Letters
LETTERS to the Editor Schell's 'Fate' Thank God for your comment on Jonathan Schell's Fate of the Earth, "A Journalism of Gnats" (June issue). After becoming cross-eyed with rage at Harper's...
...Where land for self-sufficiency is paramount, the people of those islands have been relegated, landless, to almost inaccessible outer islands...
...I wasn't particularly worried about the test—after all, I hadn't stolen the $20—but I did have "something to hide": I was not married to the man I was living with (and am now married to), and I believed my boss would fire me if he found out...
...RoryJ...
...Helen Kennedy Director, Program Services Pacifica Radio Los Angeles, California...
...Six of us were called back the next day for another test, and this time I spilled the beans about my private life without even being asked...
...While it has become unimaginable to see Jews or blacks caricatured in racist stereotypes in a magazine that calls itself progressive, it is obviously still funny to conjure up good old sexist stereotypes, especially when they can be used to ridicule feminists...
...It is little wonder your readership is so small...
...Of their own volition, the lawyers immediately remitted almost $100,000 of their fee to Valle and her family, making the plaintiffs' personal recovery after fees approximately $900,000 tax-free...
...As any true progressive should know, no lawsuit against a large corporate defendant is ever an open-and-shut affair...
...But to hold citizens in occupied areas accountable on the one hand, and states and corporate interests inculpable on the other, is to privilege liberal notions of individual responsibility at the expense of structural collaboration...
...His candidacy would be backed by the DSA, by a significant portion of the Machinists (with close to a million members), by several other important unions, by a great number of the 30,000 to 50,000 national, state, and local progressive activist organizations, and by an undetermined number of liberal and progressive Democrats and independents...
...The contingency fee arrangement is a device that speeds up the settlement process...
...It also made the coverage available to other public radio stations that were hooked up to the public radio satellite system, including National Public Radio...
...Christine Ward Galley New York, New York Truth Technology Iwas pleased to read Francis J. Flaherty's article, "Truth Technology" (June issue), exposing the widespread abuse of lie-detector testing...
...Our consultations with several practicing attorneys suggested that hourly arrangements of $60 to $200 per hour in airline crash cases are not only possible but quite pragmatic...
...The National Catholic Reporter covered the hearings in its weekly publication and criticized other media for neglecting them...
...Unable to return home after thirty years, they are dependent on government support...
...The issue is not cost-effectiveness or employee crime...
...I should make it clear that I am not a totally neutral observer of this problem...
...efforts seemed to be directed at making the islands ever more dependent on this country, for military and economic reasons...
...There is no justification for this assault on human dignity and basic human rights...
...it is due process and the erosion of civil liberties...
...There are people who argue that this issue must be put on the back burner while efforts are directed at returning more than ten million unemployed to work...
...Running up plaintiffs' legal bills at $200 per hour would run up their own costs at the same rate, and final settlement awards would probably take into account plaintiffs' legal fees...
...I wasn't fired, but my boss's attitude toward me changed completely...
...People are not their governments, as we well know...
...You condemn internment and the suspension of human rights in Poland, yet Irishmen have lived with these same conditions since 1922...
...I question the politics of The Progressive in publishing an article that condemns all feminists who speak against pornography at a time when women's rights and women's liberty are under vehement attack...
...As for the indigent, they do not normally fly on business or vacation trips to Florida or anywhere else...
...Even if the authors mean to suggest that the plaintiff pay the per hour rate after recovery, the only conceivable result is that there will be more billable hours, and more pain for the plaintiff...
...I worked at the time in a restaurant where the cash register consistently showed a nightly loss of $20...
...Yet this is exactly what it has become if we are to take the suggestions in "Justice: Only $10,000 an Hour" (Datelines, May issue...
...And we believe that publications which attempt to alert citizens to the realities behind the facades of sympathy and justice presented to them are exercising an important and progressive public service...
...Our sympathies and our efforts lie with individual citizens caught in a Kafkaesque landscape in the middle of high-priced and profitable wars between insurance companies and law firms...
...I believe it is possible for Winpy to win the nomination...
...Dellums's office reports receiving hundreds of letters, most of them thanking him for sponsoring the hearings...
...Plaintiffs' lawyers have an incentive to work fast, which is ultimately what their clients desire...
...As such, I must point out several omissions in the article with regard to the Valle case...
...We can only consider you as part of the "yellow press" in this country—on a par with The New York Times and The Washington Post—working for the status quo in those areas where reforms would damage our "allies...
...Though only two people had access to the register, all of us—waitresses, cook, busboys—were polygraphed along with the two managers...
...They will be in June...
...Presumably, the latter were not faced with the "choice" of collaboration or threats to their lives on a daily basis...
...Speaking of the Reagan Administration and its right-wing backers, Winpisinger said: "I'll oppose them with every resource that I can put my hands on...
...Nowhere did I see evidence that the United States was fulfilling its obligation to prepare the people educationally, socially, economically, or politically for self-government...
