Bloomberg urges court to throw out lawsuit by former campaign staffers

Michael Bloomberg is asking a judge to throw out a lawsuit filed by former campaign staffers who allege they were promised to be paid through November before Bloomberg dropped out of the Democratic presidential primary.

Attorneys for the former New York City mayor wrote in a Monday motion that the aides who filed the suit do not meet any of the requirements to bring such claims and that they fail to meet the heightened standard for fraud, Politico reported Monday.

An attorney representing the plaintiffs later confirmed the filing but not the content.

Bloomberg’s lawyers wrote in the motion that the former staffers who brought the lawsuit signed offer letters and were provided employee handbooks that stated that they were “at will” workers and could be terminated “at any time,” according to Politico.

Bloomberg’s team also argued if the case isn’t dismissed the court should cancel the class-action allegations, arguing that the claims are “highly individual and not suitable for class treatment.”

The lawsuit was filed in March, a few weeks after Bloomberg ended his campaign following a disappointing Super Tuesday showing.

A former field organizer for Bloomberg’s campaign, Donna Wood, argued in the lawsuit that Bloomberg deprived organizers of “promised income and health care benefits, leaving them and their families potentially uninsured in the face of a global pandemic.”

Filers of the lawsuit have argued that they joined the Bloomberg campaign under the belief they would be employed through the general election.

Wood filed the lawsuit on behalf of herself and “all others similarly situated.”

“It is unfortunate that the Bloomberg Campaign is seeking to close the courthouse door on thousands of hard-working staffers, by moving to dismiss the case and by asking the Court to deny class certification prematurely,” Ilann Maazel, an attorney for the aides, told The Hill in a statement. “Our clients look forward to having their day in Court, and they are still holding out hope that the Bloomberg Campaign will keep its promises to more than 2,000 staffers who were wrongly terminated in the middle of a pandemic.”

In March, after ending his campaign, Bloomberg laid off staff and transferred $18 million to the Democratic National Committee to help defeat Trump. Bloomberg had previously shared plans to launch his own independent entity to support the Democratic nominee if his campaign were to fail.

Updated at 7:19 p.m.