I recognize you’re not arguing in favour of the employers. I’m asking this more in a factual not an argumentative way since you seem to understand this.
But how can this be legal for the judge to make such a ruling? It is an at-will state, not an at-will unless it harms the employer so they should get 90 days (after already having a month) to figure it out.
I’m very confused by this decision.
It is a temporary injunction right now. It’s not permanent, as that necessitates a more expansive analysis.
The court is essentially saying “there’s enough of a potential concern that I’m stopping this until we can figure out what all of the details are and what the actual solution is.”
The judge may rule against the hospital. He may say “you had plenty of time to figure this out.” But, right now at least, he’s called a timeout.
But there has to be a legal basis for a temporary injunction, right? Some fig lead they can hang their hat on? Not just “gosh, these guys say they’ll be harmed if I don’t give them more time, so I guess I’ve got to give them more time?”
Again the article is light on details, but I assume the injunction is on the new employer, not the employees. The employees are free to quit the old employer and apparently have – the article states that if this isn’t resolved by Monday they’ll have no place of employment. Noone is being prevented from quitting and it’s certainly not “Slavery!!!” as some have said. But obviously it leaves these employees in a terrible spot.
I think the old employer may be making some sort of tortious interference claim.
It’s more like, “these people say they’ll be harmed if I don’t give them more time, and it appears to be a credible concern (I.e. this is a hospital which can’t handle certain critical functions if these people leave), so I’m stopping this until we can have a full airing of the issues.”
Note that the judge set that final hearing for Monday.
This might seem unfair, but it is based on the idea that the court should be able to immediately prevent serious harm, even if the actual determination of how serious it may be (and it may not be serious at all!) requires some further analysis.
(A similar thing arises with accusations of domestic violence. A person can go to court and get an injunction preventing another person from contacting them - based on allegations of violence or threats. The court won’t say “well, first we need to hear from the other person.” Rather, the court will say “ok, I’m granting your request for now, in an abundance of caution, but we need to have a full hearing In the next few days to hear from everybody and decide the merits of this thing.”)
To me (and as with Moriarty I recognize you’re not arguing in favour of the employers), that makes even less sense because then the ruling doesn’t even prevent the supposed harm. The old employers won’t have anybody to cover the work, the new employers won’t have anybody to do the work, and the employees won’t have a job. Why bother making a ruling to prevent a harm that does not prevent the harm?
(and I would still love to know the legal basis by which such a ruling could be made)
The difference there is that could potentially prevent the harm. If the judges order somebody to stay away, then if the allegations are true they’ve potentially prevent some abuse.
In this case, it seems (and I’m no expert by any means) that the order doesn’t even do that if it in fact only prevents them from starting their new job and does not force them to continue with their old jobs.
But wouldn’t you at least have to allege a cause of action? Like, sure, a judge can grant a temporary restraining order or an injunction preventing contact just hearing one side of the story in a DV case. That would, presumably, be on the basis of some form of DV or battery being alleged though, right? Not just a vague statement of harm without even attempting to make out a legal cause of action?
But that just makes even less sense. Now both places are short-handed. The only reason to prevent them from moving to the new job is so that they will still be available to work the old job, should the old employer find some “legal” rationale for forcing them back to work. None of this makes any sense if these people actually are allowed to quit their jobs.
An argument here may be that optimal care for trauma and especially for stroke patients will be compromised if ThedaCare loses those employees, since the Ascension hospital they’re going to doesn’t have the same high-level designations, i.e. Comprehensive Stroke Center. However, transfers of serious cases apparently aren’t that big of a deal, as detailed in this article, which ironically discusses a different Ascension facility getting the top-level stroke care designation:
I get the feeling that ThedaCare’s angst stems from the fact that it only recently got the Comprehensive Stroke Center designation, and it would be a p.r. if not monetary setback if it was unable to provide the care it proudly announced.
One way the judge could settle this is to mandate (with whatever legal justification) that Ascension ensures the necessary round-the-clock staffing and transfer capabilities to serve patients until the bozos at ThedaCare can hire replacements (who may wind up costing them as much as if they’d granted the previous employees’ salary demands in the first place).
*I am not terribly sympathetic to hospitals in situations like this, seeing how often they dump personnel in order to save $$$ by hiring less qualified people.
