WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Wednesday sided with a truck driver who wants to sue for triple damages over a CBD hemp product he says was falsely advertised as being free from marijuana’s active ingredient and resulted in him getting fired.
The 5-4 opinion clears the way for the trucker to seek triple damages under an anti-mob law. It doesn't decide his underlying claims that the product's THC content got him fired.
Douglas Horn said he wanted to treat chronic shoulder and back pain after a serious accident. He chose the product because it was advertised as being free from THC, which gives marijuana its high. CBD is a generally legal hemp compound that is widely sold as a dietary supplement.
But lab tests taken after Horn was fired for failing a routine drug test confirmed the product did have THC, he claimed.
Horn sued the Vista, California-based Medical Marijuana Inc. and sought triple damages under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, often known as RICO.
The company pushed back, disputing Horn’s account and saying he can’t sue for higher damages because he’s claiming a personal injury rather than harm to his business.
Horn says his firing was a business injury and he’s been financially ruined, and an appeals court allowed Horn’s claim to go forward.
Writing for the court, Justice Amy Coney Barrett said Horn had the better argument. “In short, a plaintiff can seek damages for business or property loss regardless of whether the loss resulted from a personal injury,” Barrett wrote for an unusual coalition that included her fellow conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch and the nine-member court's three liberals.
Barrett also noted that the decision was no guarantee that Horn ultimately would prevail.
In dissent, Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that “RICO's categorical exclusion of personal-injury suits” should have been enough to end Horn's case.
Follow the AP's coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.
FILE - The Supreme Court at sunset in Washington, Feb. 13, 2016. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick, File)
FILE - The Supreme Court in Washington, June 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
Microsoft has fired two employees who interrupted the company's 50th anniversary celebration to protest its work supplying artificial intelligence technology to the Israeli military, according to a group representing the workers.
Microsoft accused one of the workers in a termination letter Monday of misconduct "designed to gain notoriety and cause maximum disruption to this highly anticipated event.” Microsoft says the other worker had already announced her resignation, but on Monday it ordered her to leave five days early.
The protests began Friday when Microsoft software engineer Ibtihal Aboussad walked up toward a stage where an executive was announcing new product features and a long-term vision for Microsoft's AI ambitions.
“You claim that you care about using AI for good but Microsoft sells AI weapons to the Israeli military," Aboussad shouted at Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman. "Fifty-thousand people have died and Microsoft powers this genocide in our region.”
The protest forced Suleyman to pause his talk while it was being livestreamed from Microsoft's campus in Redmond, Washington. Among the participants at the 50th anniversary of Microsoft's founding were co-founder Bill Gates and former CEO Steve Ballmer.
Microsoft said Suleyman calmly tried to de-escalate the situation. “Thank you for your protest, I hear you,” he said. Aboussad continued, shouting that Suleyman and “all of Microsoft” had blood on their hands. She also threw onto the stage a keffiyeh scarf, which has become a symbol of support for Palestinian people, before being escorted out of the event.
A second protester, Microsoft employee Vaniya Agrawal, interrupted a later part of the event.
Aboussad, based at Microsoft's Canadian headquarters in Toronto, was invited on Monday to a call with a human resources representative at which she was told she was being fired immediately, according to the advocacy group No Azure for Apartheid, which has protested the sale of Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform to Israel.
An investigation by The Associated Press revealed earlier this year that AI models from Microsoft and OpenAI had been used as part of an Israeli military program to select bombing targets during the recent wars in Gaza and Lebanon. The story also contained details of an errant Israeli airstrike in 2023 that struck a vehicle carrying members of a Lebanese family, killing three young girls and their grandmother.
In its termination letter, Microsoft told Aboussad she could have raised her concerns confidentially to a manager. Instead, it said she made “hostile, unprovoked, and highly inappropriate accusations” against Suleyman and the company and that her “conduct was so aggressive and disruptive that you had to be escorted out of the room by security.”
Agrawal had already given her two weeks notice and was preparing to leave the company on April 11, but on Monday a manager emailed that Microsoft "has decided to make your resignation immediately effective today.”
It was the most public but not the first protest over Microsoft's work with Israel. In February, five Microsoft employees were ejected from a meeting with CEO Satya Nadella for protesting the contracts.
“We provide many avenues for all voices to be heard,” said a statement from the company Friday. “Importantly, we ask that this be done in a way that does not cause a business disruption. If that happens, we ask participants to relocate. We are committed to ensuring our business practices uphold the highest standards.”
Microsoft had declined to say Friday whether it was taking further action, but Aboussad and Agrawal expected it was coming after both lost access to their work accounts shortly after the protest.
Dozens of Google workers were fired last year after internal protests over a contract it also has with the Israeli government. Employee sit-ins at Google offices in New York and Sunnyvale, California targeted a $1.2 billion deal known as Project Nimbus providing AI technology to the Israeli government.
The Google workers later filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board in an attempt to get their jobs back.
CORRECTS DATE - A pro-Palestinian demonstrator, Ibtihal Aboussad, is escorted away by security as they interrupt Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman during a presentation of the company's AI assistant, Copilot, ahead of a 50th Anniversary presentation at Microsoft headquarters, Friday, April 4, 2025, in Redmond, Wash. (AP Photo/Jason Redmond)
