Xref: utzoo news.admin:3009 misc.legal:5224 soc.women:11946
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!uwvax!rutgers!mit-eddie!bbn!bbn.com!cosell
From: cosell@bbn.com (Bernie Cosell)
Newsgroups: news.admin,misc.legal,soc.women
Subject: Re: Proposed lawsuit
Message-ID: <27069@bbn.COM>
Date: 17 Jul 88 15:37:47 GMT
References: <12165@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Sender: news@bbn.COM
Reply-To: cosell@bbn.com (Bernie Cosell)
Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., Cambridge MA
Lines: 34

In article <12165@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> era1987@violet.berkeley.edu () writes:

I know it is foolish to get caught up in this madness, but I think this is
the first time this all has leaked into misc.legal, so this somewhat-ranting
posting raises more questions than it does threats.

I particular, you make constant repetitive reference to some "right" and to
the EEO/AA laws.  And you threaten to sue for damagea on the one hand, and to
try to get the Feds to hassle folk on the AA front on the other.  Let me take
a shot at the obvious:

In order to sue for damages, don't you have to sustain some?  Can you
_really_, to the satisfaction of a court, demonstrate some actual financial
loss you have incurred based on this alleged discrimination?  If not, then
you may or may not have a suit, but I think that "damages" isn't what you'll
be suing for.  [and what is this "right" anyway?  you're pretty vague about
it in your posting]

As for the AA laws, again I thought that they make very specific
impositions on companies that come under their purview, and again, just
stamping your feet is NOT enough to cause any real legal action: you
can cause some hassle (but triggering investigations and such), but I
think that there are obligations on a complainant that you don't even
hint at having evidence for (in fact, given the rather broad sweep of
your claims, it is pretty unlikely that you probably have any specific
evidence against ANY of the to-be-defendants).

Altogether, this sounds like it is not much of a matter for misc.legal.
But then, probably everybody but me already knew that....

   __
  /  )                              Bernie Cosell
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/___/_(<_/ (_/) )_(_(<_             cosell@bbn.com