According to the Washington Post, HuffPo and AOL will face a class action suit by one of Huffpo's unpaid contributors.
Jonathan Tasini is the lead plaintiff in the suit against the news site, which AOL bought for $315 million in February. His suit, which he said he would file in a New York court Tuesday, seeks $105 million in damages in behalf of bloggers and other Huffington Post writers who submitted work for which they weren’t paid.
Link
The term lead plaintiff indicates that the suit will seek class action status.
Tasini, in an interview, said HuffPost was engaging in breach of contract with its contributors because of an “implied promise” of compensation. “Some people were given some promises about future payments,” he said, declining to provide specifics.
He said his suit will also allege that HuffPost’s owners, including Huffington herself, engaged in “unjust enrichment” by building a business on uncompensated labor and by accepting AOL’s buyout offer. “AOL would not have paid $315 million without the value [unpaid writers] created,” he said. “Arianna Huffington believes she and only she should pocket the money for the value created.”
The claim for unjust enrichment is unlikely to fly. Most political commentary, letters to the editor and such, have traditionally been either free or paid for by the commentator. This likely says something about the value of most political commentary. This suit is asking the court to recognize an equity interest in the company held by its unpaid bloggers on the basis of work that was explicitly agreed to constitute unpaid political commentary. This isn't going to fly.
Huffpo does pay certain authors. While the company does not pay their bloggers they do pay their full time staff. The site also pays the AP for use of wire stories. Most other news on Huffpo comes from republishing agreements with various newspapers.
The contractual claims are more serious. If Huffpo promised to pay contributors, they will likely need to pay those contributors. On the other hand Huffpo must have actually made some form of promise for this to stick. An "implied promise" by authors submitting work under signed documents indicating an unpaid submission is not going anywhere. The plaintiffs will have a very hard time proving the existence of oral statements, and may face rules of evidence confining the court to solely the written documentation.
So to sum up, this case does not seem likely to result in money for the plaintiff class if it goes to court. AOL might decide to settle it to clear the issue. That said it does raise one issue, affirmative promises to pay, that would allow the plaintiffs to recover some amount. I would very much like to know how this suit is being funded.