Former Bloomberg Staffer Files Suit, Claims Fraud :: 03/24/2020

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg made a splash in the Democratic primary field when he announced his candidacy for president. It was a short-lived candidacy, but he was considered a viable candidate from the start and shook up the entire field.

Then, he withdrew. In fairness, while he polled well nationally, he failed to really garner any support on a state-to-state basis. Withdrawal was the only real choice.

Frankly, withdrawing from an election happens pretty regularly. Bloomberg wasn’t the first to withdraw, nor the last.

He’s the first presidential candidate this election cycle to be sued by a former staffer, though.

A former staffer for Mike Bloomberg‘s presidential campaign filed a class-action lawsuit Monday alleging the billionaire broke a promise to pay his thousands of campaign workers through November, regardless of whether his 2020 bid was successful.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in New York City, accuses Bloomberg of “fraudulently” enticing people to join his campaign with promises he did not fulfill and breaching his contract with those employees by laying them off shortly after he ended his campaign on March 4.

The named plaintiff in the lawsuit, Donna Wood, worked as a field organizer for the Bloomberg campaign. The complaint notes that many of the staffers resigned or took leaves of absences from their current jobs or moved to take a position on Bloomberg’s campaign and are now left hunting for jobs — and without health care — during the coronavirus pandemic and as the economy experiences a significant contraction.

“Defendant’s termination of (field organizers) and other campaign employees deprived them of promised income and health care benefits, leaving them and their families potentially uninsured in the face of a global pandemic,” the lawsuit reads.

The lawsuit seeks damages for “fraudulent inducement and breach of contract,” as well as unpaid overtime pay.

So let me get this straight. The people who went to work for Bloomberg, the people who actively want to disarm us and make us dependent on the government, are angry that Bloomberg withdrew from the race and made them have to depend on the government to keep them safe.

I’m sorry, this is freaking hilarious.

The last thing I want to do is defend Bloomberg, but a spokesperson said they provided severance packages that covered healthcare through March and are now establishing a fund to help them through April. According to said spokesperson, this is something no other campaign is doing.

On the flip side, Bloomberg also apparently promised them worth through November. If he put that in writing, he might be hosed, but even that isn’t a slam dunk. After all, anyone who works in politics, especially on the campaign level, knows that no one can really promise to be in the presidential race through November unless they’re the incumbent. Even they can’t really promise it.

As for this case, anyone who sided with Bloomberg was likely a fan of his gun control stance. That means Ms. Wood is likely a gun grabber herself and she’s upset that someone snatched something she felt she had a right to have from her just when she needed it most.

Cry me a river.

This is someone who would take our guns right now, on the brink of all kinds of nightmare scenarios where we just might need our firearms. I guess Wood is kind of getting the idea of what that would be like, though I’m sure her scenario is completely different in her mind.

Don’t get me wrong, I hope both parties lose somehow.  Since that’s not going to happen, I’ll just enjoy the schadenfreude.

Tom Knighton is a Navy veteran, a former newspaperman, a novelist, and a blogger and lifetime shooter. He lives with his family in Southwest Georgia. https://bearingarms.com/author/tomknighton/

https://bearingarms.com/tom-k/2020/03/24/staffer-files-suit-claims-fraud/