[542458]

Heavily depends on locale and what the employment contract says.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severance_package

But Musk did publicly promise severance, then didn’t deliver. That would almost certainly be breach of contract.

And also given that Twitter universally refused to pay severance in all markets, including those with mandatory severance, I suspect Twitter’s decision isn’t coming from a legally sound place.

[xienze]

Article is not clear. For instance:

> In October, shortly after taking Twitter’s reins, Musk laid off more than half of its employees, promising most at least two months’ salary plus a week’s pay for every year they’d worked at the firm.

Key word here is the severance was promised to “most”, not “all” employees. Was that how it went down? I dunno, the article doesn’t say. Now you’re saying that no one was paid severance (“universally refused to pay severance in all markets”). Seems like there’s a lot of uncertainty here.

[fbdab103]

The July 12th lawsuit has some choice quotes[0] on exactly what was said.

>38. Section 6.9 of the Merger Agreement provided that for one year following the closing of the merger, Twitter would continue to provide Plan participants with “Severance payments and benefits . . . no less favorable than” those provided under Twitter’s policies immediately prior to the merger.

> 39. The same day the Merger Agreement was announced, Twitter’s then-CEO, Parag Agrawal and its then-Chairman Bret Taylor met with all Twitter employees and informed them that Twitter would continue to provide the severance Plan benefits for at least one year following the change in company ownership.

>42. The Acquisition FAQs relied on the Merger Agreement and stated that “[t]he terms of the agreement specifically protect Tweep [Twitter employees] benefits, base salary, and bonus plans (short/long term incentive plans) so they cannot be negatively impacted for at least one year from the closing date.” The FAQ specifically stated that, “[i]n the event of a layoff, any employee whose job is impacted would be eligible for severance.”

That final sentence in 42 is pretty solid.

[0] https://variety.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/McMillian-v.-...

[talaketu]

Note that Employees were not a party to the merger agreement. Does an acquisition FAQ bind the company? I believe the argument is that it was effectively an offer to employees to stick around, and employees who did so effectively accepted the offer, at the cost of other opportunities in the market, and hence this was a binding contract. This doesn't seem so solid to me.

[lmm]

> I believe the argument is that it was effectively an offer to employees to stick around, and employees who did so effectively accepted the offer, at the cost of other opportunities in the market, and hence this was a binding contract. This doesn't seem so solid to me.

That's established law, it's the only way to hold companies to any of their promises.

[mlyle]

Promissory estoppel / detrimental reliance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoppel

[eek2121]

So, another comment detailed other legal aspects, I'll tackle the "most" part. Even if no other contract exists, that means at least 50.1% of all laid off employees should receive some type of severance. Said severance can be anywhere from a penny to millions.

We don't know what went down. Musk could have actually paid 50.1% (or greater) employees severance. It doesn't matter, because in the U.S. you can sue anyone else for anything, illegal or not. I can sue you because your username sucks, for example. Oh and if you don't show up, I win a default judgement, so there is that.

[upon_drumhead]

Courts are a little more complicated than you are giving them credit for.

For example, federal courts can dismiss a case due to lack of standing in sua sponte (Frank v Gaos).

While you can file any sort of insanity, the courts are not beholden to just robotically follow though with it.