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by kirinan 4022 days ago
This won't end well for Zenefits. Its not quite a deathknell for them, but there is zero case where Zenefits doesn't settle outside of court or loses the case. They will need to spend time/resources to raise another round and fight the chance that ADP doesn't build a competitor them in the mean time. This is the kind of momentum shifter that kills startups.
2 comments
BinaryIdiot 4022 days ago
Yeah I agree; even if Zenefits is 100% in the right here ADP has the resources to drag this out for quite some time and cost them a very large amount of money. If Zenefits is in the right I wonder if they can produce evidence and try to use SLAPP regulation (not sure if that works for companies but then again companies are people, right?). I'm obviously not a lawyer :)
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DannyBee 4022 days ago
ADP will lose this lawsuit very quickly
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ceejayoz 4022 days ago
ADP's legal department is likely larger than Zenefits itself, and well funded. They can probably drag it out for quite a while.
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DannyBee 4022 days ago
Maybe? This is an oft-repeated claim, but my experience tells me differently.

Contrary to popular tv shows, there is only so much that can happen. Lawsuits drag on whether someone is trying or not :)

Barring some outliers, the difference between lawsuits that are dragged out and ones that aren't is not a factor of 10, it's probably a factor of 1.2.

State court is kind of a crapshoot, for sure. But you are super-unlikely to get away with this stuff in federal court (which is where ADP filed).

Most federal judges get tired of this stuff very quickly, and start sanctioning.

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CPLX 4022 days ago
> Barring some outliers, the difference between lawsuits that are dragged out and ones that aren't is not a factor of 10, it's probably a factor of 1.2.

That's crazy talk. You can double the length of a lawsuit in one simple stroke just by having your attorney say "Sorry that week is bad for me can we do [date]" every time there's a continuance or adjournment. You can set return dates for any motions you initiate to the last date permitted, you can meet every filing deadline in the last hour, etc.

The legal system has many built-in safeguards and protections for all parties but guaranteeing timeliness just isn't one of them.

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mark212 4022 days ago
no, actually you can't. It is not possible in ND Cal to "set return dates for any motions you initiate to the last date permitted." That's just not how motions work in ND Cal. And responding on the last hour of every filing deadline is what everybody does all the time. That's why most deadlines are fairly short (30 days, e.g.).

The real driver of court delay is the judge, not the litigants. I've had judges routinely sit on motions (fully briefed) for 9 months in ND Cal. Then one party or the other will move for reconsideration and it's another six month delay. It's just the nature of the beast; judges in the federal system carry very heavy caseloads, particularly ND Cal.

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DannyBee 4022 days ago
"The real driver of court delay is the judge, not the litigants. I've had judges routinely sit on motions (fully briefed) for 9 months in ND Cal. Then one party or the other will move for reconsideration and it's another six month delay. It's just the nature of the beast; judges in the federal system carry very heavy caseloads, particularly ND Cal. "

This is precisely why i said why is said. Because the litigants are not often the cause/controllers of the delay, despite their best efforts :)

Now, certainly, if the judges/etc were more efficient, yeah, you could pull out a factor of 10x. But the way things are, for a simple defamation suit, i can't see you getting more than maybe a 2x factor through various tactics.

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CPLX 4022 days ago
> Then one party or the other will move for reconsideration and it's another six month delay.

Exactly. The exact vagaries of how each clerk sets calendar dates and whatnot wasn't my point. My point was that I have never seen a civil litigation forum in the U.S. where either party doesn't have half a dozen methods that can effectively double the amount of time it takes to get through the same procedure.

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at-fates-hands 4022 days ago
Depends on what you deem to be lengthy.

Most defamation suits take around a year or so to get to trial. As a litmus test, the recent Jesse Ventura defamation suit took two years to conclude.

This doesn't include appeals either, which can drag the process out even further.

Depending on where the trial is set, and how expensive Zenefits legal counsel is, this could be a huge financial burden for them to undertake and quickly drain their resources.

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