Paula Dean Fired By Food Network Over Racial Slur

Hawkee, there was a SETTLEMENT in this suit. Your cock-walk is entirely without basis. A settlement (undisclosed amount) is one of the many ways to end a suit without going to court. Deelns side has apparently paid an undisclosed amount to the plaintiff to shut the hell up and not proceed.
That's a whole different bag of results than merely "Dropping a suit".
It implies some degree of financial culpability by Deen and an effort to be at-least somewhat conciliatory by the plaintiff.
Apparently its not as you've represented

there was an agreement to pull this dispute out of the courts, which the judge signed off on. You assume that the plaintiff got paid to agree to this, and I have pointed out reasons why such an assumption is unwarranted in this case.

then it should not be called a "settlement". That has legal finality in law.

without costs? that's a good clue that the plaintiff got $ of some sort in the settlement

if there was nothing to be plaintiff's case, she's have been assigned costs

I believe in this case, many attorneys approached the claimant for their share of the pie.

what are you saying, that if soneone filed a frivolous lawsuit againt Dean would have been ordered to pay costs? anyway. this was not frivolous, it was just weak once the race part went away. I seriously doubt dean paid anything directly, more likely this woman got a pension or something equally minor that is not direct cash. Deans camp had good reason to make sure that her lawyers got nothing to discourage the practice of sueing Dean, and with the trouble they were in they were prob happy to walk away with nothing but free.

yup. happens all the time.

it's unlikely we'll ever know what Deen had to pay out in the end - in addition to her own side's considerable legal fees. she was defending herself/her business/her brother ... $$$

I think we will know in time if she got paid. Right now the most interesting thing is how she is now defending Dean, which is highly unusual. Nobody I have read has a theory I buy on what that is all about. I do however think that this points to an emotional settlement between these two women which carrys on with the dean track record that her emotional needs drove her in this dispute not money. I just dont think money solved it either.

On this rare instance, hawk may be right about a settlement without any payments.

http://news.yahoo.com/lawyers-settle-paula-deen-lawsuit-georgia-204535189.html

But your reasons, and assumptions, make little sense.

You've already made erroneous assumptions about how a plaintiff would be affected and penalized for her attorney's professional conduct, and you're making implicit assumptions that there was something unsavory about the lawsuit and that the plaintiff was in some kind of jeopardy (like the possibility a defamation suit from Deen) for even instituting the suit, when there is absolutely nothing to support that.

You seem to be determined to prove that the plaintiff was in the wrong, and that she did not benefit from the suit or the settlement, but your arguments are manufactured out of thin air.

The suit was dropped by mutual agreement.

That means the parties worked out an out-of-court deal--i.e. a settlement--that was agreeable to both sides.

Settlements in suits of this nature involve monetary payments--a monetary award is what the plaintiff was seeking when she lodged the suit. In fact, this plaintiff wanted money in advance, to keep her from filing the suit in the first place.

The defendant in a case like this agrees to a settlement in order to avoid a trial and a verdict/judgment after trial. Paula Deen clearly does not want or need any more negative publicity than she's already been subjected to, and this trial would have brought her more of that, and a possible judgment against her would have been extremely damaging to what's left of her image. She had every reason to pay this woman off now and end the entire matter.

The plaintiff has no logical reason to accept a settlement that does not involve a monetary payment. Money is what this woman has been seeking all along. She has nothing to lose by letting the matter go to trial--she does not have a public image to protect, and, if she lost at trial, she simply would not collect any money. This was not a malicious suit that was lodged without foundation. And Deen's brother admitted to the plaintiff's allegations, so the possibility of her winning a judgment on the sexual harassment claims was fairly good. That's pretty good leverage to use when negotiating a monetary settlement.

Deen's lawyers fought the charges that they could--the racial discrimination charges. And they managed to get that portion of the lawsuit dismissed, not by showing that the charges were baseless or untrue, but by the legal tactic of asserting that the plaintiff lacked the standing to bring such charges into court. It was a successful maneuver that removed the possibility of that portion of the lawsuit from being aired in a courtroom with another round of negative publicity and media attention focused on Deen.

Deen's lawyers weren't able to get rid of the sexual harassment claims that way. The only alternative would have been to let it go to trial--with more public airing of the dirty laundry in Deen's workplaces. These claims regarding sexism, and workplace conditions that are demeaning to women, would likely have further damaged and tarnished Deen's image in the eyes of many women--and women are the main consumers of what this woman sells--and what's left of her fan base might have fallen by the wayside. Deen chose to cut her losses, settle with the plaintiff, and end this case.

And this case was dismissed "with prejudice"--which simply means these claims cannot be filed again at a future date. The matter between Deen and Jackson is settled for once and for all. Paula can finally breathe a sigh of relief that it is finished, done with, behind her.

And, because of a likely confidentiality agreement, you'll never know the terms of the settlement.

