I believe the reason people are taking this to be more than just a Friday through Monday injunction is that the employer sent out a letter earlier in the week requesting the employees be required to continue working at their current facility until they could be replaced.
We recently learned that seven out of our 11 member interventional radiology and cardiovascular team of nurses and technicians were recruited by and have accepted employment offers at <redacted>. The departure of these team members comes at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic and other issues are causing significant staffing and recruiting challenges locally and across the nation.
The action taken by <redacted> puts at risk the many communities and patients served by our robust critical care services. Specifically, the hiring away of these employees en masse would impede our ability to provide care to trauma victims at our Level II Trauma Center and would potentially force the diversion of trauma victims from a 17-plus county area to <redacted>.
We understand and respect that people have choices in the highly competitive job market. However, the decision by <redacted> to hire away such a significant portion of our interventional radiology and cardiology support team all at once, and at the height of a pandemic surge, will disrupt access to critical care for the people in our region.
While we have tried to work with <redacted> for additional time to execute a plan for staffing coverage that will provide the long-term continuation of services that support trauma stroke and other essential areas of care, <redacted> was unwilling to collaborate with us. To protect the community's ongoing local access to Level II Trauma and Comprehensive Stroke care we provide, today we have filed for a temporary injunction in <redacted> County Circuit Court against <redacted>.
With this legal action, we are asking the Court to grand the injunction to maintain the status quo until we can hire replacement staff for this vital department, which will allow us to protect access to the critical care services supported by the team.
Fuck. That. Noise.
Several things I've read suggest they were given a chance to match the offer and declined to do so. Get fucked, hospitals shut down and divert patients at trauma centers all the fucking time. 17-plus county my ballsack. Pay your people better.
You don't get to treat the hospital like a McDonalds franchise and then go complain when people don't want to work there while crying, "but the community needs us guys".
The community doesn't need your shitty level 2 hospital run by people that treat staff like slaves.
Edit: There are probably typos, I was in a hurry and I don't transcribe well. I'll fix them if I see them.
dispatch.o on
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
If this is the same event I've been hearing about, the original hospital was offered the chance (following the start of all this bullshit) to match the pay of the company everybody went to. Naturally, the shitbag original hospital turned that offer down, saying it wasn't in their long-term interests to pay their employees like that.
Weird how they are "at-will" yet apparently that only means "works at the will of the employer," and not "quits at the will of the employee."
Almost like that's the actual intent of the law.
It's just another example of how rigged the system is against workers. Any collective action by employees will be set upon and ground out of them by the system. I suppose we're still better off from the days where they would just round up agitators at gunpoint and ship them out of town on a train at least.
I think the clinic involved knows their case will never go anywhere, but they can punish the people leaving by tying it up in the courts. I imagine the judge involved had little choice but to grant an injunction until a full hearing can be done, though the judge in this case doesn't sound like a particularly stand up guy either. (What is it with terrible judges in Wisconsin?)
But we're talking about almost the entirety of a small medical team leaving together. People just don't do that out of the blue. Changing jobs is generally disruptive to your life. Which tells me conditions and pay at this place were really bad. And instead of simply matching salaries to keep their team intact, this business would rather spend their cash on a frivolous lawsuit.
It is bullshit that they need an injunction. The medical workers are not going back to that job after being told they are serfs at best. All this does is punish them when the issue is between two companies.
If there are damages the company can recover it in money. In the meantime they send patients to other facilities. Hell they could send them to the new workplace then demand money for the unfair competition or whatever. All without hurting worker or patients.
Hopefully the judge recognizes that the injunction doesn't prevent harm that cant be compensated for with money. It is certainly a threat to the remaining workers not to try and quit.
Void Slayer on
He's a shy overambitious dog-catcher on the wrong side of the law. She's an orphaned psychic mercenary with the power to bend men's minds. They fight crime!
In the Reddit thread they also posted that he once jailed a defendant for 45 days for rolling his eyes and shuffling papers. An incarcerated prisoner has also researched and accused him of not properly disclosing income.
What exactly would happen if those people say "nah go fuck yourself" and don't show up at their old job monday?
They already don't have to. They just can't go to their new jobs.
"No unemployment for you lol get a job slacker" I'm sure.
