From: ae547@yfn.ysu.edu (Ronda Hauben)
Subject: Re: Fired for bad email postings
Reply-To: ae547@yfn.ysu.edu (Ronda Hauben)
Organization: St. Elizabeth Hospital, Youngstown, OH
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 22:55:05 GMT


In a previous article, peewee@infoserv.com (Philip Stromer) says:

>I was fired from my job earlier this year for making crass statements
>on alt.tasteless and alt.flame.
>
>Now I'm suing my ex-company for wrongful termination.
>
>I was summoned by them to take a deposition yesterday, and I showed
>up with my father (a retired attorney) at my side.  The other side's
>lawyer has an absolute conniption, cancelled the deposition, and said
>that he'd seek a protective order barring my father from attending.
>
>Does anyone know how easy these protective orders are to get, and to
>what extent they actually bar the party?  I mean, could my father still
>wait outside in the lobby, in case I needed to talk to him about an
>issue?
>
>I'm filing my case in Pro. Per. (without a lawyer), which is why the
>other side's attorney had his conniption.  It was actually quite
>amusing to me, but I don't know doodly squat about the legal system,
>except that using common sense will lead you into trouble.  :)

Well it's the opposite - the spirit of the law provides for common
sense - but the law isn't applied and the usual loop allows only
for deals, not for any law - the usual loop is when lawyers figure
out how they will deal with it.

It's a hard job trying to deal with it all - but it's good you posted
what's happening and maybe that's what I'll end up doing too - as I found
that all the lawyers I tried to deal with were really more interested
in helping the other side than in fighting on a point of principle.
There may well be lawyers who are willing to fight on principle, but
they don't exist in the Detroit area where the law is that set by the 
big auto companies.

So my advice is figure out what principles are at stake in the case
and keep people informed about what's happening - and read the court
rules (probably you'll find as I did that neither the courts nor the 
lawyers go by the court rules, but they make more sense than anything
else that happens in the legal situation.)

The higher you go, the more corrupt it becomes. So don't have any illusions.
But I found that with lawyers involved (I had several lawyers in a case
and found they all collapsed and found excuses not to fight) the case
never gets anywhere. So hold your ground. Also, it sounds helpful
that your dad is a retired attorney in that he knows that its about
-- though I found that it was always best to check things out for
myself because at least in Michigan the judges and lawyers don't 
pay any attention to precedent or the law, rather they just make it
up as they go along to benefit the most powerful.

But more people do need to know about the law to have anything differnt
happen so your instinct to post what happens is a healthy one.

Maybe you can post more about what happened. It's important not to let
anyone get you caught in procedure nonsense - but keep the issue 
out clear.


>
>Please post replies to misc.legal, as this is an interesting case,
>and I'd like to get as many opinions as I can, especially from
>people familiar with Usenet and the law.
>
>Philip Stromer (peewee@infoserv.com)
>
Good luck. And hold your ground!
                            ronda
-- 
Ronda Hauben                    email address:ae547@yfn.ysu.edu
Amateur Computerist Newsletter              or
P.O. Box 4344                   rhauben@heartland.bradley.edu
Dearborn, MI 48126