...Obviously, Jean Bethke Elshtain's article, "The Victim Syndrome," which the cartoon is supposed to illustrate, seems to have given Jetter the license to indulge in several misogynist images at the same time: the Crazy Lady (or the hysterical woman), the Old Spinster (ugly, with sagging breasts, and obviously afraid of sex), and the helpless, timid woman afraid of spiders and mice...
...I took the test...
...While lawyers' fees may be excessive in some cases, the suggestion that plaintiffs in disaster cases pay lawyers on an hourly basis is ludicrous...
...The response lies, in part, in meeting this assault head on by banning the use of lie detectors in employment...
...By the time questions zeroed in on the $20,1 was so terrified I could hardly speak...
...The thief turned out to be one of the managers who had passed the test...
...If the insurance lawyer knows that his or her counterpart on the plaintiff's side is also billing at an hourly rate, a classic war of attrition will ensue...
...While I am not condoning their fee of $286,000 in this particular matter (it may, in fact, be excessive), plaintiffs' lawyers' fees, in the long run, often balance out...
...Jim Benson Fairfax, Virginia High-priced Justice Never in my life would I have suspected that The Progressive would become a shill for the insurance industry...
...Had the authors cared to check the court records, they would have discovered that Valle's lawyers requested the court to award "such fee as the court directs...
...Mechthild Hart Bloomington, Indiana Piercing the Blackout Despite a virtual news blackout, two national media organizations, Pacifica Radio and the National Catholic Reporter, gave extensive coverage to the ad hoc Congressional hearings on the implications of the military budget organized by Representative Ron Dellums (O Washington, May issue...
...It was merely convenient that the Swiss, excepting the immediately involved capitalist and bureaucratic sectors, did not have to take a political stand, although many did...
...Pacifica has had incredible response from its listeners...
...We've got to defeat Reaganomics and the class warfare it stands for, and I am confident that we can do so...
...My father is a partner in the firm which represented Maria Teresa Valle in her claims against American Airlines...
...Robert Wechsler Assistant Education Director Transport Workers Union New York, New York Your article on polygraph tests brought back twelve-year-old memories...
...Once we have blocked the corporate takeover, we can move forward toward a new America—an America where the decisions which affect the people are made by the people...
...Marylou Seymour Bath, South Carolina Jaws III Iread with keen interest Robert Aldridge's article, "Jaws III" (May issue...
...We stand with the argument and the facts presented in our original article...
...What was implied in such neutrality...
...I was an agricultural co-op adviser in the Marshall Islands east of Belau from 1975 to 1977, and saw too many examples of how the United States has used those islands and atolls for its own gain...
...Both are strikingly absent in Elshtain's article...
...Therefore, it is in the insurance lawyers' interest to delay any case as long as possible...
...In fact, United States Aviation Underwriters, which was American Airlines' insurance carrier, originally contemplated offering a mere $250,000 (lawyers' fees included) to settle many of the claims arising from the DC-10 crash...
...an America where the wealth created by labor is shared by those doing the labor...
...The corporate government in Washington and those in the Fortune 500 board rooms are working together to create a climate of employee job insecurity and dependency where unions and worker solidarity have no place...
...The Swiss government remained neutral and thereby excused the citizenry of the "choice" by, among other things, returning Jews who had managed to escape to occupied areas (until late in the war) and by producing timing devices for German explosives...
...While I was in the Marshalls, the islands were under United Nations Trusteeship...
...It would seem that to be apolitical is, as we in the United States have been made aware through the Vietnam war and the current U.S...
...Pacifica aired live large portions of the hearings on its five stations and included excerpts in evening news coverage...
...First, an hourly fee arrangement means that the money must be paid up front...
...In fact, insurance companies—facing inevitable judgments against them in cases like the Air Florida and American Airlines crashes-would have an incentive to settle more quickly to keep their own legal costs down...
...Second, lawyers hired by the defendant insurance companies are paid approximately $200 per hour, which means that the longer any case drags on, the more these lawyers can charge the insurance companies in legal fees...
...In the Valle case, if the insurance company knew that it could outlast the plaintiff by convincing her to hire a lawyer on a per-hour basis, it never would have offered her even that much...
...It is a mistake to paint one small law firm as evil when the real problem lies with insurance carriers which will often stop at nothing to avoid compensating the victim and then pay only the bare minimum when they pay at all...
...Plaintiffs in many of the cases which actually went to trial did not win the type of recovery awarded the Valle family...
...To preserve business as usual, or even better than usual, at the expense of human struggles for justice, is to deserve contempt...
...Wallace A. MacDonald Ukiah, California Collaboration and Neutrality In his review of David Pryce-Jones's Paris in the Third Reich (June issue), Milton Mayer draws a distinction on the level of personal choice between those Europeans in Germany or occupied areas and the Swedes and Swiss...
...This would preclude most, and particularly indigent, plaintiffs from ever bringing suit...