So that's the other thing -- what's to stop them from going to the other job? I mean if the Judge is a dick I'm sure some lawyers will take up this highly publicized case on appeal for an easy win
What exactly would happen if those people say "nah go fuck yourself" and don't show up at their old job monday?
They already don't have to. They just can't go to their new jobs.
"No unemployment for you lol get a job slacker" I'm sure.
So that's the other thing -- what's to stop them from going to the other job? I mean if the Judge is a dick I'm sure some lawyers will take up this highly publicized case on appeal for an easy win
Only lightly paying attention to this but I think the injunction is against the other job hiring them, not the employees themselves. So Other Job would likely pay some sort of fine and have pissed off the judge if they let these folks come into New Job.
What exactly would happen if those people say "nah go fuck yourself" and don't show up at their old job monday?
They already don't have to. They just can't go to their new jobs.
"No unemployment for you lol get a job slacker" I'm sure.
So that's the other thing -- what's to stop them from going to the other job? I mean if the Judge is a dick I'm sure some lawyers will take up this highly publicized case on appeal for an easy win
If we have a lawyer reading this, I would like to know if injunctions are subject to judicial review.
How could you possibly be barred from working a job you were hired to do?
I'm thinking of how I would respond if I was in these radiology folks shoes and it wouldn't be positive.
Like others mentioned, it's probably not technically an injunction against the workers, but against the new company being able to hire them (or being able to have them do work, or such). Not much of a difference in practice, but it changes a bit how you'd be able to rebel as one of those workers (in that the new company probably doesn't want you to "come in to work anyways" now).
What exactly would happen if those people say "nah go fuck yourself" and don't show up at their old job monday?
They already don't have to. They just can't go to their new jobs.
"No unemployment for you lol get a job slacker" I'm sure.
So that's the other thing -- what's to stop them from going to the other job? I mean if the Judge is a dick I'm sure some lawyers will take up this highly publicized case on appeal for an easy win
If we have a lawyer reading this, I would like to know if injunctions are subject to judicial review.
Not a lawyer, but yes and it should be immediate if accepted. I doubt the hospital is going to ask for a two day injunction though.
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HakkekageSpace Whore Academysumma cum laudeRegistered Userregular
What exactly would happen if those people say "nah go fuck yourself" and don't show up at their old job monday?
They already don't have to. They just can't go to their new jobs.
"No unemployment for you lol get a job slacker" I'm sure.
So that's the other thing -- what's to stop them from going to the other job? I mean if the Judge is a dick I'm sure some lawyers will take up this highly publicized case on appeal for an easy win
If we have a lawyer reading this, I would like to know if injunctions are subject to judicial review.
….
It’s an injunction issued by a trial court its already subject to judicial review. It’s being reviewed. By a judge.
If you’re asking about appellate review, that depends on whether WI permits it by right or by leave prior to a final judgment or whether a grant of TRO/PI is a final judgment in WI.
again none of us know the claims. The letter that they wrote is not a legal filing, it’s a PR communication. It seemed like an emergency application which is why it is not a surprise that an injunction over the weekend issued. It could be literally tossed at 10:30 am monday. And the injunction may or may not affect if/when/how the employee receive benefits or pay, from their new employer, even if they are enjoined from Reporting to work Monday morning. Literally none of these facts is known.
And if ascension were going to appeal the TRO (and It were Permitted) it would have given notice to do so on Friday shortly after the hearing. It even might have, and it wasn’t reported! But it’s so short term, I suspect it doesn’t think it is worth it. If a longer injunction is entered, then more likely!
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HacksawJ. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered Userregular
What a mess this whole situation has turned into. Gonna be real interesting to see if the higher court hands down a smackdown ruling with a note in the decision reading "AT WILL EMPLOYMENT MEANS AT WILL FOR A REASON GODS DAMMIT"
What a mess this whole situation has turned into. Gonna be real interesting to see if the higher court hands down a smackdown ruling with a note in the decision reading "AT WILL EMPLOYMENT MEANS AT WILL FOR A REASON GODS DAMMIT"
Unfortunately, it's Wisconsin.
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HacksawJ. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered Userregular
Wisconsin is a wild state when it comes to labor law. I expect twists and turns at every juncture.
