In the ever-expanding legal galaxy of Elon Musk related lawsuits, Stanford Professors Evelyn Douek and Alex Stamos offer an insightful take on Musk’s adventures in legal land on their tech policy podcast, Moderated Content. Labelled as a one-man law school curriculum, Musk’s encounters with law span across areas such as contracts, torts, the First Amendment, to Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP) suits.
Musk’s recent legal lesson is in the realm of Civil Procedure and begins with five SpaceX employees circulating an open letter in 2022 via SpaceX’s internal Microsoft Teams channel. The employees reproach the company for not supporting diversity and inclusion and criticise Musk’s behaviour. Following the letter’s publication on The Verge, SpaceX fires these employees. In response, the employees file a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) advocating company interference with the right to organise.
In reaction, SpaceX sues the NLRB in Texas on the grounds that Administrative Law Judges are illegal. This choice of venue is made noteworthy in light of the holding in Jarkesy v. SEC by the Fifth Circuit in 2022, declaring ALJs unconstitutional. Although the case was argued at the Supreme Court in November, as of the time of writing, a credible claim is in place that ALJs are illegal within the jurisdiction of the Fifth Circuit.
Though the jurisdiction war isn’t as simple. No justification has been provided for a California company to select Texas as its preferred venue with respect to a dispute over a judgement by California ALJs, impacting California employees. This mismatch was identified as improbable by Judge Rolando Olvera from the Southern District of Texas. On February 15th he transferred the case to the Central District of California.
However, before the docket could be transferred to Los Angeles under Judge Consuelo Marshall’s supervision, Space X petitioned the Fifth Circuit for a writ of mandamus – a request for a higher court to reverse the decision of a trial court or lower appeals court – to insist that the case be returned. This petition resulted in an administrative stay on February 19th by the Fifth Circuit on the transfer. This point of contention, the NLRB’s lawyers argue in their response to the petition for mandamus, involves upending the principle of transfer from Texas to California.
Despite the ensuing courtroom drama, the final decision lies with the Fifth Circuit. Legal professionals can stay updated on this case with the Fifth Circuit Mandamus Docket or check out the Central District of CA Docket and Southern District of TX Docket via Court Listener.
The complete story of this case has been reported by Liz Dye who divides her time between living in Baltimore and producing the Law and Chaos substack and podcast.
For additional insights, you can read the entire article here.