But the nice things that Lisa Jackson is now saying about Paula Deen should let you know that she is happy with the outcome, and probably happy about her newly fattened wallet. She had no other reason to agree to a settlement otherwise.

plaintiff was deeply involved in building the empire, it is likely that she is still emotionaly invested in it and now carries with her guilt that she and her agents went far in tearing it down for personal greed. I submit that in the end Dean forgiving her was enough to walk away with to agree to drop the legal action.

as we see often with you offered up for our enjoyment is a cornucopia of words, but the substance is weak. The winner of the dabate is the one with the best ideas, using lots of words skillfully (and with you deceptively) does not do it.

You're playing a drama out in your head that has nothing to do with reality.

The plaintiff was not "deeply involved in building the empire"--she had nothing to do with "the empire"--she was involved with one or two of the Deen family restaurants. Those restaurants were never a substantial segment of Deen's assets, and the restaurants are still apparently thriving.

You are failing to give the plaintiff any credibility or legitimacy for being actually offended, or emotionally upset, by the workplace conditions she found, and was subjected to, during her employment with Deen. While seeking money, her main aim might have been to get those conditions exposed and changed. And she certainly succeeded in accomplishing that.

Why should Lisa Jackson have been seeking Deen's "forgiveness"? It was Jackson who had to put up with the sexist and offensive behavior of Deen's brother at those restaurants on a daily basis. If Deen wasn't going to put an end to it, Jackson decided to hit her in the pocketbook, with a lawsuit to get her attention--and that lawsuit wound up getting everyone's attention.

Jackson most likely agreed to settle the lawsuit because she got what she wanted--money and some assurances that those workplace conditions would change, for the benefit of all who might be employed there.

And Deen, in her statement after the settlement, has said she is going to review the practices in her restaurants.

And Jackson, in her statement after the settlement, has tried to soften the damage to Paula by saying that Paula might not have been fully aware of what was going on in her restaurants. But Jackson is not denying the validity of her claims, or of the employment conditions that led her to bring the suit, not at all.

The lawsuit alleged that Lisa Jackson, not Paula Deen, was the injured party. That Deen chose to settle with Jackson indicates that there was merit in the lawsuit and the claims. The financial losses Deen suffered as a result of negative publicity stemming from this lawsuit are unrelated to the sexist crap that Jackson might have had to put up with while working for Deen. Jackson was still subjected to needless sexual harassment during her employment, and why shouldn't she still feel entitled to monetary damages for that--regardless of whatever else was going on with Paula Deen's crumbling "empire"?

Jackson got what she wanted out of this settlement, and it included money. This wasn't settled on the basis of emotions, it was a business transaction negotiated between lawyers. And Jackson was the one with leverage.

I don't see where you point out how the substance is weak, so that's a rather meaningless statement.

What debate? You are obsessed with competing, I'm not. There is nothing to be won here. I'm trying to understand what transpired that led to the settlement of this lawsuit based on some understanding of the situation for Paula Deen. Frankly, I'm not sure what you're trying to do.

I'm sorry if my ability to articulate my ideas makes you feel at a disadvantage, but you simply sound childish when you continually accuse me of being deceptive, or lying, without any justification. It's a familiar comeback from you whenever the flaws in your own thinking are pointed out to you.

You initially misinterpreted what went on with the dismissal of this lawsuit--you didn't realize it had gone to an out-of-court settlement between the two parties. You assumed Jackson's suit had been dismissed in the sense of being thrown out of court--that it was baseless in some way. And you've been trying to bail yourself out of that error in judgment ever since, because you'll never admit you were wrong.

So, all you've tried to do since your first post on the dismissal of this lawsuit, is to drum up, or fabricate, rather far-fetched reasons to justify your original misguided thinking that Jackson walked away from this with nothing in the way of money. Your latest assertion that she might have been satisfied only with Deen's "forgiveness" is ridiculous--that wasn't why she lodged the suit, she wasn't seeking "forgiveness" when she filed the suit, she was seeking damages--in the way of money. Why would Jackson feel any less entitled to damages now?

You don't give women much credit for not being guided by emotion, particularly when it comes to money.

That's one of hawk's weaknesses; he seems to use his own imagination rather the topic under discussion for his attacks.

There is no debate here. This is primarily a review of known facts.

That you wish to throw your opinions and ideas in is interesting to you.

One side proposes a settlement (meanwhile both sides prepare for trial). If "settlement conferences" yield results that are mutually acceptable, then the settlement conditions are agreed to .Usually, the conditions of SETTLEMENT aren't made widely public (or public at all in many cases)
Im sure some cash was involved and we just wont know of it because the case record and decisions of the settlement are probably sealed.

I'm a bit perplexed about this statement in the article I posted above.

Yup. We're banging out the paperwork for a dozen or more settlement conferences right now.

It means everyone is responsible for their own legal costs. It doesn't tell you anything about the actual settlement agreement.