Forum Moderators: goodroi
In her suit, Elwell said she first told Armstrong about her pregnancy in April 2004. A month later, Elwell lost two of her unborn children. Later that month, the suit claims, Armstrong showed Elwell the organization chart from which her position had been deleted, and told her he wanted to transfer her to a post in operations, a "significant demotion."
Later in June, while Elwell was "in danger of losing another unborn child," a Google staffer accused her husband of acting "under false pretenses," by saying his wife was undergoing a "health crisis," the suit says. On June 29, Elwell lost the third of her unborn children.
Google may need some HR (and maybe PR!) help. It doesn't matter who's right or wrong here; this is a major screwup by a company who's mantra is "do no evil".
So lets not go jumping all over this with assumptions. Of course, the simple fact that the lawsuits are public knowledge is bad PR for Google. But a company that size will not have only happy campers on staff (or leaving.)
It isn't like the lawyer wasn't being crafty:
"On Aug. 18, the day before Google's long-awaited IPO debuted, Elwell filed a discrimination complaint against the company with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. "
[news.zdnet.com...]
IMHO - it does matter who is right or wrong. They got 3,000+ employees - some are going to sue. Lawyers twist the truth and often leave out crucial details.
Legal pleadings mean squat until you see both sides and evidence to support it. You are pretty much immune from libel by putting something in a legal pleading. Everything she says could be TECHNICALLY correct - and still mean nothing.
Stuff like "would see her position deleted from a Google organizational chart" means ABSOLUTELY nothing in and of itself. The careful language would lead me to be very wary of jumping to conclusions. Google has a stellar reputation for human resources. Should at least have their answer before assuming they did something wrong.
One thing to remember: lawsuits are allegations, and not established facts. I've been on the receiving end of some amazingly spun lawsuits that bore little resemblance to my knowledge of the facts.
Exactly. I've been on the management side of lots of threatened lawsuits over discrimination over the years and yet never lost a single case. Accusations are meaningless unless you know all of the facts. In my experience, a significant number of people legitimately fired for poor performance always complained that it was because of their gender, faith or sexual preference or whatever.
Don't prejudge this case until you know all of the facts.
