And the company can be sued at any time, for any reason or no reason at all. That does not mean the plaintiff will win, but against deep enough pockets, it can be worth a try. PIPs take time, and HR isn’t about to let you skip them, and bad employees know they’ve got six months to spend their workday looking for a new job while not doing their current job. I’ve worked at those companies, and sometimes managed at same, and when OP says they have stories, I believe them.
Which is why severance payments in fang are tied to not suing the company. If that works when you lay of 10% of the company why doesn't it work when you want to fire 1 individual?
You can definitely argue it's not fair to pay somebody extra for not doing a job but the alternative seems to be you keep paying them even more to keep not doing a job (and possibly doing negative work).
Rather than put somebody on a pip for x months just offer them x months of salary to quit. Same money, same work done.
Then layoff a singular individual with severance instead of firing them lol...
(although legally "firing" vs "layoff" is irrelevant, depending on the situation you can get benefits despite being what a layperson considered quitting [1]).
It would not be worth a try if not for a very legitimate reason. Being laid off and mounting a civil case against deep pockets doesn't sound like a recipe for success.
