Former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg asks a Manhattan court to block questioning over an alleged job promise to staff on his failed 2020 presidential campaign.
Former Mayor Mike Bloomberg seeks to stop deposition in ongoing case over alleged promise to staff on his failed 2020 presidential campaignFILE PHOTO: Former Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg attends a campaign event at Buffalo Soldiers national museum in Houston, Texas, U.S. February 13, 2020.
allegedly promised staffers on his 2020 presidential campaign has reached Manhattan court, where he is seeking to block questioning under oath.before dropping out on March 4, 2020. He endorsed Joe Biden and later spent millions more to help defeat Trump. On July 16, he submitted papers to state Supreme Court in Manhattan asking it to block a July 22 deposition sought by former Massachusetts campaign workers who are now suing his campaign.
The subpoena says Bloomberg is believed to have relevant information about alleged guarantees that the workers would remain employed through the November 2020 general election, even if he failed to secure the Democratic nomination. Bloomberg’s attorneys called the proposed deposition an improper “fishing expedition. ” In court filings, they argue the workers should first question the campaign employees they say made the promises, along with a representative of Mike Bloomberg 2020 Inc., before seeking testimony from Bloomberg himself.
According to Bloomberg’s filing, no depositions have yet been taken in the underlying Massachusetts case. His lawyers asked the Manhattan court either to prevent the deposition entirely or block it for now without foreclosing another subpoena after the workers conduct additional discovery. At the center of the dispute is a phone call Bloomberg allegedly joined with Massachusetts campaign workers roughly two weeks before the 2020 Super Tuesday primaries.
Bloomberg denied making any employment promise during that call in a sworn statement submitted with his New York petition.
“I made no promise to Massachusetts staff that they would remain employed for any specific duration on a phone call with Massachusetts staff, as I understand has been alleged,” Bloomberg said in the affirmation, which he signed under penalty of perjury. Bloomberg also said he was not an employee, officer or director of his campaign committee, exercised no control over the hiring of state staff and did not recall meeting or speaking with any of the workers involved in the Massachusetts lawsuit.
He said he neither made nor authorized guarantees that state-level employees would remain employed for a particular period. , a proposed class-action lawsuit brought in Middlesex Superior Court by former campaign workers who were based in Massachusetts. The workers allege Bloomberg’s campaign recruited staff by promising wages and benefits through November 2020, regardless of whether he became the Democratic nominee. About 60 people worked for the campaign in Massachusetts, according to their complaint.
The allegation is tied closely to the unusual structure of Bloomberg’s presidential run. After entering the race months later than his major Democratic rivals, Bloomberg skipped the four early-voting states and instead built a large national operation focused on the 14-state Super Tuesday map and beyond. According to, he hired thousands of staffers and pledged to use his personal fortune to help the eventual Democratic nominee defeat Trump even if his own candidacy failed.
The workers acknowledge signing paperwork that identified them as at-will employees who could be terminated at any time. But they allege the campaign continued making oral employment guarantees after the paperwork was signed. Their complaint says campaign headquarters provided an interview script instructing staff to tell prospective hires that employment was guaranteed “through November 2020 with Team Bloomberg. ” They allege similar assurances were repeated during training sessions and later conversations with campaign officials.
Bloomberg ended his campaign the day after Super Tuesday in 2020; he won only American Samoa. Later, he backed then-former Vice President Biden after concluding thatRoughly two weeks later, staffers were told they would be laid off and that they would receive their final paychecks on March 31, according to the complaint. Workers were directed to submit their information to the campaign to be passed to the Democratic National Committee if they were interested in working on another Democratic campaign.
But they were given no hiring preference or employment guarantee, the complaint says. Attorneys for Bloomberg and for the former campaign workers seeking his deposition this month did not respond to requests for comment before publication. FILE PHOTO: Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire media mogul and former New York City mayor, turnd Democratic candidate hosted a kick off ‘United for Mike’ at the Aventura Turnery Jewish Center and Tauber Academy Social in Miami, Florida, U.S., January 26, 2020.
The most detailed account of the disputed phone call comes from a May 2025 trial in an earlier Massachusetts lawsuit brought by four former Bloomberg campaign workers, including Nygel O’Bannon. Bloomberg had already been dismissed from the case, leaving O’Bannon to pursue his claim against the campaign.
At the trial, a witness — whose name does not appear in the later-filed federal court excerpt — testified that Bloomberg joined a conference call with Massachusetts staffers roughly two weeks before Super Tuesday.
“He reiterated what had been said numerous times by supervisors, that you have a job through November, even if I’m not elected the Democratic nominee, you’ll still be working,” the witness testified. The witness said Bloomberg tied the commitment to defeating Trump in the November election. Jurors voted 13-1 that O’Bannon’s written employment agreement with the campaign had been validly changed by an oral promise and that the campaign breached the modified agreement. They awarded him $56,000 in damages.
The verdict was against the campaign, not Bloomberg personally. The verdict form did not identify who made the oral promise or ask whether Bloomberg personally made the statement attributed to him on the call. Superior Court Judge John C. Fraser later refused to overturn the verdict or order a new trial, finding “ample evidence” from which jurors could conclude that O’Bannon’s contract had been orally modified to guarantee employment through November 2020.
Fraser reduced the damages to account for unemployment benefits O’Bannon received after he was laid off. An amended judgment entered in November set the damages at $27,762 and the total award, including interest and costs, at $53,750.20. Both sides appealed parts of the case: The campaign is challenging the verdict and related rulings, while the former workers are contesting Bloomberg’s dismissal, the denial of class certification, and the reduction of O’Bannon’s award.
, the Massachusetts lawsuit at issue here, another group of former campaign workers also sued Bloomberg personally. But Superior Court Judge Lynn C. Rooney dismissed him from the case in March, ruling that Massachusetts courts lacked authority over the New York resident. Rooney acknowledged the workers’ evidence that Bloomberg participated in one phone call with Massachusetts campaign staff.
But she found the call insufficient to make him defend the case there, saying she was relying “essentially” on the reasoning in Bloomberg’s legal brief. Her ruling did not decide whether he made the alleged promise. Rooney also threw out the workers’ claim under the Massachusetts Wage Act, ruling that pay sought for work they never performed did not count as earned wages. Their breach-of-contract claim against the campaign remains pending.
U.S. District Judge Patti Saris ruled June 18 that former Massachusetts campaign worker Alina Sipp-Alpers could pursue a breach-of-contract claim against Bloomberg personally as well as against the campaign. Saris dismissed claims brought by named workers from other states because their cases lacked a sufficient connection to Massachusetts. Saris cited the O’Bannon trial testimony and found the alleged call sufficient, at that early stage of the case, to require Bloomberg to defend Sipp-Alpers’ claim in Massachusetts.
She expressly disagreed with Rooney’s decision inThe federal judge also found that Sipp-Alpers had plausibly alleged that the call created a separate oral contract with Bloomberg, even though he was not a party to her written employment agreement with the campaign. Saris did not find that Bloomberg made or broke the alleged promise.
She ruled only that Sipp-Alpers had presented enough at this early stage for her claim to move forward.because he is no longer a defendant and the only surviving claim is against his campaign committee. His lawyers also say the workers have not yet questioned a campaign representative or the officials they accuse of communicating the employment guarantee, although the parties have exchanged written questions and document requests.
According to the New York filing, the workers asked in late May whether Bloomberg would testify voluntarily. His attorneys objected but agreed to accept a subpoena, which was emailed June 18 — the same day Saris issued her federal ruling. The filing does not indicate whether the timing was connected. The MTA still accepts MetroCards in the OMNY era — but does anyone still swipe?
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