Final judgment

TEN

Mason spent the day reading the arbitration file. Carol Hill signed an agreement when she was hired to submit any claims against Galaxy Gaming to binding arbitration. That was okay with her. She needed the job and couldn’t imagine having to file a claim anyway.

The process was private, quick, and cheap when compared to the courts. Employers liked it because there was no jury that might have either the good sense or bad judgment to sock them with a bell-ringing verdict.

Her case was a garden-variety story of sexual harassment. Charles Rockley, her supervisor, had hit on her until it hurt. When he wouldn’t stop and her complaints to management were ignored, she sued.

Rockley started with compliments about her appearance, for which she thanked him just to be polite, even though his remarks made her nervous. He was her boss and she didn’t want to offend him. It wasn’t long before he escalated to suggestions that she wear tighter, low-cut tops to show off her shape to the customers. She demurred, reminding him that the casino provided modest uniforms for dealers, buttoned to the chin, saving the cleavage outfits for the cocktail waitresses. Rockley had laughed, explaining that he was just imagining how she would look for him.

Next he began asking her out. Just drinks after her shift, he told her. Then it was how about a late dinner, maybe a weekend getaway if she was interested. Each time she declined, explaining that she wasn’t interested and, besides, her husband wouldn’t like it.

Rockley kept at her, finally summoning her to his office one night after she finished dealing, telling her it was time for her to meet the meat. She was afraid she’d lose her job and gave in to him. Afterwards, consumed by guilt, she told him never again. He gave her a bad performance review and put her on probation.

That was Carol Hill’s story as summed up by her lawyer, Vince Bongiovanni, in his closing argument. Mason knew him by reputation. He was the hotshot plaintiff’s lawyer of the month, knocking off companies for big bucks when their employees played grab-ass with the wrong person. Each victory attracted a new wave of clients. No human resources manager looked forward to an invitation to one of Bongiovanni’s courtroom parties.

Galaxy Gaming’s lawyer was Lari Prillman. Employers liked being represented by a woman lawyer in sexual harassment cases because of the not-so-subtle message they hoped it would send. Some of our best friends are women. We even hire them as lawyers. Besides, if we were the creeps the plaintiff says we are, no self-respecting woman-not even a lawyer-would defend us.

Lari Prillman had taken advantage of that misplaced wisdom for twenty-five years, building a successful boutique practice devoted to the defense against claims made by the Carol Hills of the world. She parlayed her own good looks and charm in a male-dominated world, happily taking every advantage, God-given or otherwise. Though she could defend these cases in her sleep, she didn’t, taking nothing for granted and screwing down every fact and inconsistency. She lived by the Al Davis rule-just win, baby.

She dismissed Carol’s accusations and Bongiovanni’s theatrics as the romance-novel fantasy of a disturbed woman looking for a way to distract her jealous husband from her own indiscretions. Carol was the aggressor and the sex was consensual. Rockley backed her up.

Worse yet, Carol was banging one of the bartenders, though Lari put it more delicately, forcing Carol to tearfully admit on the stand that she had been unfaithful to her husband. A fact that Carol had failed to share with him until Lari extracted it from her under oath before Judge Carter, her stunned husband watching as Lari dismantled his wife and marriage.

Bongiovanni protested Lari’s tactics, claiming that Carol’s indiscretions were irrelevant. He was right, but that was one of the wonderful things about arbitration. There were no rules of evidence, allowing both sides to throw mud. Even if she had strayed, he argued, that didn’t make her fair game for someone who had the power to force her to submit or be fired.

Bongiovanni countered with corroborating testimony from a girlfriend of Carol’s, who recounted how Carol had complained of Rockley’s crude advances. He closed his case with the reluctant testimony of another supervisor, who admitted that Rockley had bragged that he was “getting some” from Carol Hill.

Lari Prillman had counterpunched with evidence of the girlfriend’s prior conviction for forging a coworker’s signature on a paycheck she’d stolen from the coworker. Then she cajoled the other supervisor to sheepishly admit on cross-examination that he had often bragged about his own mythical sexual exploits and had assumed as much about Rockley’s story.

After reading the file on his computer screen, Mason charted the case on the dry erase board that hung on one wall of his office. The board was low tech, but it helped him put everything in perspective and allowed him to think in visual terms, picturing parties, witnesses, and lawyers. And it helped him find the pieces that didn’t fit or that were missing.

This case was a deadfall, a push. There was no way to pick a winner from the one-dimensional lifeless transcript. That was not unusual. Judge Carter had heard the testimony live. She had observed the demeanor of the witnesses. She was in the best position to decide whom to believe.

One thing was clear to Mason. There was nothing in the case that would cause Galaxy Gaming to risk blackmailing Judge Carter. If Carol Hill won, Galaxy would pay her off, probably fire Charles Rockley, and move on. Galaxy’s HR manager would conduct sensitivity training for the casino’s employees. It was a cost of doing business. If Galaxy was blackmailing the judge, there had to be a reason unrelated to the lawsuit.

If Charles Rockley was willing to rape Carol Hill, he was probably willing to blackmail Judge Carter to keep his job. He was the obvious-and, for the moment, only-suspect.

Mason went back to the computer, pulling up Rockley’s personnel file, printing the page with his home address and phone number. While he couldn’t sue Rockley to make him back off Judge Carter, he was confident that Rockley would respond to Blues’s powers of persuasion. Maybe, Mason thought, this would all work out after all.

There was only one thing that nagged at him. Rockley was such an obvious suspect. Just like Avery Fish, and Mason was certain that Fish was innocent.