AP - Ousted USDA employee Sherrod plans to sue blogger

[twa]

I really don't see a viable case for her against the government.

Another Perry Mason fan?:cool:

[Thiebear]

She resigned voluntarily

turned into

The Administration made her

turned into

Her boss made her

=

still got a case.

[Redskins Diehard]

She resigned voluntarily

turned into

The Administration made her

turned into

Her boss made her

=

still got a case.

She's not going to sue her employer...they are after all on the same team.

[zoony]

She resigned voluntarily

turned into

The Administration made her

turned into

Her boss made her

=

still got a case.

yup. I over-stated my case. I said "1st year intern"... I mean "any random internet guy"

[DjTj]

Its actually very complicated, and it depends on the type of job she had. She may have had a due process right that was violated because the government has to abide by the Fourth Amendment (private businesses do not). But we just don't know without more information.

I suppose that you mean the Fifth Amendment, but even there, the same restrictions really apply to private employers under Section 1983.

Lots of speculation on here, as usual. Probably true, though, that whatever lawyer she gets will have a better idea of what legal causes of action she has and which one she doesn't.

I would assume that she already has a lawyer, and either she or the lawyer have made the decision to sue Breitbart and not (yet) sue the government.

come on dJ, that kind of legal maneuvering could be done by a first year intern.

Sure, I would agree that a lawyer could write up a nice-sounding complaint and probably survive a motion to dismiss, but I don't see a reasonable judge letting it get past summary judgment. She could get paid to avoid bad PR, but not because she has any reasonable chance of actually winning in court.

You bring up some good specific points but I think you're missing the big picture with any potential lawsuit

Well, I think in the big picture, she's definitely not going to sue the government.

She's not going to sue her employer...they are after all on the same team.

From what we know, she is a life-long Democrat working in a Democratic administration, who has now been apologized to profusely by everyone all the way up to the President, and who has now been offered a promotion by USDA.

I would be very surprised if she sued the government.

Full disclosure: My day job is almost exclusively on the defense side of lawsuits, so I tend to think that a lot of claims are frivolous.

[JimboDaMan]

yup. I over-stated my case. I said "1st year intern"... I mean "any random internet guy"

Except that - in addition to all that - they already offered her another job.

Resigned (under pressure - but not fired)

+

Offered another job

================

= Good luck with that case.

She can certainly cause them some additional embarrassment if she wishes. Legal trouble? Doubt it.

[NavyDave]

Frivolous lawsuit.

Its not like she has stopped being around race baiters or card throwers.

If it not racial nonsense, its a person who has radical,extremist, socialist or anti American ties.

Is there one Obama appointee that does not have any drama? Jeezus

[Redskins Diehard]

Except that - in addition to all that - they already offered her another job.

Resigned (under pressure - but not fired)

+

Offered another job

================

= Good luck with that case.

She can certainly cause them some additional embarrassment if she wishes. Legal trouble? Doubt it.

So the damages that this Bart guy inflicted on her was an offer of a promotion?

[ABQCOWBOY]

Well, trying to read up on Mrs. Sherrod and came across this posting in another forum. Thought it was pretty interesting.

http://www.americant...till_untol.html

July 30, 2010

Real Sherrod Story Still Untold

By Jack Cashill

Had Andrew Breitbart dutifully written a column detailing how an obscure USDA official, Shirley Sherrod, and her husband, Charles Sherrod, had scammed the government out of millions, the story would have had the range and lifespan of a fruit fly.

Instead, as the world knows, Breitbart released an edited version of Shirley Sherrod's speech before the NAACP that provoked national headlines and caused the NAACP to denounce her and a panicky Obama administration to fire her from her position as the Georgia Director of Rural Development for the USDA.

Then, of course, when the full version of the speech emerged -- which showed Sherrod as a recovering racist, not as a practicing one -- the Obama White House fell all over itself apologizing, and the media turned their guns on Breitbart.

Breitbart, however, had put a potentially huge story into play the only way he could -- through sheer provocation. As he knew, and as we are learning, the story goes well beyond Sherrod's long-ago racist mischief-making with a poor white farmer.

This past Sunday, in his weekly column for the San Francisco Chronicle, "Willie's World," veteran black politico Willie Brown confirmed that "there is more to the story than just [sherrod's] remarks."

