A federal judge in California has dismissed a lawsuit against Twitter that accused the company of discriminating against disabled workers by requiring them to work in the office and put in long hours at high intensity. The lawsuit was filed by Dmitry Borodaenko, a former Twitter engineering manager who claims that he was fired by the company when he refused to stop working remotely. Borodaenko, who is a cancer survivor, proposed the lawsuit as a class action, alleging that Twitter’s policies disproportionately impacted disabled workers.
US District Judge Haywood Gilliam has rejected the claims made by Dmitry Borodaenko, a former Twitter engineering manager, that policies set by CEO Elon Musk during mass layoffs at the company disproportionately impacted disabled workers. However, Gilliam has given Borodaenko an opportunity to amend his lawsuit with more detailed claims, granting him three weeks to do so. Borodaenko’s lawyer, Shannon Liss-Riordan, intends to file an amended complaint that will include additional facts supporting the allegations of discrimination against disabled workers at Twitter.
Twitter is currently facing multiple lawsuits after CEO Elon Musk’s decision to lay off half of the company’s workforce. Among the allegations made against the company are claims that female employees were unfairly targeted for layoffs and that promised severance payments were not made. However, Twitter has denied any wrongdoing in these cases. The dismissal of the lawsuit filed by a disabled worker is a recent victory for the company, although it is unclear how the other lawsuits will be resolved.
While the judge dismissed Borodaenko’s claims, he ruled that claims by a second plaintiff represented by Liss-Riordan, Abhijit Mehta, belong in private arbitration rather than court because Mehta signed an agreement to arbitrate employment-related legal disputes. Borodaenko opted out of the agreement.
