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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
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Assuring Litigation

I guess I'm missing something, but I've never quite seen the point in preemptive litigation.

If you want to avoid litigation, shouldn't you not sue?

Usually we see this sort of thing in patent or copyright disputes, but the other day, as you might have read, we got a stranger one: a lawyer for Gene Simmons, the guy with the tongue in KISS, filed what he described as a preemptive lawsuit against a woman who, allegedly, was threatening to sue for sexual harassment.

It didn't work.

The woman sued for sexual assault and sexual battery less than a week later.

As far as I could tell, the only thing guaranteed by the preemptive suit was litigation (that it claimed to be attempting to preempt) and, of course, publicity.

Maybe they thought it was good publicity. The man, after all, does have an image to promote.

I don't have an explanation but I am looking forward to an appellate resolution to the issue of whether or not a guy wearing a large codpiece is capable of sexual harassment.

The preemptive suit said that the woman's claims were "demonstrably untrue and belied by plaintiff's costume, the equivalent of a suit of armor, which makes the conduct alleged by (the plaintiff) implausible if not impossible. Simmons' costume ... contains a 'cod' piece which sits over the groin area."

This may be why there's little historical evidence of sexual harassment suits in King Arthur's day.

I'm picturing Monty Python members being called in as experts.

The woman's suit claimed Simmons' spiked chest plate jabbed her in the face and then he "humped plaintiff to the extent that she could feel his groin grinding into her."

I know a lot of you are thinking about your dogs right now.

Hmm. Maybe someone should call in Cesar Millan....

MISSED OPPORTUNITY. Another merged law firm has blown a name change opportunity.

I got a notice the other day telling me that Hogan & Hartson LLP has merged with Lovells LLP and rechristened itself Hogan Lovells US LLP.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

It should be HogLove.

Potential clients would remember that name.

HOW TO WIN AN ELECTION. There's a much better use for all those millions of dollars that go into election campaigns that drive us mad: spend some of it on campaign prevention.

I don't contribute to political campaigns but I sure would contribute to an anti-campaign.

This occurred to me the other day after some people called for an investigation of a job offer to a Democratic Senate candidate to keep him from challenging the incumbent in Pennsylvania.

The investigation, I assume, will be into how to do this more effectively because the guy didn't drop out of the race. The obvious answer, though, is give them money.

After all, it's not bribery to pay someone not in the government not to do something.

Consider how much more effective - and satisfying for all parties - a payment of, say, a million bucks to your opponent to drop out of a race would be than spending $20 million on campaigning.

There are so many candidates I'd pay if they'd just go away.

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