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Lord_AsmodeusgoeticSobriquet:Here is your magical cryptic riddle-tumour: I AM A TIME MACHINERegistered Userregular
Yet another way our legal system fails to adequately self police. After that bullshit this judge should have been forced to step down as a judge, not move on to some other area to fuck up.
Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. - Lincoln
Weird how they are "at-will" yet apparently that only means "works at the will of the employer," and not "quits at the will of the employee."
Almost like that's the actual intent of the law.
We had a driver who had a shitty schedule (gone a night twice a week, driving hours 9-6, so she was never home before 8 on the nights she did get to go home) whose son started acting up at school, so she quit, saying that her being gone constantly was destroying her family.
My boss was livid that she didn't put in a two weeks'.
I said "Well, Utah's an at-will state, boss, she has every right to up and walk" and he looked at me like I had spontaneously grown an extra appendage and said "That's not what at-will means"
R-dem on
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HacksawJ. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered Userregular
Weird how they are "at-will" yet apparently that only means "works at the will of the employer," and not "quits at the will of the employee."
Almost like that's the actual intent of the law.
We had a driver who had a shitty schedule (gone a night twice a week, driving hours 9-6, so she was never home before 8 on the nights she did get to go home) whose son started acting up at school, so she quit, saying that her being gone constantly was destroying her family.
My boss was livid that she didn't put in a two weeks'.
I said "Well, Utah's an at-will state, boss, she has every right to up and walk" and he looked at me like I had spontaneously grown an extra appendage and said "That's not what at-will means"
"At my will, not theirs!" says every shitty boss ever.
I was on the receiving end of a situation like this once.
Working for Microsoft doing general IT/sysadmin stuff. MS used contractors for basically everyone who wasn't a manager or some 100k/year specialist. It wasn't the independent contractor scam, you'd be a real employee, but not an MS employee, instead an employee of some no-name company that did nothing but supply bodies to MS. These companies were all sketchy as hell but they held the keys to the jobs and you didn't have a choice but to go through em.
Anyway, at one point I decided I had enough of my current agency* (let's call them "Fuck-U-Tech") and started poking around, it was somewhat common for people to jump agencies and I found another newer one that was offering better pay ("CyberFuckers"). Talked to my boss (a MS employee), set it up, moved from one to the other. Worked at CyberFuckers for about two weeks, then am suddenly told that Fuck-U-Tech has issued some kind of complaint to MS (I'm not allowed to see what the complaint was) with the implication is that I am in violation of my non-compete and MS wants no part of me until Fuck-U-Tech and CyberFuckers come to an agreement. This happened to several former Fuck-U-Tech employees all at the same time.
Now, the fun thing is that I didn't have a non-compete agreement with Fuck-U-Tech, I refused to sign it with I onboarded and their HR team was too understaffed to bother tracking me down over it. I tell this to CyberFuckers and they seem supportive at first, but pointing that fact out to Fuck-U-Tech wasn't enough to get them to withdraw whatever their complaint actually was and CyberFuckers then gave up and told me to go figure it out.
I try and talk with the greaseball owner of Fuck-U-Tech and he gives me a song and dance about how the agency agreement (which, of course, I can't see a copy of) doesn't allow people to move between agencies like I did--never mind that MS had an established process for this very thing--and that's the reason for the complaint and not the non-compete.
Ultimately, Fuck-U-Tech and CyberFuckers aren't going to work it out and MS doesn't care either way and won't even be the arbiter if their own rules, so the only thing left is for me to try and patch it up myself.
Me and another guy that didn't have a non-compete consulted with a lawyer over it and got told it wasn't worth the fight (and definitely wouldn't be on contingency). Basically, we had a weak claim for tortious interference** but it would probably all fall through if there was anything in the agency contact that even vaguely supported the idea that agencies couldn't snag talent this way, even if MS had been letting people do it before.
Fuck-U-Tech's owner was also more than happy enough to offer us our jobs back (so we couldn't claim unemployment).
The only leverage I really had was that it was the MS employee (my boss) who was the approver for filling the role, so while the two agencies squabbled neither of them was making money, but this wasn't enough.
After a few weeks of stalemate my boss side-channeled me and let me know he couldn't hold it open any longer since they were going to do a re-org and I had to sign back on with Fuck-U-Tech if I wanted to keep my job at all.
So I did! Put money in the pockets of those charlatans for another six months before I found another job where I actually worked for the company I worked for.
