The Misconduct Tipping Point is Always Lurking
Stop and self correct before you have a personal or organizational crisis
Sometimes a person feels as though they can always act without limits, treat people however they would like, without risk of painful punishment.
A Los Angeles judge has told rapper and singer Lizzo (born Melissa Viviane Jefferson) and her attorneys that the motion to dismiss a sexual harassment lawsuit that has been filed by three of her former backup dancers, has been turned down.
“Facing allegations of harassment and discrimination, Lizzo argued last year that the case should be dismissed under California's anti-SLAPP statute - a special law that makes it easier to quickly end meritless lawsuits that threaten free speech (known as "strategic lawsuits against public participation"). Her lawyers argued that the accusers were using the lawsuit to ‘silence’ her,” writes Bill Donahue at Billboard.
While judge Mark H. Epstein rejected the claim that Lizzo fat-shamed a dancer, he otherwise didn’t rule in her favor but instead decided that the case will proceed.
Lizzo: Uh oh. I thought my high-powered, lucratively-paid legal team would get me a get-out-of-trouble free card.
Dancers Arianna Davis, Crystal Williams and Noelle Rodriguez say Lizzo and her team created and operated a hostile work environment, with sexual harassment and religious and racial discrimination. They also claim that the weight shaming was and is a form of disability discrimination.
Then there is the allegation that Lizzo forcefully cajoled the dancers to go to a live sex show in Amsterdam and once there, pressured them to play with the performers, including, Donahue writes, "eating bananas protruding from the performers' vaginas."
Lizzo reportedly encouraged Davis to touch one performer's breasts, the lawsuit says. Davis did so.
Lizzo’s attorney, Martin D. Singer, says that Davis, Williams and Rodriguez have "an axe to grind" and inferred that they are retaliating against Lizzo because the dancers had been reprimanded over "a pattern of gross misconduct and failure to perform their job up to par."
Who’s telling the truth? That’s an important question. Which party, which attorneys?
Right now, everyone has a lot at stake. Someone and one legal team will likely feel triumphant while others will be discouraged, angry or both. Or maybe depressed.
Know what I think? Lizzo is probably not entirely clean with her behavior. So she has exposed herself to risk. Now, did she do all that has been alleged? Maybe so. And if so, she is likely going to have a lasting stain on her name and be paying out some money that will make her mad. If she didn’t do most of what has been claimed, she has had her name dragged through the mud yet a favorable legal outcome could give her some form of “scoreboard” with critics.
As for the dancers, I find it difficult to believe they are embellishing or lying about everything. Yet they could be embellishing or lying about certain points of their case. People lie, especially when angry and wanting to badly hurt someone or capitalize on a chance to take what is not theirs but that to which they feel entitled. The dancers, of course, could be telling the truth, the whole truth.
You might consider all this a case of waffling but the reality is there are different possibilities outside of black and white or either-or truth about this conflict.
The court may or may not boil out the impurities (lies) of the case. That doesn’t always happen. What will happen is bad news for someone, maybe different people. The court judgment and money paid (or not paid) will (probably) help someone feel vindicated and confident enough to crow a little in the press.
Michael Toebe is a reputation consultant, advisor and communications specialist at Reputation Quality, assisting individuals and organizations with further building reputation as an asset or ethically protecting, restoring or reconstructing it.
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