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BetterWorks and CEO Sued By Ex-employee For Alleged Sexually Suggestive Assault (techcrunch.com)
From a report: Beatrice Kim is suing her former employer, BetterWorks, and its CEO Kris Duggan for allegedly assaulting her in a sexual manner during a company retreat. The lawsuit also implicates the performance management software startup's regional VP Matt Hart and VP of People Operations Tamara Cooksey for allowing sexual harassment in the workplace and not taking action against Duggan after the alleged assault was reported to the company. Kim is suing over sexual harassment and discrimination, assault and battery, demanding a jury trial, Kim's lawyer Conor D. Mack of Arena Hoffman LLP told TechCrunch.
Pics please. Is she hot?
Why does local TV news tend to do in-depth expose's of the prostitution industry during May sweeps?
It's basically a troll headline/summary: lead with the stuff about sexually suggestive talk in the workplace, note the existence of a sexual assault lawsuit, and rely on "MRA" types with short attention spans leaping to the conclusion that the CEO has been sued for sexually assaulting someone with words. Then quietly bury the graphic details of a sexual assault at the bottom of the article, which nobody gets to because they're too busy posting their outrage at feminazis.
Then sit back and enjoy the ad revenue from the manufactured controversy.
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"Plaintiff was partly laying on one of the beds when Duggan entered the cabin and immediately picked up Plaintiff’s legs so that her body was in an ‘L’ shaped position while lying on her back. Her buttocks and genitalia were physically proximate to Duggan’s pelvis. Duggan then began pumping and pounding Plaintiff’s legs up and down and dancing with her legs and feet. Duggan continued to do this even after Plaintiff told CEO Duggan repeatedly, ‘Stop. It’s time to stop. I’m uncomfortable.’ Duggan ignored Plaintiff and continued to pump and pound her legs and removed her shoes. Plaintiff’s efforts to physically free herself were unsuccessful. Duggan bent Plaintiff’s legs closer to her head, drawing his pelvis closer to her buttocks and genitalia and continued to pound Plaintiff’s legs (and as a result, her buttocks) up and down. Duggan also lifted Plaintiff off the bed by her ankles and legs."
^ Obviously this is a perfectly innocent way of greeting someone. Who hasn't done it? Political correctness gone mad.
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grabbing her leg is sexual assault because the leg bone is connected to the hip bone, and the hip bone is connected to the vagina bone...so "graphic" in the imaginary sense. Inviting non-relative females to sleepover events is what is really obscene, approximately 100% of humans who ever lived would think so, but of course nowadays it's illegal discrimination no to
The person who arrived to save her by pulling the CEO off her was obviously a witness.
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That person said, "hey boss, you're doing it wrong".
I'm still trying to figure out why this is in civil court with no mention of criminal charges, and the mention of a witness only makes me wonder more. Given that the last I checked, the evidence was that the vast majority of sexual assaults are committed by a small group of offenders, the odds are pretty good that if this really happened--he's a serial offender.
So, y'know, it's kind of important to press charges.
The sexual harassment in the workplace is important for the lawsuit. This woman is suing her former employer, BetterWorks, for allowing the CEO to continue after they had been informed of his problem. If Duggan's sexual assault against this woman had been the first time he had done something sexually inappropriate, then BetterWorks would not have had borne any responsibility.
Heâ(TM)s said to have consumed alcohol aggressively, danced inappropriately with female co-workers and draped his arm over a female employee inappropriately. At one point, the CEO is said to have entered a cabin and while dancing, chest-bumped a female employee repeatedly until she fell down, causing Kim to leave for another cabin.
and
One of Plaintiffâ(TM)s co-workers intervened and pulled Plaintiff away from Duggan. Duggan then left the room.
Sounds like there were witnesses. So I guess the next stage of denial is to upgrade from "bitch trying to get paid" to "conspiracy of men-hating bitches trying to get paid", right?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Ok, so it was â" or is alleged to have been â" a sexual assault. Why would anyone call it sexually suggestive instead?
Don't worry, it's just a clickbait headline designed to troll you.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
What does this have to do with "news for nerds, stuff that matters"? There is sexual assault in Hollywood, the military, the music industry, and even the White House.
Well, lucky then that there was no sexual assault, violence, or sexual gratification involved in this incident! But indeed, unlike our current president, President Bill Clinton has a lot of experience with actual sexual assault, having committed it over and over again throughout his career.
It's like how when prominent figures liked by the press are charged with fucking kiddies in the past so it gets reported as "historical crimes" instead of decades of kiddie fucking.
In this case "sexually suggestive" is a way to skew it so that it doesn't sound so bad when a person is caught touching boobs of a woman who doesn't want him to touch them (all those chest bumps).
The answer as always is to keep work and leisure separate, act professionally and don't have fucking stupid "retreats", "teambuilding" and especially don't let bosses get drunk and dance with female subordinates who feel like they will get sacked if they don't play along. Eventually someone goes way too far and the company is paying because somebody couldn't keep it in his pants on company time.
how the hell is that sexual assault?
You need a case with evidence that goes beyond reasonable doubt. Chances are they don't have that kind of evidence. Civil cases have a lesser load of burden
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
"Remember ladies, the phrase "grabbing a guy by the balls" is hyperbole,"
Sometimes.
