Brad Wardell/Stardock sue employee for one million dollars

Here's my #1ReasonWhy

Realizing after 2 weeks that a programmer has been sending every single bug with your name on it back to QA as Need More Information without even looking at it and insisting that a man has to verify it before he'll even think about fixing it.

Oh god, seriously Angie? That is fucking ridic.

Wow, just wow. I really hope HR slapped him upside the head but good.

The QA manager told him to stop wasting people's time. Eventually he realized that I knew what I was fucking doing.

I haven't, I don't use the twitter and I don't really want to get into it. I just had a little bubble of past bitterness come up.

Angie, perhaps you'd like to discuss this with a 1ReasonMentor?

Nah, I had plenty of time to air it out with my 1ReasonEveryWomanInTheCompanyIsHuddledTogetherInTheBathroomCryingBecauseWeAreAllStressedToTheBreakingPoint group way back when.

So thaaaaaaat's what y'all do in there....

;)

Well, in between brushing each other's hair and the tickle fights.

Thanks for the link, Ingmar! Dear me do I love that guy.

Hey, just because that stuff happens in the men's room, we can't assume that the women do the same.

That stuff doesn't happen in men's rooms. We're too busy tapping our feet and having sex with eachother.

It's SO much easier when you don't have to worry about getting preggers during crunch time. High five!

And what's with black people always talking at the movies?

;)

;)

;)

;)

Hahahahaahahahah, thank you guys, that rocked.

Wash your hands first!

So, back on the Tangible Brad Shit front, does anyone know where the Wardell v. Miseta case is actually at? It seems nigh impossible to find any data about it through the intarwebz, and what I'm most interested in is reports from the courtroom. Any chance of that? RyanMM, did you contact Kotaku to ask to be a stringer yet?

And don't forget to say "no homo" afterwards...

Note: not really NSFW but default grahpic from youtube could raise eybrows in certian parts of the country so tucked in spoiler tags.

If you want to plunk down like fifty cents on PACER, you can probably pull the docket and see what's happening.

What if I paypal you 75 cents, sinfony, and you pull it up for us?

Just signed up for a PACER login. Unfortunately, being the government, I haven't gotten my login confirmation email yet, and who knows when it will arrive.

....OK, an hour later I got that, and got my password, and now the site says it will be ANOTHER hour before the password WORKS. Ah government, WTF is YOUR PROBLEM?

I told my wife (not a gamer) about this #1ReasonWhy campaign, and she said: "Do you think I could start a movement like that for the banking industry? I could tweet about how my old boss called me up two weeks before I returned from maternity leave and told me I had to promise not to get pregnant again before he would "allow" me to have my old job back".

It reminded me that I wish I had punched that guy when I had the chance.

I searched PACER for "MISETA, ALEXANDRA" and pulled up only one case, Stardock Systems v. Miseta. Which is not the case I was looking for; I wanted Miseta v. Wardell.

But anyway, I got the docket history:

I find the last entry especially interesting. Motion to compel arbitration? Who filed that? Is it possible that Brad is finally looking to settle rather than see this go to trial? Did he actually start listening to his lawyers?

The discovery plan (item 9) says this:

If they don't settle, we ain't gonna have much new news until about this time next year, on this case anyway.

So what's up with Wardell v. Miseta? What kind of cases aren't visible through PACER at all?

Clearly I should start one for being a stagehand! Hmmm, what would I pick.

The worst incident was the worst but only happened once and feels unfair to hold against the entire industry. A bunch of dudes decided slapping me on my ass repeatedly, to the point where I was far, far, far more worried about turning my back on my coworkers than paying attention to my actual work, which involved a lot of lifting heavy objects and making sure we weren't overloading circuits and shit and really not something I should've been hugely distracted from for safety's sake if nothing else. And ha ha ha, of course one of the dudes doing it was my fucking boss. Two of the dudes on the crew (I was the only woman there, naturally) wound up guarding me. Productive! I think the worst part is I considered all of those guys my friends up until then.

I think the worst recurring thing was just the look of confusion dudes would get when it turned out yes, the only woman there was also the Master Electrician and in charge, motherfuckers. Surely she realizes her Plan for the Day needs tweaking and look honey why don't you do it this way? I know you know this theater and its quirks better than I do, but c'mon! I'm a dude! And you aren't! Women don't understand anything but wardrobe! Unless you're a lesbian. Then maybe you're an okay carpenter (but not the LEAD carpenter, of course.).


