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PrintOctober 3, 2010
Sloppy Shooting
The more we learn about this business of Meg Whitman, Republican gubernatorial candidate in California, supposedly hiring an undocumented worker as a domestic the more we have to ask ourselves, how on earth did Gloria Allred ever become known as a hotshot attorney?
The letter from the Social Security Administration that Allred cites as damning proof of Whitman’s wrongdoing does no such thing. Read for yourself:
This letter does not imply that you or your employee intentionally provided incorrect information about the employee’s name or SSN. It is not a basis, in and of itself, for you to take any adverse action against the employee, such as laying off, suspending, firing, or discriminating against the individual. Any employer that uses the information in this letter to justify taking adverse action against an employee may violate state or federal law and be subject to legal consequences. Moreover, this letter makes no statement about your employee’s immigration status.
If anything, that letter would scare most folks off from doing anything even if the employee didn’t produce the requested proof of legal status. It’s essentially a case of damned if you do and damned if you don’t. But Allred apparently didn’t read that paragraph because she says in her email which is reproduced immediately below the SSA document at the TMZ site:
“A mismatch of a Social Security number to an employee’s name is a clue that the employee may be undocumented.”
Notice that legal weasel word may. Also notice that Allred makes this contention in direct contradiction to an explicit warning that such information is not to be used as a basis for making any such inference. What part of basis do you suppose grandstanding Gloria doesn’t understand? My legal training is limited, but Greta van Susteren, who is a lawyer, absolutely ate Allred’s lunch last night on her show. (Video at link)
Allred has misrepresented the truth and her supposed client. If this domestic worker being exploited has any sense at all she’ll hire another attorney and sue the hell out of Allred for legal malpractice and placing her in legal jeopardy. And for this kind of legal sloppiness Gloria gets the big bucks?
Someone should tell Gloria and the Democrats that when the only thing you’re hitting is your foot, put the gun down and step away.