"As an old pro," Brown acknowledged, "I know that you don't fire someone without at least hearing their side of the story unless you want them gone in the first place." Brown observed that Sherrod had been a thorn in the USDA's side for years, that many had objected to her hiring, and that she had been "operating a community activist organization not unlike ACORN." Although Brown does not go into detail, he alludes to a class action lawsuit against the USDA in which she participated some years ago.

In the way of background, in 1997, a black farmer named Timothy Pigford, joined by four hundred other black farmers, filed a lawsuit against Bill Clinton's Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman, claiming that the USDA treated black farmers unfairly in all manner of ways, from price support loans to disaster payments to operating loans. Worse, they charged that the USDA had failed to process any complaints about racial discrimination.

The notion that the Clinton Ag Department had spent four years consciously denying black farmers their due defies everything we know about Clinton's use of race and should have made the media suspicious about Pigford's claims dating back to 1983.

Flush with revenue in 1999 and eager to appease this bedrock constituency, the administration settled with the farmers -- more realistically, their attorneys -- for fifty grand apiece, plus various other perks like tax offsets and loan forgiveness. If any of the presumably racist USDA offenders were punished, that news escaped the media.

After the consent decree was announced, the USDA opened the door to other claimants who had been similarly discriminated against. They expected 2,000 additional claims. They got 22,000 more, roughly 60 percent of whom were approved for this taxpayer-funded Lotto.

Despite having a year and a half to apply, some 70,000 more alleged claimants argued that they not only had been discriminated against, but also had been denied notice of the likely windfall that awaited them.

In 2008, for reasons unknown, Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa lobbied to give the alleged 70,000 "another bite at the apple." Co-sponsoring the bill was none other than U.S. Senator Barack Obama. In February of 2010, the Obama administration settled with the aggrieved 70,000 for $1.25 billion that the government did not have to give. This money, by the way, was finessed out of a defense appropriation bill.

At the time, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the agreement would close a "sordid chapter" in the department's history, a chapter in which no one seems to have been so much as reprimanded.

The major media reported the settlement as though it were the signing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. For the last forty years, as the civil rights industry has manufactured more and more absurd grievances -- most notably the Tea Party smear that incited Breitbart's reprisal -- the media have reported on them with increasingly wide-eyed innocence.

In the various stories on the settlement, not one reporter that I could identify stopped to do the math. Pajamas Media did in a detailed article by "Zombie" titled appropriately, "Pigford v. Glickman: 86,000 claims from 39,697 total farmers?"

Although 86,000 black farmers are alleged to have received payments, at no time in the last three decades have there been more than 40,000 black farmers. Nor is there much turnover in the farming business. No entrepreneurial activity involves more long-term investment.

Realistically, of the 40,000 or 86,000, how many could have applied for a USDA loan and been rejected while white farmers in comparable circumstances were getting loans? If there were hundreds, let alone thousands, the heads of loan officers should have been rolling around the USDA floors, but I know of no such purge.

More to the point, out of about $1 billion paid out so far in settlements, the largest amount has gone to the Sherrods' New Communities Incorporated, which received some $13 million. As Time Magazine approvingly reported this week, $330,000 was "awarded to Shirley and Charles Sherrod for mental suffering alone."

Unwittingly, Charles Sherrod shed light on the how and why of the settlement in a speech he gave in January 2010. As he explained, New Communities farmed its 6,000 acres successfully for seventeen years before running into five straight years of drought. Then, according to Sherrod, New Communities engaged in a three-year fight with the USDA to get the appropriate loans to deal with drought.

Said Sherrod, "They were saying that since we're a corporation, we're not an individual, we're not a farmer." Nevertheless, the Sherrods prevailed, but the late payments "caused us to lose this land." In other words, the bureaucratic delay over taxpayer-funded corporate welfare payments cost them their business.

Then, thanks to their "good lawyers," said a gleeful Sherrod, who seems to have fully recovered from his mental suffering, the Sherrods successfully sued the government for "a large sum of money -- a large sum of money." While saying this, he made hand gestures suggesting $15 million. The land itself was admittedly worth no more than $9 million.

Sherrod gave this talk to announce that the FCC had awarded New Communities a radio station in Albany, Georgia, still another race-based corporate welfare boondoggle. Before the award of this station, he added, the Sherrods "had no means of communicating with our people."

