WaxWorks
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Wednesday, February 14, 2007
The Office: Punitive Damages
I've come across a great blog that places a litigation value on the legal violations that Michael Scott commits during each episode of The Office. Here's a few highlights:
Thank god for damage caps. No matter how well intentioned, throwing a
“welcome back” party for your Mexican-American employee by decorating the break room with piñatas, paper sombreros and streamers in the colors of the Mexican flag is not a good idea. Ever. Under no set of circumstances. Sure, Michael (and the party planning committee) meant well, but that is not going to be enough to
get Dunder Mifflin out of this one....
If an executive learns that a regional manager has sponsored a bachelor
party in the warehouse, hired a stripper, offered to “deflower” the bride, taken
an employee to a sex store, received a lap dance, and allowed a pervert dressed
up like Benjamin Franklin to make a lewd statement to the receptionist, she
should fire him. As soon as possible. Anything else and the company is looking
at significant liability. Of course, at Dunder Mifflin, Jan is likely caught in
a Catch-22. As soon as she fires Michael, she could be facing a charge for her
own conduct in having an affair with her subordinate. Ah, what a tangled web we
weave….
My grandmother always said that the road to hell is paved with good
intentions. I never knew exactly what she meant. Until now. Michael’s diversity
training, well intentioned as it may have been, provides ample evidence of
discriminatory bias against employees of Indian descent in general and of Kelly
in particular. Indeed, Michael’s PowerPoint on famous Indians includes only
three people — one of whom is the fictional character Apu from The
Simpsons....
I’d say that Martin (“the Convict”) Nash has a damn good race
discrimination case. First his boss publicly humiliates him by announcing that
he is a convict, and then, during the same speech, asks his co-workers to name
trustworthy people so he can identify an African-American whom he trusts more.
Who does he name? Danny Glover (whom he trusts more than Pam’s dad); Colin
Powell (whom he trusts more than Justin Timberlake) and Apollo Creed (whom he
trusts more than Jesus)....
It would be pretty safe to say that any time a company’s regional manager
asks a female employee to act out a lesbian love scene during its
anti-harassment training you have problems. Expensive problems....
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
With Friends Like These...
When the defense began to put on its case in the O.J. Simpson trial, early on it called two witnesses that I can only assume its client insisted testify, as they were incredibly damaging.
The first was a doctor who examined Simpson in the days after the murder for the defense. Simpson wanted to call the doctor to say that Simpson was in such terrible physical condition that he couldn't have committed the murder, which, of course, was ridiculous. Neverthless, the doctor came on the stand and told the jury some pre-written line about Simpson looking like "Tarzan," but really he was physically like "Tarzan's grandfather."
OK. Great. So then the cross begins. Can you tell us what you saw on Simpsons' hands and fingers when you examined him? Uh, yeah, he had these really deep cuts that no one else has testified about before.
And then, as if that wasn't enough, by calling the doctor, then the defense opened the door to the prosecution playing an aerobics exercise video Simpson made in the months before the murder, and get the doctor to admit, based on what Simpson was doing in the video, that he was fit enough to commit the murders. What was Simpson wearing during the video? Uh, a black sweat suit (like the black fibers found on the victims). Did he ever return it after filming was over? Nope . Oh, and did Simpson make any comments while filming the video about his wife? Yeah, he made a strange comment while doing an exercise involving punching in the air, that you should work out with your wife when you do this exercise, so that way when you hit her, you can just blame it on working out. No further questions.
Not a good start for the defense. They obviously recovered, with the help of someone named Mark Fuhrman. But a similar thing happened during day one of the defense's case in the Libby trial, when they called Robert Novak to show that Libby did not leak to him (a point essentially irrelevant to the issues in the case):
When Novak testified, he noted that on July 8, 2003, shortly after Armitage told
him that Valerie Wilson worked at the CIA, he (Novak) called Libby--and Novak's
phone records support this. Libby returned the call that day or the next,
according to Novak, and the two discussed the ongoing controversy concerning
Bush's use of the Niger allegation in his 2003 State of the Union trip. Novak
told the court that he might have asked Libby about Wilson's wife during this
conversation but had no recollection of doing so. Yet during his grand jury
testimony, Libby denied talking to Novak in this period. Libby claimed he had
not had any conversation with Novak at "any time near" Novak's July 14, 2003
leak column--noting he had spoken to Novak "maybe a year and a half" before that
article and then a "week and a half or so" after the column came out.
So Libby calls an essentially irrelevant witness who exposes him to yet another lie under oath. Nicely done. And before Novak, the defense called Walter Pincus, the Washington Post reporter, for the same purpose. But Pincus also had this to say:
According to Pincus, Libby told him that Wilson's trip to Niger had been sparked
by a question about the Niger allegation raised by an aide to the vice
president. But the CIA had dispatched Wilson to Africa after Cheney himself
asked about the Niger allegation. In talking to Pincus, Libby was dissembling to
keep the boss out of the picture.
And Libby himself testified to the grand jury that it was Cheney, not him, who raised the issue about the Niger allegation. So what did the defense do? It called two mostly useless witnesses who exposed two new lies by the defendant in a perjury trial. Well done.
