A federal judge in California on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit accusing social media platform X of forcing out staff with disabilities after Elon Musk took over the corporate and barred employees from working remotely.
US District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin in San Francisco said the plaintiff in the 2022 proposed class motion, Dmitry Borodaenko, failed to indicate how Musk’s mandate to return to the office specifically impacted employees with disabilities. The judge gave him 4 weeks to file an amended lawsuit including more detailed claims.
Borodaenko, a former engineering manager and cancer survivor, claims he was fired shortly after Musk acquired X, then called Twitter, for refusing to report back to the office through the COVID-19 pandemic. The lawsuit claims X violated a federal law requiring employers to accommodate staff’ disabilities.
Musk said in a memo to the corporate’s staff in November 2022 that employees must be prepared to work “long hours at high intensity” or quit, and later tweeted that it was “morally improper” to make money working from home.
Martinez-Olguin on Wednesday said the ban on distant work didn’t amount to disability discrimination.
“Borodaenko’s theory improperly relies on the belief that each one employees with disabilities necessarily required distant work as an inexpensive accommodation,” Martinez-Olguin wrote.
A lawyer for Borodaenko didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.
X responded to multiple requests for comment with emails stating “busy now, please check back later.”
The lawsuit is one in every of several that former employees filed within the months following Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of the corporate and the following layoffs of about 75% of its workforce.
Other cases accuse Twitter of not giving employees and contractors advance notice of layoffs, failing to pay billions of dollars in promised severance, and disproportionately targeting women and older staff for job cuts. X has denied wrongdoing.
A few of those cases have been dismissed, prompting appeals from the plaintiffs which are pending.
