A federal judge in San Francisco has ruled that about 150 older workers who were laid off by social media platform X when Elon Musk took over the company can file a class action lawsuit for age discrimination, putting the company at risk of millions of dollars in damages.
U.S. District Judge Susan Illston said in a ruling released Tuesday night that the case raised a common question about the impact a 2022 mass layoff at the company had on workers 50 and older.
Plaintiff John Zeman, who worked in X’s communications department when the company was called Twitter, filed a lawsuit in 2023. He said in his lawsuit that X fired 60 percent of its employees who were 50 or older and nearly three-quarters of its employees who were over 60, compared to 54 percent of its employees who were under 50.
“Plaintiff has demonstrated that, beyond mere speculation, Twitter may have discriminated against older employees in the November 4, 2022 mass layoff, which amounts to a single decision that affected all members of the proposed class,” Illston wrote.
Tuesday’s ruling gives Zeman’s attorneys the opportunity to notify potential class members of the lawsuit so they have the opportunity to join the case.
X did not respond to a request for comment. The company has denied engaging in discrimination and has said it disbanded the entire communications department where Zeman worked after Musk took over, regardless of the age of those employees.
Shannon Liss-Riordan, an attorney for Zeman and about 2,000 other former Twitter employees who have filed a series of legal claims against the company, said she was pleased with the ruling.
The lawsuit is one of dozens of lawsuits X has faced as a result of Musk’s decision to lay off more than half of Twitter’s workforce in 2022.
The cases include several claims, all of which X has denied, alleging that the company fired employees and contractors without required notice, targeted women for layoffs, and forced employees with disabilities to work remotely.
In August, two judges separately dismissed the gender bias and disability bias cases, but gave the plaintiffs the opportunity to file amended complaints further detailing their claims.
Two other lawsuits allege the company owes former employees at least $500 million (about Rs. 4,199 crore) in severance pay. One of those cases was dismissed in July.
© Thomson Reuters 2024
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