Posted on 12/12/2007 11:48:45 AM PST by enough_idiocy
"Halliburton", gang rape, and fear of arbitration: the Jamie Leigh Jones case In February 2006, Jamie Leigh Jones filed an arbitration complaint, complaining that, for her administrative assistant job with KBR in Iraq, she was placed in an all-male dorm for living arrangements, and a co-worker sexually assaulted her. (KBR says the co-worker claimed the sex was consensual, though Jones claims physical injuries, such as burst breast implants and torn pectoral muscles, that are plainly not consistent with consensual sex. The EEOC's Letter of Determination credited the allegation of sexual assault.)
Fifteen months later, after extensive discovery in the arbitration, Jones, who lives in Houston, and whose lawyer is based in Houston, and who worked for KBR in Houston, sued KBR and a bunch of other entities (including Halliburton, for whom she never worked, and the United States), in federal court in Beaumont, Texas. The claims were suddenly of much more outrageous conduct: the original allegation of a single he-said/she-said sexual assault was now an allegation of gang rape by several unknown John Doe rapists who worked as firemen (though she did make a claim of multiple rape to the EEOC, though it is unclear when that claim was made); she claims that after she reported the rape, "Halliburton locked her in a container" (the EEOC found that KBR provided immediate medical treatment and safety and shipped her home immediately) and she threw in an allegation that a "sexual favor" she provided a supervisor in Houston was the result of improper "influence." (But she no longer makes the implausible claim that she was living in an all-male dorm in Iraq.)
The US got the claim dismissed quickly (Jones hasn't yet followed the appropriate administrative claims procedure); the case was transferred back to Houston where it belonged (the trial lawyer's ludicrous brief in opposition didn't help). But the fact that the defendants are pointing out that the lawsuit over a pending arbitration violates 28 U.S.C. § 1927 and are asking for the court to mandate only one single proceeding in arbitration rather than a multiplicity of parallel proceedings, is now being treated as a cause célèbre by the left-wing blogosphere in its campaign against the contractual freedom to arbitrate. (Note that two elements explicitly designed to arouse the ire and inflame the passions of the left—Halliburton and gang-rape—only came about after Jones switched attorneys.)
The Public Citizen blog complains that "the allegations of corporate and governmental misconduct will never see the light of day" in arbitration. Which is absurd:
1) For crying out loud, her case is on 20/20, which, as is its ken, happily unquestioningly gives the plaintiffs' opening statement in handy manipulative video newsertainment form without mentioning any of the counterevidence. That sort of widespread publicity is hardly the lack of "light of day." 2) If the government fails to offer Jones an adequate settlement for their alleged bungling of the criminal investigation, she has recourse under the Federal Tort Claims Act against the federal government—though she likely will not have any more recourse against them than any other criminal victim does when the government fails to protect them against crime or prosecute the criminal. 3) If the court system is about having recourse for injuries, she has that recourse. The judicial system is not for public storytelling; if you want to send a message, use Western Union (or ABC News, as the case may be). 20/20 repeats the meaningless claim that "In recent testimony before Congress, employment lawyer Cathy Ventrell-Monsees said that Halliburton won more than 80 percent of arbitration proceedings brought against it"—meaningless because (1) it doesn't include the cases that settle before arbitration with a favorable result to the employee and (2) there's no comparison with how well such employees would do in the far more expensive forum of litigation (where the vast majority of employees lose at trial as well).
20/20 also adds the claim (absent in the arbitration and in the otherwise-lurid civil complaint) that Jones was threatened that she would be fired if she sought medical treatment.
It goes without saying that any criminal assault should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. I haven't seen any support for the contention that there is a loophole that leaves an American contractor's attack on an American outside the scope of criminal prosecution, as some left-wing blogs have claimed. The Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act of 2000, 18 U.S.C. § 3261 ff., permits prosecutions of criminal acts committed by defense contractors working with troops overseas, and there has been a child porn and an attempted rape prosecution under this law for crimes committed in Iraq. The loophole in the news applies to contractors working overseas with the State Department.
People with legitimate claims usually don't have lawyers trying so desperately to forum-shop that they file amateurish briefs like this, and Jones loses a ton of credibility with me over that. At a minimum, Jones's story has changed over time, and has gotten considerably more lurid. The original allegations are bad enough, and, if true, actionable. If the implant rupture and other physical injuries are true, I'm inclined to believe that she was raped, perhaps even gang raped. (Machismo environments like fraternity houses and athletes' dorms are responsible for a disproportionate number of gang rapes, which is why the Duke Lacrosse allegations had so much weight in the early going.) I'm inclined to believe that there was a hostile work environment, and that it was possible that KBR was not doing enough to correct that problem. I'm not currently inclined to believe that the criminal action was the employer's fault, unless the employee in question had shown signs of criminal behavior while working for KBR. And it is entirely consistent with what I know about government if Jones's allegation that the government botched the criminal investigation is true.
