Anderson v. Google LLC

Background

The plaintiffs are former employees of Google who say they were terminated after participating in protests at Google offices in Sunnyvale, California, and New York City, New York. Their complaint alleges retaliation, employment discrimination, and wrongful discharge under local, state, and federal law. The plaintiffs later filed complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which issued them notices allowing them to sue under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

Google filed a motion to dismiss the complaint under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which permits dismissal when a complaint does not state a legally recognized claim supported by enough facts. Google argued that the plaintiffs’ protest activities were unreasonable and disruptive and therefore were not protected by Title VII. Google also asked the court to decline supplemental jurisdiction over the state-law claims and argued that the New York-law claims were deficient.

The plaintiffs filed a motion for leave to amend their complaint. They said they sought to add five plaintiffs and additional factual allegations, without adding new legal theories or causes of action. The parties then jointly asked to postpone the September 18, 2025, hearing on Google’s motion to dismiss.

Court’s reasoning

The court concluded that considering the motion for leave to amend would not affect most of the issues raised by Google’s motion to dismiss. In particular, adding five plaintiffs would not change the court’s analysis of whether the complaint adequately alleged retaliation for protected activity under Title VII or whether the court should exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the state-law claims. The court therefore found no reason to change the scheduled hearing.

The plaintiffs appeared to have selected October 20, 2025, as the hearing date for their motion to amend. The court noted that its standing orders allow civil motions to be heard by reservation on Thursdays at 9:00 a.m., and October 20 was a Monday. The court also directed the plaintiffs to use pages with numbered lines in future filings and reminded them that letters of the type filed at ECF 29 should not be filed with the court.

Disposition

The court denied the parties’ request to postpone the September 18 hearing on Google’s motion to dismiss and instructed the parties to appear in person unless they jointly stipulated to allow the plaintiffs to amend the complaint and Google to withdraw its motion to dismiss without prejudice. The court did not itself grant leave to amend or decide Google’s motion to dismiss in this order.

The court vacated the October 20 hearing on the plaintiffs’ motion for leave to amend and struck ECF 29, a letter from the plaintiffs’ counsel. The parties were told that any stipulation using the proposed arrangement had to be filed by 10:00 a.m. on September 17, 2025.