- Former workers of a Litium technology start have sued the company, claiming toxic chemical exposure.
- Lilac Solutions, a company bankrupt by Bill Gates, opposed to secret trading violations.
- A lawyer for former employees said Lilac’s lawsuit is a “pressure tactic to scare his clients.
Four former employees of a bankrupt lithium start BY Bill Gates’ climate investment They sued the company, accusing him of “carelessly” by exposing them to toxic chemicals that left them sick and wounded.
Former employees at Lilac Solutions say that in a 60-page lawsuit they were fired as they constantly sounded the alarm for upper management regarding their “overexpur” to dangerous dust and smoke inside a poorly ventilated warehouse, California, warehouse.
Lilac withdrew against former employees with their lawsuit in late January, claiming that former employees “deliberately abused” trade secrets of starting through their public court files.
The company, which has said it collected more than $ 165 million in funds led by the Gates climate investment firm, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, developed new technology to extract lithium, a substantial material in electric car batteries.
Gates is not personally related to the lithium company. His investment firm has not been named in the lawsuit of former workers.
A previous Business Insider Company review revealed that companies are using the law of commercial secrets as a legal strategy against workers who have accused them of wrongdoing.
Nick Yasman, a lawyer with West Coast trial lawyers representing former employees, told Bi that Countersuit Lilac is a “pressure tactic to scare his clients to support down, and called the lawsuit” completely improper.
However, a Jargavan spokesman told Bi that “charges against the company are completely without merit”.
“Lilac solutions will strongly defend themselves and its employees in this lawsuit, and we are confident that the legal process will justify us from these unfounded claims,” the spokesman said. “Our focus remains on the provision of industry leadership technology that unlocks the production of faster, cheaper and cleaner lithium to meet the growing industry demand.”
Lilac ‘sacrificed human health,’ the lawsuit says
The lawsuit of former employees against Lilac claims the company “sacrificed human health and safety in pursuit of its goals”.
Plaintiffs Michael Mitchell, Khiry Crawford, Tyler Ecrhevarria and Anthony McCune worked outside the Lilac Oakland processing factory, helping to produce small “vertebrae” Ceramic Ceramic Exchange, says.
The material of the beads or ion exchange, referred to in judicial letters as “IXM”, was made up of many different toxic and dangerous chemical compounds, “says the lawsuit, which underlines a specific chemical composition, identified only as” composition A “, containing” a toxic chemicals “only referred to as” chemicals 1. “
“While composition A can be a benign material at small levels of exposure, considerable exposure to composition A can lead to high chemical levels 1 in human blood flow,” the lawsuit states. “Sufficient concentrations of chemicals 1 in the bloodstream can lead to chemical poisoning 1, which is a toxic condition caused by excessive exposure or chronic exposure to chemicals 1.”
Plaintiffs claim that Lilac kept her stock of “composition a” in torn bags that were “careless” accumulated on the floor of the warehouse, allowing particles to escape in the air.
The test results eventually confirmed that former employees “were actively exposed to high and dangerous levels of chemicals 1 every day of work,” the lawsuit said.
Prior to their employment in Lilac, the lawsuit says the plaintiffs were physically healthy. However, when they were in the company and after leaving, they experienced symptoms including severe breathing pain, coughing, difficulty breathing, abnormal stomach pain, loss of balance, vibration of the nervous system, uncontrollable oscillation in the hands and limbs, severe insomnia, anxiety and depression, their lawyers claim.
Plaintiffs say that throughout their employment with Lilac from 2021 to 2024, they were “regularly warned by colleagues about the risk of the materials they worked with” but were provided “extremely minimal and insufficient personal protective equipment”.
Former workers say their physical injuries were “significantly caused by Lilac’s deliberate concealment of the identity of many toxic chemicals” as well as arsenic.
Former employees claim that their desks and jobs were “constantly” covered with chemical dust and smoke and that “toxicity was inevitable”.
As early as 2021 and until January 2024, employees complained about management regarding the “insufficient” ventilation system in the warehouse, the lawsuit states.
“Despite the plaintiffs’ complaints, Lilac took no action to increase the ventilation and purity of the air inside its warehouses by January 2024, after the plaintiffs were interrupted,” she says.
On January 16, 2024, workers were informed of their conclusions and told them it was the result of a “reduction in force,” the lawsuit said.
Judicial proceedings argue that the plaintiffs’ complaints of health and safety in the workplace and the “whistleblows” complaints of “Lilac mismatch with local health and safety codes and regulations and regulations, substantially caused” in the company’s decision to end their employment.
The lawsuit claims violations of the California Labor Code, whistle revenge, neglect and discrimination.
“It is a case of a revenge of the whistle where the people who complained the most were the same ones that were fired,” Yasman Bi told.
Following their fire, the plaintiffs filed complaints of retaliation against Lilac at the office of the California Labor Commissioner and complaints in the division of the State of Safety and health at work, resulting in Lilac Four Citrations.
Lilac claims former employees violated confidentiality agreements
Lilac raised its misdemeanor against former employees on January 31, calling it “a case of clear and deliberate abuse of commercial secrets” in court documents.
Former workers, Lilac’s lawsuit, says, “gained access to Lilac’s trade secret information about the chemicals and processes Lilac uses to produce some ceramic beads.”
It is a process that “none of his competitors do, do not know how to do” or were not aware that Lilac does, the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit, which also claims the breach of the contract, says the former employees were aware that the chemicals and processes used for the production of so-called “IX beads” were “very confidential and that they were not allowed to be discovered against anyone outside the lilac”.
Lilac claims that the company “has been and continues to be irreparably damaged” as a result of “abuse of former employees of its trading secrets”.
Her lawsuit says a draft of the former legal complaint included repeated references to “Chemicals 1”, which the company describes in courts as “the most important chemical in the production of IX vertebrae”.
Yasman, during an interview with BI, argued that the secrets of trade Lilac claimed that they can be found on the company’s website or publicly submitted patents.
The lawyer and his team have filed a special motion to hit the case under the law of anti-Slapp California that is created to curb laws without merit and protect the rights of free speech.