“She can’t take the case.” Nate blinked. “She doesn’t think she can, does she?”
“Hold on.” Bennie held up a palm. “Don’t freak. She’s notfiling anything yet, and you need to flip your thinking. There’s a way we can turn this to your advantage.”
“I can’t believe I’m hearing this.” Nate frowned. “Are you trying to tell me your partner is seriously considering suing my sub? Shecan’t. Has she never heard of the code of ethics? Who the hell is your partner again? And since when do you have a partner anyway?”
“Relax.” Bennie kept her hand up. “We checked the rules, and they don’t offer clear guidance in a case like this.”
“Then I will. Your partner is conflicted out of suing OpenSpace or any other subsidiary of Dumbarton. I won’t have it. I’m astounded you would.”
“Obviously, my initial reaction was against it, but there is a way that we can turn it to our advantage.” Bennie met his troubled gaze. “You have every right to be angry, and I would’ve been too. But she has a draft complaint that details the facts surrounding the termination, and after I read it, I realized that we’d be putting form over substance. We both know settlement makes sense, when called for. We have a chance to do that right now.”
“Is this where you tell me that the Chinese symbol for crisis is also the symbol for opportunity?”
“No, I didn’t know that.” Bennie felt encouraged, since Nate was keeping a lid on his anger. “Here’s the thing. I know you don’t get involved with every little case that comes down the pike, but this is one that could get a lot of public attention and it would be terrible PR.”
“Like what?” Nate glowered.
“It looks as if the rep was fired because of his daughter’s medical expenses, which is unlawful under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The child has leukemia, and she’s four years old.”
“A cancer kid?”
Bennie cringed. “Not very sensitively put, but yes. If you’re going to be absolutely cold-hearted about it, that means that you have a case that could attract negative attention and also have potentially broad exposure.”
“So? It happens every day in the big city.”
“Not like this, and not in this political climate. People are hurting with healthcare expenses. It’s in the news every day. It’s all over Facebook and social. This is a kid who needs a bone marrow transplant to live, and the boss made a number of statements that are really damning. One was an admission.”
“Like what?”
“Like that ‘these expenses can’t keep up, our premiums will go up,’ et cetera. He clearly had a discriminatory animus, and the plaintiff made contemporaneous notes of his comments, which occurred on four separate occasions. It’s homerun evidence.”
“But how do you know it’s true?”
“I don’t, but it seems credible. The plaintiff claims the boss explained the corporate deductible to him and that it’s capped at 250K. I know that’s true, and so do you. How would the plaintiff know that if he wasn’t told it? Why would a boss be discussing that at all?”
“It means nothing.”
“Really?” Bennie modulated her tone. “How big is your HR department at OpenSpace?”
“One person, I think. OpenSpace only has forty-five employees.”
“My point. With how many managers, in the whole company? Sales? Operations? Administrative?”
“Whatever.”
“And you have them trained on their responsibilities under the federal and state employment laws? Title VII? Age discrimination? Sexual harassment and the like?”
“We have somebody at one of the big firms to run seminars on that. Some labor jock at Dechert.”
“But what about disability law? The ADA, the Rehabilitation Act? I bet you don’t. I bet that’s a footnote in the seminar, if that. Wanna make a wager?”
“You might be right,” Nate said, after a moment.
“I bet your boss didn’t even know that you can’t fire somebody because you don’t want to pay their kid’s medical expenses. It’s called the association provision of the ADA, and there haven’t been many cases decided under it.”
“I never heard of it.”
“There you go, and that’s how these things happen. No bad intent. Just ignorance of the law, which, unfortunately for us, is no excuse.” Bennie saw his forehead relax, so she kept talking. “My partner attached the plaintiff’s photocopied notes as exhibits to the complaint, which is very detailed. I can email it to you, and you can read for yourself. My partner is eager to settle and she’s reasonable, unlike most of the thieves in the bar association. And because she’s personally associated with the case, she’s taking it for no fee, which saves you half.”
