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Lawsuit: Sexual harassment ‘victim’ was San Francisco business rival in disguise

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Re: Lawsuit: Sexual harassment ‘victim’ was San Francisco business rival in disguise

#31

Post by [deleted] »

vkou wrote: post #24
celeritascelery wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agree. Rape will land you jail for a long time (as it should) but rape hoaxing has almost no consequences.

Let's suppose that false rape accusations are a wide-spread problem. They aren't, they are far rarer then actual cases of rape, but let's suppose that they are. How exactly do you propose to deal with them, without a chilling effect on reporting real rapes? It is a crime that is notoriously hard to convict, to the point where most victims keep silent.

[deleted]

Re: Lawsuit: Sexual harassment ‘victim’ was San Francisco business rival in disguise

#32

Post by abhi3 »

zaroth wrote: post #25
abhi3 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He'll end up paying millions of dollars in damages most likely not covered by insurance and might be subject to criminal charges if the State decides to prosecute

Are you a lawyer? Because this sounds like fantasy.

Yes, I am a lawyer. Succesful defamation lawsuits usually get multi-million dollar damage awards, most recent case was the Hulk Hogan case against Gawker where 100 million+ damages were awarded and Gawker filed for bankruptcy. Insurance doesn't usually cover liability due to defamatory behavior and in any case, it is rare for individuals to hold such policies.

Now I am not familiar with the US or Japenese Criminal Code but there must be something that criminalizes such behavior, but prosecution is at the discretion of the DA (or in this case where the incident crosses international borders even the US Attorney could prosecute)

Re: Lawsuit: Sexual harassment ‘victim’ was San Francisco business rival in disguise

#33

Post by curun1r »

taneq wrote: post #10
abhi3 wrote: post #3

> Nevertheless, the threat of defamation suits can stifle women from coming forward, even if they have legitimate accusations of sexual harassment, she said. The accused must usually be given the benefit of doubt in cases of anonymous allegations without any corroborating evidence. But cases like these should not be used to cast doubt on the motive/credibility of women brave enough to risk their identity and careers…

> The accused must usually be given the benefit of doubt in cases of anonymous allegations without any corroborating evidence. The accused must always be given the benefit of the doubt in case of any allegations without corroborating evidence. This current trend of "anyone accused of sexual harassment is guilty unless proven innocent" is not justice.

There's no such thing as guilty or innocent when it comes to sexual harassment. It's not a crime and only companies can be liable for anything related to it, not the actual people doing the harassment. So what we're seeing is these incidents being played out in the court of public opinion. And unlike the law, there are no hard and fast rules in that courtroom. There's only cultural norms that are still evolving. We should expect a lot of confusion around this issue given the stakes. We know that harassment is incredibly pernicious for those that are targets while going almost unseen by those who aren't. And yet allegations, regardless of their veracity, can destroy someone's business, career, marriage and reputation. If nothing else, all the attention this issue has gotten recently has at least driven home in people's mind that the issue is important and can no longer be ignored just because you haven't harassed anyone or been harassed.

But we should stop using legal terms like innocent, guilty or liable in our discussions on the subject since they act as a subtle framing of the issue in ways that are not accurate. By saying someone is guilty of sexual harassment, you're implicitly saying that the determination of guilt should be made based on criminal procedure. People hear guilty and think "innocent until proven guilty." People hear liable and they think of monetary damages. These kinds of accusations will almost always exist on the continuum between true and false and, unlike the instance in the story, will rarely be as black and white as a legal verdict is. There are subtle forms of harassment and there are more blatant forms of harassment. And our court of public opinion should be more nuanced and be able to come down harder on individuals based on how much proof is provided. There's no sentence or fine being imposed, only social stigma and it's up to every individual to determine how much to stigmatize the wrongful parties, either when they are the accused, or in the rare cases like this one, the accuser.

Re: Lawsuit: Sexual harassment ‘victim’ was San Francisco business rival in disguise

#34

Post by hdhdbebbbdhdvd »

vkou wrote: post #24
celeritascelery wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agree. Rape will land you jail for a long time (as it should) but rape hoaxing has almost no consequences.

Let's suppose that false rape accusations are a wide-spread problem. They aren't, they are far rarer then actual cases of rape, but let's suppose that they are. How exactly do you propose to deal with them, without a chilling effect on reporting real rapes? It is a crime that is notoriously hard to convict, to the point where most victims keep silent.

A problem can be serious without being wide-spread, and this is a great example -- false accusations (of any crime), though rare, sow the seeds of doubt in the testimony of every accuser. Every widely publicized false accusation (Duke lacrosse rape, etc) causes hundreds or perhaps even thousands of real rapists to go free and rape more people, since jurors take the possibility of a false accusation as "reasonable doubt."

