2 days ago
Lawsuit of Natick couple harassed by eBay can go to trial, judge rules
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Barring a settlement, the four-year-old lawsuit could go to trial later this year or early next year. Saris has repeatedly said at hearings that she wants to complete the proceedings as soon as possible.
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Wenig, who received $57 million of severance when he left the company a month after the Steiners were harassed, was not criminally charged in the case and has said he did not know about the effort to terrorize the couple and would have stopped it if he had.
Attorneys for the eBay and Wenig did not immediately offer comments on the ruling, which was issued after business hours.
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In a statement, Andrew Finkelstein, a lawyer representing the Steiners, said the couple looked forward to a trial.
'The jury will be asked to fully and fairly compensate the Steiners for being subjected to eBay's terror campaign that attempted to silence their free speech rights, and to punish eBay for their egregious actions,' he wrote.
In the ruling, Saris wrote that a jury would need to decide if the company was responsible for approving the actions of lower-level employees who conducted the harassment, a legal issue known as ratification.
Based on text messages and alleged conversations, Saris determined
a jury could find that eBay's former chief communications officer, Steve Wymer, may have 'ratified the conduct' of former security official Jim Baugh, the
for his role.
A jury would also need to decide whether Wenig, Wymer, and another former executive named Wendy Jones were negligent in supervising Baugh or participated in a conspiracy against the Steiners, Saris ruled.
Those claims could be critical to the case because Saris ruled last year that the Steiners could seek punitive damages — $467 million of the amount they are seeking — only if they prevailed on charges of emotional distress or conspiracy.
In her Tuesday ruling, Saris also trimmed some of the roughly $62 million the Steiners are seeking for other damages.
Saris also dismissed charges that the company had defamed the couple. The judge also dismissed charges against a Nevada-based security contractor that worked for eBay called Progressive Force Concepts.
Aaron Pressman can be reached at
