saying "I unknowingly purchased stolen goods".
Sure it is; that's why it's called "due diligence". You are legally required to engage in some amount of diligence when acquiring a company. As a very related example, a US company acquiring a foreign company is obligated to make sure the foreign company isn't engaged in corruption/bribery, and is expected to show a certain amount of competence in investigating the foreign company before the acquisition. Going ahead with the acquisition after an incompetent examination is illegal.
More generally, the law recognizes the concepts of negligence, reckless endangerment, a "reasonable person," the idea that you're responsible if you "knew or should have known" about some problem, etc., all of which I would classify as specific ways of stupidity and incompetence being illegal. Of course if you keep your stupidity and incompetence entirely to yourself, you're fine. But if you act stupid or incompetent in a way that affects other people or the public, chances are high that you're in legal trouble.
In that case, I found it easier to decide when the question was "is this one guy responsible for everything that happened?" rather than the more complicated "is DHS as a whole responsible?"