Moral of the story is, I guess, the courts aren't for you.
*as an aside, this wasn't even the company I originally signed on with... that company went bankrupt due to their various malfeasances and sold us off to another place like chattel, as the contracts with MS were the only thing of value they actually owned
**as a kind of general law, you're not allowed to fuck with other people's contracts, kinda? it's complicated
Aioua on
life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
Yet another way our legal system fails to adequately self police. After that bullshit this judge should have been forced to step down as a judge, not move on to some other area to fuck up.
When the bench is literally the retirement plan for a decent portion of the legal community, it should not be surprising that judges are treated with kid gloves.
Yet another way our legal system fails to adequately self police. After that bullshit this judge should have been forced to step down as a judge, not move on to some other area to fuck up.
When the bench is literally the retirement plan for a decent portion of the legal community, it should not be surprising that judges are treated with kid gloves.
Surprising, no. Contemptible, yes.
Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. - Lincoln
Weird how they are "at-will" yet apparently that only means "works at the will of the employer," and not "quits at the will of the employee."
Almost like that's the actual intent of the law.
It's capitalism, not laborism.
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MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
edited January 2022
Ultimately, the rich and powerful believe that the only valid basis of law is law that protects their ownership of property. That was the case for most legal codes back as far as such things existed. "Possession is 9/10 of the law" for more than one reason.
The rest of us that aren't rich and/or powerful? We're property.
Mayabird on
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HakkekageSpace Whore Academysumma cum laudeRegistered Userregular
states that want to improve innovation and labor mobility in an economy that no longer relies on employers training employees (and thus legitimately protecting an investment) but mostly relies on skilled professionals funding their own education and training at enormous costs (student debt) should pass laws make noncompete clauses unenforceable except in very narrow circumstances, like California does. Noncompetes are basically unenforceable in CA
Wisconsin has a broader law governing the enforceability of noncompetes
But
There has been no reporting that a noncompete is the issue in the WI case
yeah I only brought up noncompetes because they were relevant to my story
the point was more that when two companies are fighting about you it's super easy to get fucked and not really have any recourse
life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
The story I saw actually had more detail on the injunction. The new job just had to "make available" two different specialties to the old job over the weekend. No more details than that but that was more than we had.
It's still sketchy, with the old job waiting until the last minute then pleading potentially deadly man power shortage, but it is slightly better than the worst takes.
If it makes anyone feel better, 4 people is plenty to run a neurovascular / stroke room on an emergency only basis.
They almost certainly just want to not have all of that equipment sitting idle when it could be making $texas for each non-emergent procedure.
I'm definitely expecting to see the Streisand effect take hold here and we're going to find out all sort of awful thing this company has gotten up to. The most common recent thing is to find out a business took boatloads of PPP money that was forgiven, and spent zero of it on employees.
The story I saw actually had more detail on the injunction. The new job just had to "make available" two different specialties to the old job over the weekend. No more details than that but that was more than we had.
It's still sketchy, with the old job waiting until the last minute then pleading potentially deadly man power shortage, but it is slightly better than the worst takes.
No, it isn't. The judge should never have issued the injunction in the first place, and his half a baby "well provide them staff" order doesn't change that. Not to mention that he doesn't say whether or not the plaintiff was obliged to pay them for their staff - which makes me think that they were expected to provide the staff at the defendant's expense.
Also, here is the defendant's brief, and it is suitably scathing:
“Your failure to prepare is not my personal emergency.” This wry observation—a favorite of parents, teachers, coaches, and perhaps a few judges—concisely captures the core concept of personal responsibility most of us learned in childhood: don’t blame others for your own mistakes
They received no response until December 28, when they were told by Interim Director of Cardiovascular Service Line Ron Schumaker that ThedaCare would not be making any counteroffer. As he put it, the short term expense of retaining the radiology technologists was not worth the long term expense, because if ThedaCare paid to keep these employees, it would have to offer raises to everyone.
Apparently, that was the line director just forwarding the decision by the brass - he understood all too well why the staffers left.
Judge Mark McGinnis said, “Based up on the testimony, the exhibits that have come in that ThedaCare has not satisfied its burden that it will likely suffer irreputable harm without an injunction.”