As with any crime, the evidentiary standard is "beyond a reasonable doubt" -- to convict someone for false testimony, you would need to conclusively prove that they did so willfully. This is already the law, the crime is called perjury -- it's just that the punishments are so mild that they are not serious deterrents. Imagine if making willfully false allegations of a crime was punished by twice the prison sentence of the crime being accused -- I bet one VC wouldn't try to poke another in the eye with a false sexual harassment blog post.

Re: Lawsuit: Sexual harassment ‘victim’ was San Francisco business rival in disguise

#35

Post by [deleted] »

wildmusings wrote: post #7
abhi3 wrote: post #3

> Nevertheless, the threat of defamation suits can stifle women from coming forward, even if they have legitimate accusations of sexual harassment, she said. The accused must usually be given the benefit of doubt in cases of anonymous allegations without any corroborating evidence. But cases like these should not be used to cast doubt on the motive/credibility of women brave enough to risk their identity and careers…

A mere accusation should never be enough to believe someone is guilty.

[deleted]

Re: Lawsuit: Sexual harassment ‘victim’ was San Francisco business rival in disguise

#36

Post by wand3r »

This world is getting so fucked up. We can't crucify people for "hitting on" or other somewhat tame behavior because we have nothing left to throw at the real offenders.

Conversely, people benefit on both sides of the equation; using sex to their advantage or weaponizing allegations like this.

Sexual assualt is REAL and should be punished. We need to focus on a balance between being human and being a predator. People are fucked up. You have rapists, liars, sociopaths and ladder climbers and guys and girls who get overwhelmed by greed, desperation or just stupidity and break their otherwise decent character. The media makes it fucking impossible to tell people apart.

Great example was the 500 startups thing. I am prepared to believe that there was some dodgy ass shit going on and he was being a scumbag; but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth not knowing the full extent of what happened and watching the accuser ride the publicity to raise a round.

This is so messy. Is this just how the game is played? Leverage on both sides used as a weapon instead of just treating humans like humans.

Sad to see false accusations. Sad to see real ones. Sad to see people capitalizing on this climate, and the most sad:

People who really really hurt (either reputation or physically) just getting killed in the crossfire on top of the horrible events.

This is sick.

Re: Lawsuit: Sexual harassment ‘victim’ was San Francisco business rival in disguise

#38

Post by zaroth »

abhi3 wrote: post #32
zaroth wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you a lawyer? Because this sounds like fantasy.

Yes, I am a lawyer. Succesful defamation lawsuits usually get multi-million dollar damage awards, most recent case was the Hulk Hogan case against Gawker where 100 million+ damages were awarded and Gawker filed for bankruptcy. Insurance doesn't usually cover liability due to defamatory behavior and in any case, it is rare for individuals to hold such policies. Now I am not familiar with the US or Japenese Criminal Co…

Fair enough, and appreciate the reponse. Although I think Hogan was an extraordinary case, in this case we can wait and see. (HN is missing the requisite '/remindme 1 year' feature.)

Re: Lawsuit: Sexual harassment ‘victim’ was San Francisco business rival in disguise

#39

Post by themgt »

Sonya Smallets, another San Francisco employment attorney, called the Fenox case “very unusual.” Nevertheless, the threat of defamation suits can stifle women from coming forward, even if they have legitimate accusations of sexual harassment, she said.

“Obviously you don’t want people to be able to make up things about other people and harm their reputations,” Smallets said, “but there’s also obviously a concern that if you have women who are accusing powerful, wealthy men of sexual harassment, that a defamation lawsuit can have a chilling effect.”

This is just a ridiculous and offensive thing to say, and way to end the article, given the circumstances and evidence. It would be akin to commenting on a case with blatant evidence of harassment that "obviously there's a concern that a harassment lawsuit can have a chilling effect on office interpersonal relationships."

A situation where a man was blatantly lying to abuse the law and defame a competitor isn't the moment to make the "chilling effect" argument.

Re: Lawsuit: Sexual harassment ‘victim’ was San Francisco business rival in disguise

#40

Post by vkou »

hdhdbebbbdhdvd wrote: post #34
vkou wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's suppose that false rape accusations are a wide-spread problem. They aren't, they are far rarer then actual cases of rape, but let's suppose that they are. How exactly do you propose to deal with them, without a chilling effect on reporting real rapes? It is a crime that is notoriously hard to convict, to the point where most victims keep silent.

A problem can be serious without being wide-spread, and this is a great example -- false accusations (of any crime), though rare, sow the seeds of doubt in the testimony of every accuser. Every widely publicized false accusation (Duke lacrosse rape, etc) causes hundreds or perhaps even thousands of real rapists to go free and rape more people, since jurors take the possibility of a false accusation as "reasonable dou…

> A problem can be serious without being wide-spread

Rape and sexual harassment are problems that are both serious, and incredibly wide-spread. They are also under-reported and under-prosecuted, and even when they are, well, that young gentleman is such a good athlete, and has such a bright future, we can't destroy his life over something minor like that.

You could also bet that actual rape victims would not come forward. Why the would they, if they could end up in jail, if the case against their rapist falls apart for any one of a million reasons.

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