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.

  • Meow.tar.gz@lemmy.goblackcat.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    67
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    1 year ago

    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.

    • lechatron@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      29
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      The majority of the settlement is reimbursement.

      Comer’s harassment campaign cost Bungie over $380,000 in the form of investigation costs, “executive protection” for the affected community manager, and lost work when the employee “needed to take time off and curtail his public interactions with Destiny 2 fans.”

      as well as over $80,000 in legal fees and $25,000 in statutory damages

    • Xartle@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      19
      ·
      1 year ago

      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)…

    • Debrox@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      12
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      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.

  • Sanctus@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    25
    arrow-down
    12
    ·
    1 year ago

    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.

    • Dark Arc@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      30
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      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.

      • ilikekeyboards@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        8
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        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

        • fidodo@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          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.

          • Sanctus@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            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.

    • jrs100000@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      1 year ago

      The key difference is that what you did, at least as you described it, was actually not harassment.