The "our people" in question, of course, are black people. With this new voice, the Sherrods will help "stop the white man and his Uncle Toms from stealing our elections. We must not be afraid to vote black."

Yes, indeed -- these are just the people we want spending the money we don't have.

[zoony]

I suppose that you mean the Fifth Amendment, but even there, the same restrictions really apply to private employers under Section 1983.

I would assume that she already has a lawyer, and either she or the lawyer have made the decision to sue Breitbart and not (yet) sue the government.

Sure, I would agree that a lawyer could write up a nice-sounding complaint and probably survive a motion to dismiss, but I don't see a reasonable judge letting it get past summary judgment. She could get paid to avoid bad PR, but not because she has any reasonable chance of

Well, I think in the big picture, she's definitely not going to sue the government. From what we know, she is a life-long Democrat working in a Democratic administration, who has now been apologized to profusely by everyone all the way up to the President, and who has now been offered a promotion by USDA.

I would be very surprised if she sued the government.

Full disclosure: My day job is almost exclusively on the defense side of lawsuits, so I tend to think that a lot of claims are frivolous.

So no punative damages for humiliation etc.? She got her job back so everything is kosher?

[The Evil Genius]

Did Bretibart deliberately and knowingly provide edited video that misrepresents what Sherrod said?

Does Breitbart have a history of doing this?

If both are yes, in a just world (which we don't live in), Breitbart will get what's coming to him. In the meantime, he will continue to be a source for Fox News and other conservative media - who seem blind to his shenanigans.

Hopefully, other mainstream media not under the control of the right has learned their lessons.

[DjTj]

So no punative damages for humiliation etc.?

There are no punitive damages if there is no violation of the law. If your kid is humiliated by their teacher by being made to stand in the corner during class, you're not going to get any damages. (Not that this prevents parents from filing frivolous lawsuits).

It's not as easy as you think to sue the government and get some kind of huge payout from a lawsuit.

She got her job back so everything is kosher?

I think everything is kosher in her mind. This whole thing is political, and she is a political appointee that is obviously on the side of the Democrats. She gets to decide who she wants to sue, and as long as her side of the aisle is treating her very well, she is going to go after Republicans like Breitbart. She's not going to want to go after Obama and alienate herself from all her friends and former (and/or future) co-workers.

[Peeping Wizard]

Neato, so she chase his millions and millions of dollars for damages? The only reason any attorney would take that case is for PR purposes.

How about suing the White House for embarassing her with their idiotic knee jerk firing?

[Tulane Skins Fan]

I suppose that you mean the Fifth Amendment, but even there, the same restrictions really apply to private employers under Section 1983.

I would assume that she already has a lawyer, and either she or the lawyer have made the decision to sue Breitbart and not (yet) sue the government.

Whoops, Fifth Amendment, right. Its not the same for private firms. Its different with the government because of that.

I dont know if she has a case or not, but neither does anyone in here. If this person came to me, I would think - off the top of my head - that she has a case for both defamation and wrongful termination. But, that's speculation on my part.

[Tulane Skins Fan]

Neato, so she chase his millions and millions of dollars for damages? The only reason any attorney would take that case is for PR purposes.

How about suing the White House for embarassing her with their idiotic knee jerk firing?

Dumb dumb dumb.

[zoony]

Dumb dumb dumb.

I love how the hannity/moron crowd has made this about obama.

The country would be much better off if we could put these clowns on a boat and deport them castro style

[Bang]

I love how the hannity/moron crowd has made this about obama.

The country would be much better off if we could put these clowns on a boat and deport them castro style

Maybe we can get Jesse Jackson to put them on a plane and fly them to Havana

~Bang

[NavyDave]

Bingo.

And one way to help that happen on any scale that will make a difference is to drag the slimy ones out into the light.

~Bang

Which is what is happening with the liberal media, where you can't help but notice the catch phrases of the evening on all networks as well as their agenda.

The liberal media trying to fool the nation with the TEA party being racists accusations and conveniently not reporting a suspected plant being confronted and to leave and take his views with him as well as making an issue of racist comments during the walk of the gauntlet that were not heard by anyone (because they weren't uttered) started all of this.

So some want to fool themselves into thinking she is a recovered racist and just a liberal pushing only class warfare now, innocently bashing those who have achieved against those who have not and how the achievers should be forced to let the government take away a portion of their success and give it to someone else or add to their slush funds.