This is a misreporting of what he actually probably said, which was “irreparable harm,” one of the hardest burdens to carry if you’re petitioning for a temporary injunction
Basically ThedaCare had to prove that without a continued injunction, the injury it would suffer could not be later repaired by ascension handing over money if ThedaCare eventually prevailed on its underlying claim
Clearly though any potential loss going forward was monetary and any nonmonetary losses could not be shown. To the extent that the TRO over the weekend issued with direction to ascension making some of those employees available to ThedaCare, the burden that ThedaCare carried was likely to have been shorter — ie if we cannot get coverage for this weekend specifically, judge, people could die, we’re the only level II trauma center serving this area, etc etc
And it seems clear that the employees have been on ascension’s payroll from the time that they began to officially work for them even though they were enjoined from reporting to work
This is all exactly what I would have expected to have happened even without (incomplete) public reporting and outcry. Now ThedaCare and ascension will go into a backroom with a mediator and settle. The end!
Judge Mark McGinnis said, “Based up on the testimony, the exhibits that have come in that ThedaCare has not satisfied its burden that it will likely suffer irreputable harm without an injunction.”
This is a misreporting of what he actually probably said, which was “irreparable harm,” one of the hardest burdens to carry if you’re petitioning for a temporary injunction
Basically ThedaCare had to prove that without a continued injunction, the injury it would suffer could not be later repaired by ascension handing over money if ThedaCare eventually prevailed on its underlying claim
Clearly though any potential loss going forward was monetary and any nonmonetary losses could not be shown. To the extent that the TRO over the weekend issued with direction to ascension making some of those employees available to ThedaCare, the burden that ThedaCare carried was likely to have been shorter — ie if we cannot get coverage for this weekend specifically, judge, people could die, we’re the only level II trauma center serving this area, etc etc
And it seems clear that the employees have been on ascension’s payroll from the time that they began to officially work for them even though they were enjoined from reporting to work
This is all exactly what I would have expected to have happened even without (incomplete) public reporting and outcry. Now ThedaCare and ascension will go into a backroom with a mediator and settle. The end!
The problem, as legal commentator Leonard French pointed out in his video on the matter, is that the routineness of all this makes the order no less unjust. The TRO should never have been issued in the first place, and the only reason it was is because they found a credulous judge who, let's be honest, should not be on the bench.
Judge Mark McGinnis said, “Based up on the testimony, the exhibits that have come in that ThedaCare has not satisfied its burden that it will likely suffer irreputable harm without an injunction.”
This is a misreporting of what he actually probably said, which was “irreparable harm,” one of the hardest burdens to carry if you’re petitioning for a temporary injunction
Basically ThedaCare had to prove that without a continued injunction, the injury it would suffer could not be later repaired by ascension handing over money if ThedaCare eventually prevailed on its underlying claim
Clearly though any potential loss going forward was monetary and any nonmonetary losses could not be shown. To the extent that the TRO over the weekend issued with direction to ascension making some of those employees available to ThedaCare, the burden that ThedaCare carried was likely to have been shorter — ie if we cannot get coverage for this weekend specifically, judge, people could die, we’re the only level II trauma center serving this area, etc etc
And it seems clear that the employees have been on ascension’s payroll from the time that they began to officially work for them even though they were enjoined from reporting to work
This is all exactly what I would have expected to have happened even without (incomplete) public reporting and outcry. Now ThedaCare and ascension will go into a backroom with a mediator and settle. The end!
The problem, as legal commentator Leonard French pointed out in his video on the matter, is that the routineness of all this makes the order no less unjust. The TRO should never have been issued in the first place, and the only reason it was is because they found a credulous judge who, let's be honest, should not be on the bench.
I’m not watching a 48 minute video from a legal commentator I’ve never heard of to understand your point about what is essentially a naked value judgment about the correctness of an order that many many many judges, not just this one, might very well have issued under the circumstances of the emergency TRO petition.
part of a TRO analysis is weighing a balance of harms. The balance tips away from “harm” in a short term order. That makes it less unjust than a longer term order. No appellate court, if it had the opportunity to review the TRO, would find even an abuse of discretion here.
There has been frankly a lot of overstatement over very little known facts about this story. To me it is obvious that, if anything, the broader labor implications are only orthogonal to what’s apparently happened.
