Bungie wins $489K from player for racist harassment of employee | Ruling sets legal precedent for companies to recover costs from harassment campaigns.
arstechnica.com
Bungie wins $489K from player for racist harassment of employee | Ruling sets legal precedent for companies to recover costs from harassment campaigns.::Ruling sets legal precedent for companies to recover costs from harassment campaigns.
I think those funds should be given to the employee harmed by the harassment. But somehow I think they'll just fill Bungie's coffers.
The majority of the settlement is reimbursement.
Crazy story. Sounds like that wasn't a punitive amount, that's how much the cost Bungie. They hired executive protection services for the employee, investigators, lawyers (obviously)...
Did you read the article? Bungie claim 380K USD as investigation expenses, amd only 25K in statutory damages and then 80K or so in legal fees.
If they led an investigation themselves then this already is doing a lot in favor of the employee. And possibly means police did not do their job.
Hopefully this piece of shit won't retaliate.
Not sure how I feel about this. Employees should not be harassed. But setting precedents for corporations to sue individuals based on their interactions with employees is a dangerous dance. I just told a mod in another sub they handled a user posting in the wrong space poorly. What if that could be seen as harassment? Altogether though definitely don't be a racist shitbag.
I think it's fine. Calling this an "interaction" is a pretty significant understatement.
You're going to get sued over a handful of text or not liking somebody. If you decide to run a campaign to harass an employee into quitting/suicide/etc, and throw in death threats, along with packages delivered to their residence... You should 100% get what's coming to you.
That should be part of criminal justice not a justice case. If the company I work would get half a mil for the pain I get put through they would drag me through even more shit. Without an extra penny.
I'll just retort to mercenary work
The key difference is that what you did, at least as you described it, was actually not harassment.
The legal definition of harassment hasn’t changed. You’ll be fine.
Legal definitions can and will change if this precedent is set.
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The guy tracked down the guys home address and sent threatening messages. If you think that shouldn't be prosecuted then you'd be a hypocrite unless you also wanted real life harassment laws too be repealed as well. Just because harassment is done at a distance does not make it ok. Harassment laws aren't taken lightly in person, you have to do seriously over the top and intrusive actions, so there's zero reason to think that the same precedent wouldn't apply to online harassment.
Obviously thats not okay. But once we accept large conglomerates sueing people they'll start toeing the boundaries. Nintendo already enslaved a guy for the rest of his life. This particular case is deserving, some won't be.
What was on the "inedible" pizza I would like to know.