I know there were various lawsuits filed last year for wrongful termination from the first round of layoffs they didn’t call layoffs. Has anyone heard anything about the status of those? I only have a limited amount of time to go to the EEOC and file an age discrimination lawsuit, and was wondering if any of those were progressing.
I have low expectations of success, but at least want to be able to depose certain people and expose their lies and deceit.
No way Jose.
The next court date is scheduled for August 29, 2022. Do we expect Jose to win?
Jose Simonetty filed a complaint May 17, 2021 in Harris County District Court against Exxon Mobil Corporation alleging age discrimination.
Case Number 202129437 Court 164TH DISTRICT COURT
Status ACTIVE
Setting Date Setting Time Docket Setting Reason Results
08/29/2022 09:30 HRS TRIAL SETTING TRIAL ON MERITS (MOTION FOR)
There are 472 District Courts in Texas. You may find that cases filed against ExxonMobil were filed in other district courts.
Regarding winning and losing, cases could easily be settled out of court and the settlement was not a matter of public record. Non-disclosure settlements are the norm.
As one litigation attorney said, "It is cheaper to settle out of court, than to litigate." People that file wrongful dismissal suits often settle out of court with our company.
All of the lawsuits filed against XOM in Harris County are public record, and available for perusal on the District Clerk's website. There is not one discrimination suit on there where the company didn't prevail. I've looked.
@wsi+1c6aIoap peer reviewed citation, please.
And yes, I mean actual scholarship. Not what you can dig up on Buzzfeed or New York Times or any other clickbait site.
Excluding unions/federations, how many EMPT employees do you think have ever won a wrongful termination suit against Exxon in the past two decades? That information is not publicly available, obviously. Only management and HR lawyers know the answer. I would wager that Exxon loses less than 5% of those cases. When Exxon does lose, it's not a total loss....it's still largely in their favor. I would also wager that the duration of such suits would be 2 to 3 years. So take your attorney fees, invest it, move on and forget about Exxon
Although I am of the impression, based on circumstantial evidence, that there is an effort to encourage RE non-managerial employees in the US to retire, I would be very surprised if they manage to prove the case. For the case in the courts discussed above, I would expect that the plaintiff has to show that older people are dropping in the ranking systematically. So, one would need to get such data from EM first. Good luck with that. Moreover, aggregate data will likely not show any trend because they will include managerial employees that always rank high. So one would not be easy to make the case.
Normally, isolated individual cases have minimal chances of success. EM is by no means the only O&G company to use fake performance issues to get rid of older, expensive employees in a major downturn, but the others do it more discreetly and try to fly under the radar.
EM just has to do it in a systematic, large-scale way that ends up by being widely publicized (see the Reuters report). Unavoidably, that poses much higher legal risks and I’m sure that the corporate lawyers have warned about it, but there’s no way around it when the only corporate strategy our “leaders” can think of is to get rid of expensive, US- based employees and to replace them with cheap labor. We’re entering new legal territory here and it might take one or two more years for the consequences to show up. We’re at PIPoff no 2, just wait for no3 and you’ll get a nice pattern…
Well the truth is people are sick of ExxonMobil’s bullying. Years ago I would have said no one could ever win even though it is not illegal to layoff. Today is a different story. As ExxonMobil is slowly and painfully finding out from the many lawsuits pending and leaders that no longer want to do business with them, it’s a new day and they can’t bully everyone to win anymore.
Well the truth is people are sick of ExxonMobil’s bullying. Years ago I would have said no one could ever win even though it is not illegal to layoff. Today is a different story. As ExxonMobil is slowly and painfully finding out from the many lawsuits pending and leaders that no longer want to do business with them, it’s a new day and they can’t bully everyone to win anymore.
But there is audio, from EM's lead employment law litigator, where it is stated:
'Let's take care of these expensive old wads while we've got pandemic camouflage.'
Elevator tape. Soundboard quality.
@seo & @kig There is quite a bit of evidence (ex. written judicial opinions) that Trump appointees rule and interpret the law differently than judges appointed by other presidents.
I personally don’t think this matters in this case. The claim of wrongful termination based on age discrimination as made by the plaintiff is practically impossible to prove. The counsel for the plaintiff has the burden of proof, and they would have to show that age or some other federally protected category was a significant factor in terminating them, and that they and members of their protected group were deliberately targeted based on their protected status.
Lolololol no lawsuit is going anywhere cause laying people off isn’t illegal
Jose Simonetty's age discrimination case was filed in Harris County District Court. Harris County has been predominately Democratic leaning for the last 10 years.
For the record, nearly all judges regardless of their party affiliation are bound by "The Rule of Law" when they are on the bench. If a judges decides to go against "The Rule of Law", they can be disbarred by their bar association and lose their license to practice law. No judge will lose his or her license over a petty cash $1 million discrimination suit.
Note that there is no evidence that Trump-appointee trial judges rule in a markedly different way than judges appointed by prior admins.
Your claim is just more Trump derangement syndrome
@shv The Plaintiff’s claims are nearly impossible to prove according to any reasonable legal standard (ex. existing precedent).
You can expect Texas state courts and any federal judge appointed from 2017-2020 to be extremely deferential to corporate (i.e. EM) interests. No surprise there, since most judges were themselves corporate lawyers or prosecutors.
Honest question: why are so many older workers staying on when they’re clearly past their prime? Greed? Entitlement? Retire and let someone else take over already.
Ugh... boomers milking the system as usual. Why not just trip on a sidewalk and sue an HOA? Easier path to a settlement for a lo----e.
Case is making it's way through the Texas Court System. It can be followed at the link below by searching on Jose Simonetty. All lawsuits in the United States are a matter of public record.
ExxonMobil used employee ranking system to eliminate older workers, suit alleges
25 May 2021
https://setexasrecord.com
HOUSTON — Exxon Mobil is facing a claim that it implemented an employee ranking system and took other efforts to eliminate older employees.
Jose Simonetty filed a complaint May 17 in Harris County District Court against Exxon Mobil Corporation alleging age discrimination.
According to his complaint, Simonetty began working for Exxon Mobil 30 years ago and on July 9, 2020, at age 62, he was terminated. He alleges that throughout his time at Exxon Mobil, he received awards and commendations for his performance and that once he turned 58 years old, he noticed "a rapid, unsubstantiated decline in his performance ranking."
Simonetty claims that Exxon placed employees in this age group in performance evaluation programs that were "essentially the last step for older employees" and "very few, if any, survive" the programs to get their employment status to the company's "acceptive level."
Simonetty further claims Exxon works to drive out employees age 60 and over in order for younger employees to advance. Specifically, Simonetty alleges that he was given a bogus safety violation to bring down his employment ranking and that Exxon hired a "substantially younger" worker for him to train as part of a plan to replace him with the younger worker.
Simonetty seeks monetary relief of more than $1 million, interest, trial by jury and all other just relief. He is represented by Gregg Rosenberg of Rosenberg Sprovach in Houston.
Harris County District Court case number 2021-29437
It is possible, if any suit gets to deposition stage, all of the 'layoff' statistics would spill out.
As well as the process behind it all.
Big if.
Any settlement would have come with a confidentiality clause - almost certain.
If any of them actually succeeded, it would have been newsworthy.