No 1. in a series on abusive legal tactics
CHUBB’S LITIGATION RETALIATION MANAGEMENT GUIDE ENCOURAGES AGGRESSION, COUNTERCLAIMS
I was fired I was fired for protecting Digital Realty. As an expat who was just extended 2 more years in Singapore, I felt I was safe to go about discreetly solving issues before they progressed much further. Eventually I turned to an SVP in San Francisco. Someone leaked my reporting to my manager and things just went off the rails from there.
That was April 2014. It wasn’t until April 2016 that I found out that Digital wasn’t actively involved in the lawsuit. They had given over control of my career and reputation to complete strangers in New Jersey. Their insurance company Chubb, whose sole objective is to end the lawsuit, paying out the the smallest claim possible. They do not appear to take into account whether the employee’s lawsuit has merit. They do not care if they damage the employee. In fact you would be surprised to find out that the folks at Chubb have no collective conscious whatsoever. They simply want to drive profit from a product called Employment Practices liability Insurance. The insurance is carried by firms looking to protect themselves against losses paid out as damages in the event they are sued by a current or fromer employee. As soon as an employee mentions legal action of any kind, your details are uploaded into a portal. You are now the insurance companies problem. They have their own law firms who operate without a conscience. The law firm of Seyfarth Shaw was imposed on Digital by Chubb to handle my lawsuit. Chubb essentially wants law firms who are trained in the ways which have been proven most effective in squashing former employees.
Chubb has “confidential” litigation manual where they direct their selected attorneys to be aggressive and consider counter-suing the employee. If there is no valid reason to apparently the law firm is free to create false reasons to sue. Even change your emails to suit their purpose. reason to? What is surprising is that they filed their false claims in federal court. These are a problem because not only are they defamatory and therefore damage my reputation, it costs a great deal of money to defend against them. All money that Digital/Chubb will be required to reimburse me for plus interest, when I am successful in ending this litigation.
Digital Chubb decided that they would sue me. They came up with some really odd reaons to do so. They decided on Defamation for one set of claims.
What is Defamation?
Individual: Defamation is the act of making untrue statements about another which damages his/her reputation
Business: For a company to prove defamation they have to prove special damages; including the loss of particular customers or a general reduction of business. Digital must also be prepared to show that these special damages were the direct result of the false publication.
Example #1:
I contacted Deloitte because they were doing doing my expat taxes. I asked them about a tax issue that was preventing me from leaving Singapore. It was a fire drill of sorts so I started my email to Deloitte with:
“Apologies on behalf of my former employer.”
Digital Chubb are using this as an a reason to sue me for defamation. How is that defamation? Is it true or false? Which customers did Digital lose as a result of this statement? How was there a general decline in sales? I look forward to the day that Seyfarth will try to convince the Judge that they lost customers or business as a result of that statement. It should prove to be an interesting 15 seconds in court. This example alone proves how desperate Digital Chubb are. Or does it show and how badly they wish to harm my reputation jsut having the claims out there. Maybe they simply want me to have to spend on legal fees.
Example #2:
Digital’s attorney becomes so desperate they begin to actually fabricate defamatory statements Somers never made. When they fail to include the actual quote, it usually means they are getting creative, like in this example:
From Digital’s claim: “In an email dated May 1, 2014, Somers wrote to [Deloitte] stating that the head of HR doesn’t seem to be aware that they pay my [Singapore] taxes so no advanced thought there.”
But in fact the HR SVP didn’t know I was paying taxes in Singapore:
Ellen Jacobs email to Somers, April 28, 2014: “With respect to your inquiry about the Tax Clearance issue, while it is our current understanding that you do not need Tax Clearance because you are paid in the U.S., we are working to confirm this information and will provide you with additional information next week”
Again, the statement is true so how is it defamatory? It isn’t. It’s just a desperate Defendant showing how far they will go to damage me. You can see how the Digital/Chubb’s retaliation is never-ending and never enough.
There are about 20 more counter-claims I now have to defend because the General Counsel at Digital Realty is allowed to engage in misconduct of this kind without repercussion
Exposed for what they are, Digital/Chubb’s retaliation via counterclaims falls flat. What are the repercussions to Digital for abusing the courts to damage a plaintiff?
“(CODE OF CIVIL PROCEDURE SECTION 128-130) A trial court may order a party, the party’s attorney,or both to pay the reasonable expenses, including attorney’s fees, incurred by another party as a result of bad-faith actions or tactics that are frivolous or solely intended to cause unnecessary delay. “Frivolous” means totally and completely without merit or for the sole purpose of harassing an opposing party.” More important than that even is it shows the court the defendant’s true motives.
Digital Cruelty 