Hmm. I appear to be bitter.

@Angie, was that at that one place that one time, or somewhere else?

Yeah, it was there.

Wow. Fuck that place.

PACER won't charge you unless you go over $15.00 per quarter. There is little reason to not sign up and have a look.

Why do we have to wait an entire year for this to come before the courts? Is that usual?

Miseta v. Wardell -- The sex discrimination case -- is a state case, not a federal case. PACER is for federal cases only. I think it was previously determined that the state court in which Miseta v. Wardell is pending does not have online docket access.

I'm morally conflicted about clicking "Like" beneath a story of blatant sexism - I'm not liking the story, but want to show my support.

Soooo... support.

No. That was almost certainly filed by Brad's lawyers. Arbitration is a non-court process for resolving civil disputes. You go into a set of meeting rooms with a neutral party (an "arbitrator," usually a retired judge), and each side makes their pitch. Depending on the rules of arbitration, there could even be live testimony and cross-examination, which may be subject to some or all of the rules of evidence. At the end the arbitrator decides how the case turns out. That decision may or may not be binding on the parties, depending on the type of arbitration, but usually it is binding.

Arbitration is quicker and cheaper than a civil suit, particularly for the person being sued. Many many contracts, including most employment contracts, contain an "arbitration clause" that says both sides agree to use arbitration to settle any disputes rather than going to court. Plaintiff's lawyers will tell you that these clauses are awful and unconscionable and un-American, in that the person agreeing to them typically doesn't realize what they're agreeing to at the time and/or doesn't care because they don't think it will ever matter, and in any case they have little or no power to negotiate individual clauses in the contract that they don't like, and that arb clauses vastly favor employers and other typical defendants. In the first place, arbs are often confidential (unlike court proceedings, which are almost always public) and not appealable. But most importantly, plaintiff's lawyers claim that the arbitrators are all slanted towards the defendants because the defendants usually get to pick the arbitration firm that they use to resolve all their disputes. Arbitration firms are big, big business. An arb typically includes a big fee to the arbitrator, plus you are renting rooms in their building, often for many days, and depending on the arb type you may be paying other personnel like a stenographer, someone providing food, technical assistants, who knows what. Thus, plaintiff's lawyers often say that arb firms have an incentive to at least lean the defendant's way so that they will continue to receive that company's business.

I personally am not a civil lawyer and can't tell you whether those complaints are well-founded or not. Someone like Sharpe would probably know. I assume it is no accident that almost every employment contract contains an arb clause.

Maybe yes, maybe no. Discovery will be ongoing during that time, so whether either party chooses to disclose things is up to them. And you can always count on Brad to keep the story alive, it seems like.

Because, uh, I don't know how to use PACER. I have people for that.

It reads like one party informed the court at the scheduling conference that they intend to file a motion to compel arbitration. I would guess that Miseta signed an arbitration agreement with Stardock (as I believe most employees do) and the agreement likely permits, and possibly requires, either her or Stardock to submit any disputes arising out of her employment to arbitration. Arbitration has various advantages and disadvantages; high on the list of advantages is that it's confidential. Other advantages include that it's less formal and can be less costly than litigating in the courts.

I misunderstood your request to be about the Elemental Materials suit, hence my directing you to PACER. PACER only provides access to information about federal cases; state courts use their own systems, which are varying degrees of godawful (not that PACER is much good itself).

To make up for my error, I took a look and it appears that the Michigan state court that has the case now has online docket access (which I seem to recall it did not when this whole flap first came to the public's attention). Here's what has happened recentlyish:

"DF's FOR S/D" means Defendant's motion for summary disposition, which I believe we discussed earlier in the thread--it's a motion asking the court to dismiss the case on various grounds. It was denied; a month later, they had a settlement conference (which may have been ordered by the court, may be SOP, who the hell knows?). Nothing since on the docket.

Yep, that's usual. Depending on its complexity, a case can take many, many years to come to trial. Something like a sexual harassment case is not that complex, but would generally take at least a year after the suit is filed and a year would be incredibly quick.

But I make tweets for you and everything tt

#1reasonwryyyyy not getting the traction it should

— Ryan (@adreeadree) November 28, 2012

Heh and people claim there isnt an obsession here with every single thing Wardell does.

Oh, Brett.

Seriously? Seriously! Seriously.