The story I saw actually had more detail on the injunction. The new job just had to "make available" two different specialties to the old job over the weekend. No more details than that but that was more than we had.
It's still sketchy, with the old job waiting until the last minute then pleading potentially deadly man power shortage, but it is slightly better than the worst takes.
No, it isn't. The judge should never have issued the injunction in the first place, and his half a baby "well provide them staff" order doesn't change that. Not to mention that he doesn't say whether or not the plaintiff was obliged to pay them for their staff - which makes me think that they were expected to provide the staff at the defendant's expense.
Also, here is the defendant's brief, and it is suitably scathing:
“Your failure to prepare is not my personal emergency.” This wry observation—a favorite of parents, teachers, coaches, and perhaps a few judges—concisely captures the core concept of personal responsibility most of us learned in childhood: don’t blame others for your own mistakes
They received no response until December 28, when they were told by Interim Director of Cardiovascular Service Line Ron Schumaker that ThedaCare would not be making any counteroffer. As he put it, the short term expense of retaining the radiology technologists was not worth the long term expense, because if ThedaCare paid to keep these employees, it would have to offer raises to everyone.
Apparently, that was the line director just forwarding the decision by the brass - he understood all too well why the staffers left.
Man, that case is going to get laughed out of court if they're dumb enough to continue this comedy. Also it's never a good sign when your service line directors are interim, that often means leadership is jumping ship too.
Posts
I will link and retype what I've seen below.
https://www.reddit.com/r/nursing/comments/s8tdki/shots_fired_our_ceo_is_out_for_blood/
Fuck. That. Noise.
Several things I've read suggest they were given a chance to match the offer and declined to do so. Get fucked, hospitals shut down and divert patients at trauma centers all the fucking time. 17-plus county my ballsack. Pay your people better.
You don't get to treat the hospital like a McDonalds franchise and then go complain when people don't want to work there while crying, "but the community needs us guys".
The community doesn't need your shitty level 2 hospital run by people that treat staff like slaves.
Edit: There are probably typos, I was in a hurry and I don't transcribe well. I'll fix them if I see them.
It's just another example of how rigged the system is against workers. Any collective action by employees will be set upon and ground out of them by the system. I suppose we're still better off from the days where they would just round up agitators at gunpoint and ship them out of town on a train at least.
I think the clinic involved knows their case will never go anywhere, but they can punish the people leaving by tying it up in the courts. I imagine the judge involved had little choice but to grant an injunction until a full hearing can be done, though the judge in this case doesn't sound like a particularly stand up guy either. (What is it with terrible judges in Wisconsin?)
But we're talking about almost the entirety of a small medical team leaving together. People just don't do that out of the blue. Changing jobs is generally disruptive to your life. Which tells me conditions and pay at this place were really bad. And instead of simply matching salaries to keep their team intact, this business would rather spend their cash on a frivolous lawsuit.
If there are damages the company can recover it in money. In the meantime they send patients to other facilities. Hell they could send them to the new workplace then demand money for the unfair competition or whatever. All without hurting worker or patients.
Hopefully the judge recognizes that the injunction doesn't prevent harm that cant be compensated for with money. It is certainly a threat to the remaining workers not to try and quit.
In the Reddit thread they also posted that he once jailed a defendant for 45 days for rolling his eyes and shuffling papers. An incarcerated prisoner has also researched and accused him of not properly disclosing income.
Is this just another example of dumb bullshit by stupid low-level judges then?
Cause that seems pretty common in the US.
They already don't have to. They just can't go to their new jobs.
"No unemployment for you lol get a job slacker" I'm sure.
So that's the other thing -- what's to stop them from going to the other job? I mean if the Judge is a dick I'm sure some lawyers will take up this highly publicized case on appeal for an easy win
Only lightly paying attention to this but I think the injunction is against the other job hiring them, not the employees themselves. So Other Job would likely pay some sort of fine and have pissed off the judge if they let these folks come into New Job.
The people are just kind of fucked it appears.
If we have a lawyer reading this, I would like to know if injunctions are subject to judicial review.
I'm thinking of how I would respond if I was in these radiology folks shoes and it wouldn't be positive.
Like others mentioned, it's probably not technically an injunction against the workers, but against the new company being able to hire them (or being able to have them do work, or such). Not much of a difference in practice, but it changes a bit how you'd be able to rebel as one of those workers (in that the new company probably doesn't want you to "come in to work anyways" now).