...This money could be immediately invested by the plaintiffs so that they, rather than the insurance carrier, could collect the interest...
...Several reputable attorneys told us that they would be willing to make special hourly billing and financing arrangements, especially since they know that substantial settlements will be forthcoming in the crash cases...
...It should also be pointed out that life insurance policies on many victims would provide ready cash that could make even a normal "pay-as-you-go" hourly arrangement with counsel feasible...
...On the contrary, U.S...
...But it is precisely because the economic issues are so crucial that we must not sacrifice the civil liberties issue...
...We find you liberals are all tories when it comes to exposing our British "allies...
...Goldberg admits that this may have resulted in an excessive charge...
...But what is not stated is the collaboration implicit in the Swedish and Swiss states' ^maintenance of "neutrality" during the war...
...They could do two things to get the bandwagon rolling: give it a push by writing to Winpisinger at the Machinists' headquarters, 1300 Connecticut Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20036, and sending The Progressive a response to this letter...
...We can't sit still and let fifty years of progress be wiped out, and we can't allow big business to take over the country...
...The Surrogate's Court of New York City, in its discretion, awarded the statutorily authorized one-third of the total settlement...
...Karlsen Fort Lauderdale, Florida Liberals, Tories You claim to be liberal and progressive, but we have yet to see you publish an article on the British police state in Northern Ireland...
...We must continue our legislative efforts to have it banned from use in employment...
...Jetter's cartoon is only the immediate proof of the reactionary consequences of such politics...
...If the choice of neutrality on the level of capitalist decision-making and governmental policy-making is not considered collaboration in the most cynical sense, I am perplexed...
...We believe that legal fees which run into the thousands of dollars per hour place law firms in a position that demonstrates no more moral or economic responsibility than that of an insurance company trying to chisel down a settlement award...
...Elshtain's article could be considered a contribution to a debate on pornography—if The Progressive had introduced its readers to the issue first by giving information on and an analysis of pornography and of the pornography industry...
...Lots of people are still calling to ask when the hearings will be rebroadcast...
...The polygraph and all that it symbolizes cannot be accepted as a fact of life by those who are working and those who seek employment...
...Winpisinger has the leadership and administrative qualities expected of a President...
...For Swiss capital, neutrality was, in fact, profitable...
...I certainly realize that this was not Mayer's intent, but to exonerate the Swiss because their government chose to remain neutral seems unwarranted...
...Mathew Valencic Roberts...
...involvement in El Salvador, to be supportive of repressive conditions...
...In these airline crash cases there is no need for a presumption that hourly fee arrangements will require a substantial amount of money "up front" or even a "pay-as-you-go" understanding...
...an America where no one is excluded from the mainstream of our economic life, and where all people have a right to a job, to health care, to financial security, and to the whole range of human needs...
...Workers' rights, freedom of association, and economic rights are all part of the same question...
...Most people know the Marshalls because of nuclear testing on Bikini and Eniwe-tok...
...Goldberg's claim that insurance companies would wage a "classic war of attrition" against plaintiffs who engage counsel on an hourly basis does not seem to us to be logically or economically compelling...
...Tigner Washington, D.C...
...Misogynist Images After fourteen years of feminist struggle, it is simply unacceptable to be confronted with a cartoon like Frances letter's in the June issue of The Progressive...
...Since 1968, worldwide television has exposed you to the story...
...As it turned out, Valle and family, with the aid of astute counsel, recovered almost four times that amount after lawyers' fees...
...Lawrence A. Goldberg New York, New York The authors reply: Lawrence Goldberg completely begs the issues raised in our article...
...All this is, perhaps, true enough...
...It is no coincidence that in this period of the much heralded "new collective bargaining" (as the press has dubbed it), employers use standards of productivity and cost from East Asia and Latin America in their calculation of American production...
...Readers of The Progressive could be responsible for beginning the "Draft Winpy" movement...
...After becoming cross-eyed with rage at Harper's "review" by Michael Kinsley, I finally calmed down and decided to forget my knee-jerk letter of complaint to Harper's and instead send this totally positive letter of congratulations to The Progressive...
...John Kelly Buffalo, New York Draft Winpisinger Irecently heard William Winpisinger, president of the International Association of Machinists, deliver the keynote speech at a local chapter meeting of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), formerly the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee and the New American Movement...
...Even granting the Pester firm's actions and motivations the benefit of the doubt, their $100,000 "kickback" to Maria Teresa Valle (a precedent we would not want to depend upon as a client) brings the cost of their services all the way down to only $8,171.43 per hour...
...This would bring the question of legal fees onto a completely different plane: Fees would be in the range of a few tens of thousands of dollars or less, as opposed to several hundred thousand dollars...
...As the article correctly points out, the increasing use of polygraph testing is an extralegal attempt at reducing workers' rights...
...Pester, Goldberg, and Schiff, like many plaintiffs' lawyers, often work for years on small negligence cases only to lose and earn nothing in the way of fees...
Vol. 46 • July 1982 • No. 7