Of course, more facts could come to light that change my mind in either direction. There's already been a lot of discovery, but Jones's papers in court seem to focus on me-too evidence (that should eventually be held to be inadmissible) rather than evidence related to Jones. I'd love to see the pending motions for summary judgment in the arbitration that led Jones to file a second lawsuit.
And one hopes Jones realizes that she's being used by attorneys who are pursuing their own agenda to promote the litigation lobby's pet anti-consumer/pro-lawyer legislation. The shenanigans of bringing a second lawsuit and suing the irrelevant Halliburton are not helping her case if she has a legitimate one.
Here is the EEOC Letter of Determination. Bill Childs provides many other court documents. A typical unskeptical adoption of the Public Citizen line can be found at Jezebel and many other blogs. Some Republican partisans are even more skeptical than I am. A more nuanced discussion is at Amber Taylor's blog and Ben Domenech. (And welcome Malkin readers.)
Update: The is a Jamie Jones Foundation; its chronology omits the arbitration claim Jones filed in 2006. The "take action" page makes clear the ulterior motives of lobbying for a Congressional ban on arbitration clauses—though the arbitration clause has nothing to do with bringing any rapists to justice.
A Congressional investigation into the Justice Department's criminal investigation is now in the works, so we should see some answers about why there were no prosecutions.
GRAY: The KBR situation is unbelievable. There's a young woman from Houston who went with -- this was when Halliburton and KBR were part of the same company. They've divested themselves of each other since. But she went as a contractor to Iraq and the first or second day, I mean, it was right after she got into the green zone, she was brutally raped. First of all, she was drugged.GLENN: Yeah, she was drugged. And when she woke up, she had bruises all over her, she had been --
GRAY: She was bleeding.
GLENN: Yes, she was vaginally and anally raped and apparently by several men for an extended period of time.
GRAY: Yeah. So she actually, she went to the doctor and got a rape kit done and right after coming out of that, they apprehended her and put her in a shipping container with a bed and had 24-hour watch on her and would not let her leave, would not let her make a phone call back to the States. So finally one of the guys that was guarding her, one of the employees loaned her his cell phone and she called her dad back home in Houston and, you know, she said, Dad, I've been raped; I don't know what to do; I'm in a container, they are holding me here, I'm not able to leave, I'm a prisoner. He immediately, of course, went nuts as any dad would and contacted his congressman who happens to be Ted Poe.
GLENN: Yeah, the only thing that concerns me, and I'm -- you know, I don't want to judge her because it seems like everybody involved backs her up. But the only thing that concerns me is she did sell the rights to her story to a movie company.
GRAY: She did. She sold the screenplay, but that wasn't until I think September of this year, August or September or something. And so she had waited. I mean, what we thought, I knew the story happened a long time ago because Halliburton and KBR haven't been together. They divested. They divested a while ago. It's been six, eight months. So I knew it was quite a while ago. So I asked Ted Poe about it and he said, oh, yeah, this happened two and a half years ago. And we were shocked that in two and a half years, there's been no arrest, there's been no investigation apparently.
GLENN: She said, I woke the next morning in the barracks and I found my naked body battered and bruised. I was still groggy from whatever had been put in my drink. I was bleeding from my legs and my breasts were severely disfigured. I found out later my attackers tore my pectoral muscles due to the brutality of the attack. One of the men who raped me was brazen enough to be lying at the bottom of the bunk of my assigned bunk bed. After getting to the clinic and having a rape kit performed and pictures taken of my bruising, I was locked in a container with no food, no way to call my parents and I was placed under armed guard by Halliburton. I didn't have access to soap, toiletries, a toothbrush or any of my belongings. I was unable to leave, therefore I was imprisoned. After some time one of the guards allowed me to use his cell phone out of sympathy. I called my father back in Houston who quickly contacted Congressman Ted Poe who then initiated a congressional inquiry out of Baghdad. At this point I was still in a state of shock, severely traumatized and I was scared more my life. They said to her, "You'll never work again, you'll never come back to Baghdad, you'll never come back to work for Halliburton." Are you kidding me, you'll never come back to work for Halliburton? Wait a minute. Your employees that did this to me, I don't think I want to work for Halliburton. What kind of threat is that? That one kind of stuck out to me.
I have met and known many military wives that I wouldn’t touch. I knew some that were out in the bars hooking up the first night their husbands were gone. Most were like my wife, good decent people. I may have jumped the gun on my condemnation, but this whole story just smells rotten.
Get 'em all, including all the obstructors.
I may have jumped the gun on my condemnation, but this whole story just smells rotten.
Ping to read later
Was there any additional information about this? Whatever happened? Some DU-er I am “chatting” with on another site brought up this case claiming that all Halliburton employees are gang-raped or something...
And this made sense to you...???
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