Injunctions are civil actions. They don’t require a crime to have been committed. They require an allegation that some action will result in imminent harm.
(Now, a good defense is obviously “I’m legally entitled to do what I’m doing, and your claimed harm is either not all that serious or your own doing.” But we haven’t gotten to the point in this case where the merits of the injunction are being litigated - at this point, the question is instead focused on whether there’s a plausible claim of harm which the court can ostensibly prevent by stopping something from happening)
Doesn’t there need to be some kind of merit to the case though? I don’t see how the old employers can possibly win. As far as I can tell the case is meritless. It is an at-will state. Or is that simply not a factor.
It makes perfect sense if, as I suspect, the judge has no authority to order people to work for someone. Which at least strengthens the “it’s not slavery” or even “forced labor” argument: they are not so much being forced to work as made aware that if they’d chose not to work for employer A, then they will also surely not be working for employer B until the injunction is lifted. So… not saying “you must work for employer A,” but employer A has got to be looking a little better right now if the alternative is unemployment (and potentially without unemployment benefits: because after all, you weren’t fired, you quit!).
The only thing that doesn’t make sense to me in all this is what legal basis employer A (ThedaCare—god I hate how healthcare organizations name themselves) is using to say it should be granted an injunction.
Exactly, that’s what I don’t understand. Shouldn’t they have to argue “Your honor, we can win this case because of X,Y, and Z; therefore, we’re asking for an injunction”? The case feels unwinnable for employer A so how can they be granted an injunction?
Injunctions are a form of relief available in a civil action. The question is… what is the action here? What is ThedaCare alleging as a legally protected right that is being infringed on? What do they purport to be able to make out as a legal cause of action that would permit them to seek, and the court to grant, a temporary injunction?
I think that’s a fair point. My reading is that the hospital is trying to stop them from leaving their jobs (for 90 days), but I’m not sure if that means the judge would be ordering them to work their old jobs for 90 days or if it means that they can’t be hired at their new jobs for 90 days.
A judge must be able to stop the alleged harm with the injunction. Otherwise, I agree that it shouldn’t be granted. And I don’t see how you can force somebody to work a job they quit (and who would want to be somewhere where the employees are being forced to do their jobs against their will?).
That all may be reasons why the injunction isn’t ultimately granted, and it could have been the reason to deny the initial temporary injunction, but my guess is that the judge wanted to err on the side of caution (and, as I quoted earlier, wants both sides to work this out - sometimes a judge will tell the parties to a lawsuit “none of you will like my ruling” as a way to try to incentivize the litigants from being sensible and solving this on their own).
That makes sense in a way.
To be clear, this is what appears to be a relevant portion of Wisconsin’s statute on injunctions:
813.02 Temporary injunction; when granted.
(1)
(a) When it appears from a party’s pleading that the party is entitled to judgment and any part thereof consists in restraining some act, the commission or continuance of which during the litigation would injure the party, or when during the litigation it shall appear that a party is doing or threatens or is about to do, or is procuring or suffering some act to be done in violation of the rights of another party and tending to render the judgment ineffectual, a temporary injunction may be granted to restrain such act.
As I read that, it seems to confirm what I have been saying: there has to at least be a pleading that is capable of standing on its own absent challenger. That is, if we were to take everything in it as true, it asserts a legally protected right that is being or is at risk of being violated by another party and that harm would ensue.
But it’s not enough merely to assert harm would ensue. Something has to be said about the supposed legally protected right that would be violated. There has to be a cause of action. Right?
Again the article is light on details, but I assume the injunction is on the new employer, not the employees. The employees are free to quit the old employer and apparently have – the article states that if this isn’t resolved by Monday they’ll have no place of employment. Noone is being prevented from quitting and it’s certainly not “Slavery!!!” as some have said. But obviously it leaves these employees in a terrible spot.
That makes even less sense! If the court’s rationale is that harm would come to patients by allowing these workers to leave, then in this case the harm is caused by the court to the patients at the new employer who won’t be cared for by the newly hired personnel
Obviously, I don’t have the written lawsuit, and wasn’t privy to the court hearing. You may have a point, and I don’t know the answer.
For what it’s worth, since this is controversy is in Wisconsin, I found these notes on its website listing its statutes (I’m not saying they argue one way or another towards this ruling, but it offers some context for the judge’s thinking)