Ashley Madison countersues ex-employee
By A. Small
On Sunday March 23, 2014 the Toronto Star published a news article which I found of interest.
It was a case in which an issue had arisen between an employee, Doriana Silva and her employer, Ashley Madison. The article is in regards to the second part of the dispute where the employer countersues the employee.
To get a little history of the case prior to the article and counterclaim, here are the facts that arose from the initial court filing. The plaintiff, Doriana Silva filed a lawsuit accusing the defendant, Ashley Madison of forcing her to create thousands of false profiles which caused damage to her forearms and wrists.[1] (Ashley Madison is an online dating website that specializes in finding matches for men or women who are looking for an extra-marital affair.) In the original action Silva claims that she was hired to create false profiles to entice men to join the website and create accounts thus generating profit for Ashley Madison.[2] Ashley Madison requested that these statements in the Statement of Claim be excluded or stricken but the judge found that the reference was to be admitted as it was necessary to describe factual content.[3] Silva also claimed that she was unable to work for an extended period of time due to the injuries but Ashley Madison countered that despite these allegations she was able to maintain an active presence on the Internet.[4]
Prior to commencing the initial action Doriana Silva sent a demand letter to Ashley Madison requesting a large lump sum payment in compensation for the injuries she sustained while typing the fake profiles. She also requested that Ashley Madison pay her a weekly salary for the time she was off work while healing from the injuries. The weekly salary she was requesting was close to three times her gross salary.
In the counterclaim made by Ashley Madison they seek to recover the documents as well as $100,000 in damages plus legal costs.[5] The documents which they are looking to recover are the profiles created by Doriana Silva which she took when she left their employment. Silva claims that she took copies of the documents to give to her lawyer as evidence in trial because Ashley Madison was denying that the profiles were created for unethical reasons. Silva also denies that they are the property of Ashley Madison and therefore need not be returned.
The article stated that neither party has proven their claims in court.[1]
What drew my attention in this case is how lucky both plaintiff and defendant got away from justice by being unable to prove their allegations. They could have been charged with fraud by misleading the website’s users with those fake profiles. Doriana Silva is so bold to commence this action and ask the court for compensation over her lowly, unethical and most of all illegal actions.
It’s a pretty funny scam though.
I am curious to take a look at the contract between the parties. I think the contract was verbally made between the parties. That is why neither party has proven their claims in court because the contract should include some important duties of both parties such as the employee has to create a certain number of female profiles with different names, hobbies, professions,photos, interests per a day, week, month, year and the employer has to pay for this work.
I am yet to grasp the substance of Silva’s lawsuit. It is documented in the original suit that Silva was hired by Ashley Madison to create false profiles to lure men and women to the dating website. She was not coerced into accepting the job; she voluntarily accepted the position of her own free will. The job obviously involved a tremendous amount of typing which she must have anticipated before the facts, so I find that it is somewhat disingenious of Ms. Silva to file a law suit essentially for doing her job. This issue is not whether she was creating fake profiles or not. The issue is the volume of profiles required by her employer. If she found the job too demanding, she should simply resign.