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Not a lawyer, but yes and it should be immediate if accepted. I doubt the hospital is going to ask for a two day injunction though.
….
It’s an injunction issued by a trial court its already subject to judicial review. It’s being reviewed. By a judge.
If you’re asking about appellate review, that depends on whether WI permits it by right or by leave prior to a final judgment or whether a grant of TRO/PI is a final judgment in WI.
again none of us know the claims. The letter that they wrote is not a legal filing, it’s a PR communication. It seemed like an emergency application which is why it is not a surprise that an injunction over the weekend issued. It could be literally tossed at 10:30 am monday. And the injunction may or may not affect if/when/how the employee receive benefits or pay, from their new employer, even if they are enjoined from Reporting to work Monday morning. Literally none of these facts is known.
And if ascension were going to appeal the TRO (and It were Permitted) it would have given notice to do so on Friday shortly after the hearing. It even might have, and it wasn’t reported! But it’s so short term, I suspect it doesn’t think it is worth it. If a longer injunction is entered, then more likely!
NNID: Hakkekage
Unfortunately, it's Wisconsin.
Yet another way our legal system fails to adequately self police. After that bullshit this judge should have been forced to step down as a judge, not move on to some other area to fuck up.
We had a driver who had a shitty schedule (gone a night twice a week, driving hours 9-6, so she was never home before 8 on the nights she did get to go home) whose son started acting up at school, so she quit, saying that her being gone constantly was destroying her family.
My boss was livid that she didn't put in a two weeks'.
I said "Well, Utah's an at-will state, boss, she has every right to up and walk" and he looked at me like I had spontaneously grown an extra appendage and said "That's not what at-will means"
"At my will, not theirs!" says every shitty boss ever.
Working for Microsoft doing general IT/sysadmin stuff. MS used contractors for basically everyone who wasn't a manager or some 100k/year specialist. It wasn't the independent contractor scam, you'd be a real employee, but not an MS employee, instead an employee of some no-name company that did nothing but supply bodies to MS. These companies were all sketchy as hell but they held the keys to the jobs and you didn't have a choice but to go through em.
Anyway, at one point I decided I had enough of my current agency* (let's call them "Fuck-U-Tech") and started poking around, it was somewhat common for people to jump agencies and I found another newer one that was offering better pay ("CyberFuckers"). Talked to my boss (a MS employee), set it up, moved from one to the other. Worked at CyberFuckers for about two weeks, then am suddenly told that Fuck-U-Tech has issued some kind of complaint to MS (I'm not allowed to see what the complaint was) with the implication is that I am in violation of my non-compete and MS wants no part of me until Fuck-U-Tech and CyberFuckers come to an agreement. This happened to several former Fuck-U-Tech employees all at the same time.
Now, the fun thing is that I didn't have a non-compete agreement with Fuck-U-Tech, I refused to sign it with I onboarded and their HR team was too understaffed to bother tracking me down over it. I tell this to CyberFuckers and they seem supportive at first, but pointing that fact out to Fuck-U-Tech wasn't enough to get them to withdraw whatever their complaint actually was and CyberFuckers then gave up and told me to go figure it out.
I try and talk with the greaseball owner of Fuck-U-Tech and he gives me a song and dance about how the agency agreement (which, of course, I can't see a copy of) doesn't allow people to move between agencies like I did--never mind that MS had an established process for this very thing--and that's the reason for the complaint and not the non-compete.
Ultimately, Fuck-U-Tech and CyberFuckers aren't going to work it out and MS doesn't care either way and won't even be the arbiter if their own rules, so the only thing left is for me to try and patch it up myself.
Me and another guy that didn't have a non-compete consulted with a lawyer over it and got told it wasn't worth the fight (and definitely wouldn't be on contingency). Basically, we had a weak claim for tortious interference** but it would probably all fall through if there was anything in the agency contact that even vaguely supported the idea that agencies couldn't snag talent this way, even if MS had been letting people do it before.
Fuck-U-Tech's owner was also more than happy enough to offer us our jobs back (so we couldn't claim unemployment).
The only leverage I really had was that it was the MS employee (my boss) who was the approver for filling the role, so while the two agencies squabbled neither of them was making money, but this wasn't enough.
