<<Back when I was a lawyer I handled several sexual harassment suits. None of mine settled for less than the high end of six figures.>> (Erick Erickson)
This guy isn't even a practicing lawyer. His status with the State Bar Association is "inactive." Doing the math starting with a 1975 birth date and little else available, it is extremely doubtful that his entire experience in the practice of law lasted more than seven years. The Wikipedia bio doesn't mention anything about his career in the law, not even the firm he worked for or whether he was a sole practitioner.
The only knowledge we have of any legal activity on his part is his immortal legal opinion that "The nation loses the only goat-fucking child molester to ever serve on the Supreme Court in David Souter's retirement." As a journalist, we have his memorable confession that his public opinions are tailored to fit those of his bosses. In this case, we can only guess at his bosses' opinion of the accusers of Herm the Perv. There are other recorded examples of his journalistic dishonesty and lack of ethics. There is no point in going on, because it would be beyond shooting the messenger. This is a messenger who has been shot, blown up and run over by gigantic earth-moving machines. All I can say, Ami, is that in picking this piece of unadulterated shit to provide his considered legal opinion on anything, you could not have picked worse. (Source: Wikipedia bio, "Erick Erickson")
But let's look at his opinion anyway. "Several" (three or four?) sexual harassment claims settling "in the high end of six figures" are close enough to the low end of seven figures to qualify as million dollar claims. How a guy barely out of law school lands not one but "several" such claims indicates to me that he was working on someone else's files in a relatively menial capacity. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But there's a world of difference between million dollar sexual harassment claims and "nuisance value" claims. From all that I've seen - - and jerk-off doesn't give us much to go on - - he has absolutely NO experience in nuisance-value claims and is talking out of his ass. Senior counsel with million-dollar claims to pursue don't waste their time on the small stuff and Erickson has no more idea of the small stuff than he does of how to speak of a retiring Supreme Court justice.
<<"Reading about these two complaints, my gut reaction to them is that settling for five figures, which could be as little as $10,000.00 and as high as $99,999, was 'go away' money.>>
Yeah, 100K is go-away money. Wow, duuude, what have YOU been smoking?
<<"If the Chief Executive Officer of the National Restaurant Association, at the time one of the top 25 trade associations in Washington, D.C., were sexually harassing someone, that someone could get a lot of money.>>
NEWS FLASH, Asshole. The CEO wasn't sexually harassing anyone at the time the settlement was signed, his ass was already long gone from the premises. There was nothing to cover up anymore. If anything it should have been a source of pride to the NRA that as soon as the pervert's harassment was revealed, he was gone in the blink of an eye before a settlement was concluded and approved by all parties concerned.
<< It just strikes me that a settlement for less than six figures is money paid to deal with the nuisances of an employee fired or otherwise let go who decided to raise the specter of harassment to get more money to leave without causing a scene.">>
And it just strikes me that in relying on Erick Erickson to provide such an opinion, you have selected an individual who has neither the knowledge nor the experience not the integrity to provide a reliable opinion on anything at all. Strangely enough, Joel P. Bennett, who really IS an expert in such matters approved the settlement on behalf of his client and has since stated publicly that
it was a settlement of an internal claim of sexual harassment and was not a severance agreement. The facts that the harassment caused only "discomfort" and not lasting harm, that no physical assault was alleged and that the perp was swiftly booted out of this office were all significant in removing the motives to make a "go-away" payment here. Erickson is a total clown and an ass-hole and Bennett is a real pro - - if he says this was a settlement of a claim for sexual harassment, and if a lawyer of his calibre negotiates it, I believe it represents fair value for harassment in the circumstances, whatever the ass-hole Erickson says about it.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2011/11/joel-bennett-lawyer-for-cain-accuser-releases-statement/