"Plaintiff was partly laying on one of the beds in cabin #143 when Duggan entered the cabin and immediately picked up Plaintiff’s legs so that her body was in an ‘L’ shaped position while lying on her back. Her buttocks and genitalia were physically proximate to Duggan’s pelvis. Duggan then began pumping and pounding Plaintiff’s legs up and down and dancing with her legs and feet. Duggan continued to do this even after Plaintiff told CEO Duggan repeatedly, ‘Stop. It’s time to stop. I’m uncomfortable.’ Duggan ignored Plaintiff and continued to pump and pound her legs and removed her shoes, which made Plaintiff feel even more vulnerable and Scared. Plaintiff’s efforts to physically free herself were unsuccessful. Duggan bent Plaintiff’s legs closer to her head, drawing his pelvis closer to her buttocks and genitalia and continued to pound Plaintiff’s legs (and as a result, her buttocks) up and down. Duggan also lifted Plaintiff off the bed by her ankles and legs. One of Plaintiff’s co-workers intervened and pulled Plaintiff away from Duggan. Duggan then left the room. "
If you RTFA, he didn't grab her leg. He came into her cabin during a company retreat while dead drunk, grabbed her legs and put them up in the air, then started grinding on her while she was on her back while she's begging him to stop. Eventually a co-worker came and rescued her, at which point she hides and sobs until she gets escorted away.
Then the CEO issues a company wide apology letter for his misbehavior while drunk during the retreat and hires a third party investigator, who determines that no wrong-doing took place.
I'm quite aware of that part and in fact was presuming the reader was not enough of an idiot to need reminding. However, sexual assault is one of the places where the person who gets to make the call on filing the initial charges is typically the victim and not the prosecutor. It won't even get to where you've got a prosecutor looking at the evidence if you don't do that. You also can proceed with the civil side of the case before the criminal side reaches court, assuming it ever will.
The bottom line here is that when you only see evidence that the civil side exists when there ought to be a criminal side as well, the result is that it smells fishy. It doesn't really matter what the claims are...well, aside from the fact that they're ones which ought to be in both.
Criminal court is a lot harder for the victims. They will often be forced to testify or face almost certainly losing, and if they get on the stand the defence lawyer will of course try to destroy their reputation and make out that they were leading the attacker on etc. That lawyer will want to go through their sexual history, talk to ex-lovers, basically anything to make out they are promiscuous and were probably asking for it before changing their mind.
This is bad for both the accused and the alleged victim. The accused deserves their day in court, to face their accuser and to question them. Equally the alleged victim deserves justice.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
From TFS: "Kim is suing over sexual harassment and discrimination, assault and battery, demanding a jury trial..."
It sounds like she doesn't want to quietly settle out of court and let the CEO buy his way out of public scrutiny of his actions. Good for her.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
You're no fun anymore. What happened to you AC?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I'm stunned by how out of date your claims are--have you never heard of rape shield laws? It probably doesn't quite matter anymore, given that I'd suspect that letting your lawyer bring up any bit of the alleged victim's reputation aside from things directly relevant to their credibility would get the jury pissed off with you...and, really, anything there that'd be worth that risk would probably have the prosecution not inclined to bother with the case unless it's part of a set.
But, I am glad to hear nobody you know has been sexual assaulted in the past quarter century or so. I wish I could say the same.
Moving on from there: A victim is probably going to have to testify in civil court, too, though as noted the level of proof wanted is lower--and, to be blunt, parts of this have the distinct feel of an attempt to get the case tried in the court of public opinion. That's never a good sign: the court of public opinion is still very much attached to the whole 'women as victims' narrative, and biased to attack people who even dare mention that false accusations of sex crimes are a known problem.
Oh, and nasty secret about civil court and the media: Make the right kinds of accusations, and the costs to the defendant of letting the case reach court will be sufficiently high that they'll settle--even if they know the plaintiff's case is a steaming pile of manure, because the media isn't going to cover that part. So, effectively, a trial in the court of public opinion robs the accused of their day in court...but at least lynching isn't the problem it used to be.
IANAL, but I believe this would be a gross misdemeanor in my state., punishable by up to a year in jail.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Crimes are prosecuted by the state or federal government (state in this case). Anyone can bring a civil suit. It may be that the appropriate prosecutor declined to prosecute, for whatever reason, or a criminal prosecution may be slow in coming.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Which would be mentioned as either the criminal charges being dropped or pending, respectively. Moreover, sexual assault is one of the list of charges where the victim gets to make the call on if they want to press charges in the first place--if the victim says no, it literally doesn't matter how good the case could have been, and the prosecutor will never see it.
Therefore, all kinds of states of those criminal charges are possible, including 'not existing at all.' However, if they exist, there's still a problem because the summary should have at least a brief mention of their existence & status.
The prosecutor isn't going to go ahead if a critical witness is unwilling anyway. Lots of rapes and sexual assaults happen where the women would like to see criminal charges filed, but the prosecutor decides against it. It takes both the victim and the prosecutor to decide to testify.
Rape and sexual assault can be particularly hard crimes to prove in court.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Since apparently you missed it the first time: The victim is the one who gets to decide if assault charges (sexual, whatever) are going to be filed. The prosecutor is unlikely to even know about the case if the victim say "Nope, not going to file charges." What the prosecutor gets to do is decide if the this case is worth taking to court, but once they're filed there will be record of them & sometimes what it ultimately takes is having a serial sexual assault case. That can make it easier to get the accused to take a plea deal, ultimately, and in some places a longer sentence can be gotten if you can demonstrate that it's not just a one-off.
So, while they may be particularly hard crimes to prove in court, but the idea that a victim is going to potentially be pressured to testify merely because they let somebody know it happened is really bad. That can and does result in them not being willing to seek medical help--and some of the injuries can be fatal if left untreated.