After a few weeks of stalemate my boss side-channeled me and let me know he couldn't hold it open any longer since they were going to do a re-org and I had to sign back on with Fuck-U-Tech if I wanted to keep my job at all.
So I did! Put money in the pockets of those charlatans for another six months before I found another job where I actually worked for the company I worked for.
Moral of the story is, I guess, the courts aren't for you.
*as an aside, this wasn't even the company I originally signed on with... that company went bankrupt due to their various malfeasances and sold us off to another place like chattel, as the contracts with MS were the only thing of value they actually owned
**as a kind of general law, you're not allowed to fuck with other people's contracts, kinda? it's complicated
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
When the bench is literally the retirement plan for a decent portion of the legal community, it should not be surprising that judges are treated with kid gloves.
Surprising, no. Contemptible, yes.
It's capitalism, not laborism.
The rest of us that aren't rich and/or powerful? We're property.
Wisconsin has a broader law governing the enforceability of noncompetes
But
There has been no reporting that a noncompete is the issue in the WI case
Because we don’t know the underlying claim
NNID: Hakkekage
the point was more that when two companies are fighting about you it's super easy to get fucked and not really have any recourse
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
It's still sketchy, with the old job waiting until the last minute then pleading potentially deadly man power shortage, but it is slightly better than the worst takes.
If it makes anyone feel better, 4 people is plenty to run a neurovascular / stroke room on an emergency only basis.
They almost certainly just want to not have all of that equipment sitting idle when it could be making $texas for each non-emergent procedure.
I'm definitely expecting to see the Streisand effect take hold here and we're going to find out all sort of awful thing this company has gotten up to. The most common recent thing is to find out a business took boatloads of PPP money that was forgiven, and spent zero of it on employees.
No, it isn't. The judge should never have issued the injunction in the first place, and his half a baby "well provide them staff" order doesn't change that. Not to mention that he doesn't say whether or not the plaintiff was obliged to pay them for their staff - which makes me think that they were expected to provide the staff at the defendant's expense.
Also, here is the defendant's brief, and it is suitably scathing:
Apparently, that was the line director just forwarding the decision by the brass - he understood all too well why the staffers left.
Ugh, no, unlikely
This is a misreporting of what he actually probably said, which was “irreparable harm,” one of the hardest burdens to carry if you’re petitioning for a temporary injunction
Basically ThedaCare had to prove that without a continued injunction, the injury it would suffer could not be later repaired by ascension handing over money if ThedaCare eventually prevailed on its underlying claim
Clearly though any potential loss going forward was monetary and any nonmonetary losses could not be shown. To the extent that the TRO over the weekend issued with direction to ascension making some of those employees available to ThedaCare, the burden that ThedaCare carried was likely to have been shorter — ie if we cannot get coverage for this weekend specifically, judge, people could die, we’re the only level II trauma center serving this area, etc etc
And it seems clear that the employees have been on ascension’s payroll from the time that they began to officially work for them even though they were enjoined from reporting to work
This is all exactly what I would have expected to have happened even without (incomplete) public reporting and outcry. Now ThedaCare and ascension will go into a backroom with a mediator and settle. The end!
NNID: Hakkekage
The problem, as legal commentator Leonard French pointed out in his video on the matter, is that the routineness of all this makes the order no less unjust. The TRO should never have been issued in the first place, and the only reason it was is because they found a credulous judge who, let's be honest, should not be on the bench.
I’m not watching a 48 minute video from a legal commentator I’ve never heard of to understand your point about what is essentially a naked value judgment about the correctness of an order that many many many judges, not just this one, might very well have issued under the circumstances of the emergency TRO petition.
part of a TRO analysis is weighing a balance of harms. The balance tips away from “harm” in a short term order. That makes it less unjust than a longer term order. No appellate court, if it had the opportunity to review the TRO, would find even an abuse of discretion here.
There has been frankly a lot of overstatement over very little known facts about this story. To me it is obvious that, if anything, the broader labor implications are only orthogonal to what’s apparently happened.
NNID: Hakkekage
Man, that case is going to get laughed out of court if they're dumb enough to continue this comedy. Also it's never a good sign when your service line directors are interim, that often means leadership is jumping ship too.