[Bang]

Which is what is happening with the liberal media, where you can't help but notice the catch phrases of the evening on all networks as well as their agenda.

The liberal media trying to fool the nation with the TEA party being racists accusations and conveniently not reporting a suspected plant being confronted and to leave and take his views with him as well as making an issue of racist comments during the walk of the gauntlet that were not heard by anyone (because they weren't uttered) started all of this.

So some want to fool themselves into thinking she is a recovered racist and just a liberal pushing only class warfare now, innocently bashing those who have achieved against those who have not and how the achievers should be forced to let the government take away a portion of their success and give it to someone else or add to their slush funds.

Uh,, yeah.

Anyway, the point is that people should not be allowed to make slanderous videos using editing methods to try and put out a story that isn't exactly true for the purpose of creating political fallout or ruining someone's reputation. If you want to point out people on the left like Michael Moore who do the same thing, you'll get the same response. It's not about right and left, Dave, it's about right and wrong.

But you go on and bark away about which side doing it you think is worse as if that makes any difference at all.

~Bang

[TimmySmith]

at this response.

So i'm not mis-interpreted again i'll spell it out as clear as I can.

I'm acting like I'm sick of being manipulated.

I don't pretend that this is something new. By your post, you'd seem to be implying that I am somehow naive to this stuff throughout the ages.

Now before you go assigning any other beliefs to my words beyond what i've actually written on the page, I'll say it quite clearly. I'm not naive to these practices. Not by any stretch.

I'm sick of it. So should you be. So should all of us be.

You can call it a waste of time, but to call the original story a waste of time is to ignore what happened as a result of it, and why the news media continues to "waste time" with such things. If you would like to see more such wastes of time, then by all means, don't support outing this stuff and trying to somehow curtail it. I wonder if you think that sticking your nose in the air will result in fewer such wastes of time?

The only reason they do it is because portions of our society encourage it, accept and allow it and enable it by either believing it, or upon recognizing that it's BS, not demanding it CEASE.

~Bang

Wow a lot of words. Here's a tip, do not be sick about it, just do not support it. If everyone follows this advice it goes away. If everyone follows the advice to react to it then it becomes a story within itself. These people feed off of publicity, any kind. Do not reply in a thread about this stuff and it disappears, reply and it goes 20 pages. Do a Bang Cartoon about it and it lasts for ever.

[Burgold]

Wow a lot of words. Here's a tip, do not be sick about it, just do not support it. If everyone follows this advice it goes away. If everyone follows the advice to react to it then it becomes a story within itself. These people feed off of publicity, any kind. Do not reply in a thread about this stuff and it disappears, reply and it goes 20 pages. Do a Bang Cartoon about it and it lasts for ever.

I remember that logic being used in the 1930's in Germany. Ah, if you ignore them eventually they'll go away.

Not saying these folks are Nazis or of the same caliber, but I am saying that silence also encourages bullies. They think they have you scared and intimidated they often get more brazen and more violent.

[Bang]

Wow a lot of words. Here's a tip, do not be sick about it, just do not support it. If everyone follows this advice it goes away. If everyone follows the advice to react to it then it becomes a story within itself. These people feed off of publicity, any kind. Do not reply in a thread about this stuff and it disappears, reply and it goes 20 pages. Do a Bang Cartoon about it and it lasts for ever.

See, I'm of the thing that we've been ignoring it (for decades, some think), and it's festered.

It's high time we stop ignoring it and start calling it out when it's obvious.

It's time we start to demand better, and if tht means punishing some of the offenders, so be it. As someone else said, it's a shame it takes a hit in the pocket to teach morality, but it is effective just the same. (I doubt she wins the case, but sometimes the winning isn't the whole point. Shine the light.)

If we just go about our lives and not pay attention to it they'll keep doing it, because that's exactly what the manipulators and propagandists have BEEN doing. In fact, historically, manipulators and propagandists have relied absolutely on the masses doing nothing.

~Bang

[JimboDaMan]

So the damages that this Bart guy inflicted on her was an offer of a promotion?

?

This was in reference to Sherrod suing her employer, USDA.

[Bang]

I figured being as it was America, this was going to be her golden ticket regardless.

She's got a hundred ways to cash in.

~Bang

[Johnny Punani]

Didn't Sherrod admit that she treated the white farmer differently based on his race?