Additional Plaintiff and Class Representative Added; New Details About Purposeful Mismanagement, Deceits in Violation of ERISA Included
SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 16, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Sanford Heisler Sharp filed an amended Complaint against Elon Musk, X Corp, X Holdings, and additional unnamed parties in U.S. District Court for the District of Northern California Friday – just two weeks shy of the October 27, 2022, anniversary of Defendant Musk’s purchase of Twitter, the social media company now known as X.
Filed Friday evening, the Complaint adds an additional Named Plaintiff, another former Twitter employee who was denied severance benefits when he was laid off after Musk took over the company. Other additions in the amended Complaint provide more details on the claims regarding Defendant Musk’s disregarding of the severance plan in violation of the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) and the intertwining of Defendant Musk and Twitter such that he cannot avoid personal liability.
The Plaintiffs and the class are represented by Sanford Heisler Sharp’s Washington, D.C.-based Partner and Discrimination and Harassment Practice Group Co-Chair Kate Mueting; San Diego Managing Partner and Chair of the firm’s Financial Services Practice Group Charles Field; and associates Christopher Owens, Samone Ijoma, and Dacey Romberg.
“The Amended Complaint provides additional support for the claims that Twitter and Musk denied severance benefits promised to employees and breached their fiduciary duties in managing their ERISA Plan,” said Mueting. “Thousands of employees were terminated without these benefits. Plaintiffs allege that Musk and Twitter retained the hundreds of thousands of dollars that should have accrued to the terminated employees.”
“While Defendant Musk represented that the terminated employees were receiving 50% more severance than legally required, plaintiffs understand that employees were offered only a tiny fraction of the amounts they are owed under the Plan,” said Owens.
The relief sought by the Plaintiffs and class includes an order compelling the Defendants to provide all terms of severance under the Plan, which is estimated to be an amount of no less than $500 million.
The original Complaint was filed in July 2023. A jury trial is requested.
About Sanford Heisler Sharp
Sanford Heisler Sharp is a public interest and civil rights law firm with offices in New York, Washington, DC, San Francisco, Palo Alto, Atlanta, Baltimore, Nashville, and San Diego. The firm focuses on employment discrimination, Title IX, wage and hour, whistleblower and qui tam, criminal/sexual violence, financial services, and Asian American litigation and finance matters. Our lawyers have recovered over $1 billion for our clients through many verdicts and settlements.
In 2022, The National Law Journal named Sanford Heisler Sharp Civil Rights Firm of the Year, and it recognized the firm in 2021 as both the Employment Rights Firm of the Year and the Human Rights Firm of the Year. Law360 recognized the firm as Employment Practice Group of the Year in 2021, 2019, 2018, and 2016. Benchmark Litigation recognized the firm as the Labor & Employment Firm of the Year in 2021 and 2020.
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