Despite building backlash, lawyers say companies will keep using confidential settlements in sexual-misconduct cases
In recent months, revelations that Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein and other high-profile individuals reportedly used such agreements for years to silence their accusers have sparked debate about the merits of requiring secrecy as a condition to pay off sexual-misconduct claimants. Critics say the agreements can end up protecting serial predators and putting psychological stress on victims to keep silent about their experiences.
This month, after filing for bankruptcy protection, Weinstein Co. said it would end any nondisclosure agreement that has “prevented individuals who suffered or witnessed any form of sexual misconduct by Harvey Weinstein from telling their stories.”
.. many lawyers say the use of nondisclosure agreements to settle sexual-misconduct claims is likely to continue. Without promises of confidentiality, they say, companies will be less willing to resolve disputes or pay large settlement amounts. Part of the rationale put forward by companies: keeping settlements secret is necessary to stop other disgruntled employees from seeking similar payouts.
In some instances, victims desire confidentiality to avoid ostracization from future employers and to move on without unwanted attention. If a harassment case goes to court, companies could try to publicly smear the victim’s reputation in a protracted legal fight.
.. Often, victims try to resume their careers and don’t want the public to know they were victimized
.. companies could try to sidestep the rules by re-categorizing sexual-harassment settlements as claims that aren’t subject to the new laws, such as sex or race discrimination
.. The use of nondisclosure agreements in sexual-harassment settlements took off in the 1990s, after federal civil-rights law was amended to allow for bigger monetary awards in employment-discrimination cases, attracting more plaintiffs’ lawyers to the area. As court dockets became overburdened, judges pushed for more cases to settle out of court, leading companies to insist on confidentiality in settlements.
.. in a high-profile case where details are already public, institutions may be reluctant to sue because of concerns about the public-relations backlash.
USA Gymnastics has said it won’t pursue legal action against Olympic gold-medalist McKayla Maroney for possibly violating the terms of a $1.25 million confidential settlementshe signed in 2016 to resolve sexual-abuse claims. She filed a lawsuit last year that seeks, in part, to have the confidentiality provisions of that agreement invalidated.
.. “It can lead to complacency within an organization because they know complaints won’t ever see the light of day,” Ms. Yang said. Eliminating NDAs “could create more incentive for employers to stop it early.”
The First Porn President
He actually took time out from showing Stormy a picture of himself on the cover of a magazine, according to her interview in In Touch Weekly, to ask her about her own work in the porn industry.
“He was very curious,” she said. “Not necessarily about the sex or anything like that, but business questions.” Like how much she made off royalties from the movies.
.. When she asked what was up with his hair, he laughed with her about it. He gave her his ultimate compliment, comparing her to Ivanka. And he didn’t ask to do anything kinky.
.. Oddly, for such a germaphobe, he did not use a condom, she said.
.. The Stormy episode is exactly the kind of embarrassing episode that Trump wiggled out of for decades, denying that he knew women who accused him, playing the legal and media angles to kill stories, getting the help of friends and employees to pay off women.
But times have dramatically changed, post-Weinstein.
.. The White House will keep trying to dismiss Daniels as she is on her “Make America Horny Again” tour, but she’s not going away. As Muddy Waters famously sang the blues, “They call it stormy Monday, but Tuesday’s just as bad; Wednesday’s worse, and Thursday’s also sad.”
Hollywood Contemplates Looking in the Mirror, Then Turns Away
Last night’s Academy Awards featured a lot of generalities and not much inspiration or speaking truth to power.
Last night’s Academy Awards broadcast was Hollywood’s way of addressing the sexual-harassment scandal without really addressing it, discussing it without really discussing it, and assuring the public that all the worst stuff is in the past and that no one needs to worry about it anymore.
Yes, it was nice to see Ashley Judd and Annabella Sciorra again, up on stage alongside Salma Hayek. But no one involved in the ceremony could ever quite come out and say why those three were up on stage.
.. The president’s defenses of protectionism are incoherent babble that is just factually wrong; Trump insists that “our Steel and Aluminum industries are dead” when the U.S. Department of Commerce figures show that since the beginning of 2009, the six major U.S. steel companies have collectively reported net earnings for 20 quarters... The president still hasn’t figured out that you can’t change government policy as quickly and impulsively as you type out and send a Tweet.By midnight Wednesday, less than 12 hours before the executives were expected to arrive, no one on the president’s team had prepared any position paper for an announcement on tariff policy, the official said. In fact, according to the official, the White House counsel’s office had advised that they were as much as two weeks away from being able to complete a legal review on steel tariffs.
There were no prepared, approved remarks for the president to give at the planned meeting, there was no diplomatic strategy for how to alert foreign trade partners, there was no legislative strategy in place for informing Congress and no agreed upon communications plan beyond an email cobbled together by Ross’s team at the Commerce Department late Wednesday that had not been approved by the White House.
.. By Thursday afternoon, the U.S. stock market had fallen and Trump, surrounded by his senior advisers in the Oval Office, was said to be furious.
.. This reminds me of Steve Bannon’s “plan” to announce the immigration restrictions without any warning in the first days of Trump’s presidency. No one in the rest of the government was prepared to implement them; John Kelly, then the secretary of Homeland Security, learned from television that Trump had signed the order.
.. he’s flat-out wrong when he claims, “Maybe it’ll cost a little bit more, but we’ll have jobs.”
.. the decline of jobs in the steel and aluminum industries predates the competition with China by decades. Industry experts know that this is mostly because of innovation and industry consolidation. The era of labor-intensive metal production is over.
For the Oscar-winners, the times, they’ve a-changed
The four-hour ceremony threatened to turn into a lecture on how Hollywood is already busily vanquishing racism, sexism and other ills
But the ceremony eventually came to feel less like an outraged call to arms than a long lecture, written in thick black gold capital letters, about what a wonderfully warm and welcoming place Hollywood is. Everyone agreed that the times weren’t just a changin’. They had already changed.
.. It’s understandable that, in the wake of the Weinstein scandal, the ceremony’s organisers wanted to repair some of the damage done to their industry’s reputation. But the Academy isn’t practising everything it preaches. There may have been a utopian range of presenters on the stage, but they handed the main prizes to a male director, male screenwriters, a male composer, a male cinematographer, a male editor, a male costume designer, and so on. Over all, there were six female winners on the night, and 33 male winners, which means that, basically, men won everything they possibly could, and that the female nominees didn’t get to stand up until Ms McDormand insisted that they do so during her rabble-rousing speech.