combating reptile tactics in employment litigation
TRANSCRIPT
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Combating Reptile Tactics in Employment
LitigationStrategies for Discovery, Voir Dire, Opening and Closing Argument, Direct and Cross-Exam
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WEDNESDAY, JULY 17, 2019
Presenting a live 90-minute webinar with interactive Q&A
Ken Broda-Bahm, Ph.D., Senior Litigation Consultant, Persuasion Strategies, Denver
Nicole Rhoades, Shareholder, Davis Rothwell Earle & Xóchihua, Portland, Ore.
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Dr. Ken Broda-Bahm
Combatting Reptile Tactics in Employment Litigation:
Strategies for Discovery, Voir Dire, Opening and Closing Argument,
Direct and Cross-Exam
July 17, 2019
Nicole Rhoades, Shareholder
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Taming the Reptile
3. Why Does the Reptile Work?
4. How Should Defendants Respond
-- Generally?
1. What Is the Reptile?
2. How Do You Recognize the
Reptile?
5. How Should Defendants Respond
-- Voir Dire?
6. How Should Defendants Respond
-- Witnesses?
7. How Should Defendants Respond
-- Opening/Closing?
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1. What Is the
Reptile?
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What is the Reptile?
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What is the Reptile?
Paul MacLean and the “Triune Brain”
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The plaintiff’s bar is instructed to try everything
to get the reptile theory to the jury:
If you can’t get it in through the front door, knock
on the back door. If you can’t get through the
back door, then try one of the windows. If that
doesn’t work, try coming down the chimney. If
the place ain’t got a chimney, then dig
underground. Whatever it takes don’t give up
until you get it in.
The Keenan Edge, at 352-53.
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How Effective is the Reptile Theory?
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How Effective Is the Reptile Theory?
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2. How Do
You Recognize
the Reptile?
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How Do You Know You’re Being Reptiled?
1.
Language
of
“Security” or “Safety”
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2.
“Community”
Not Just
Employee
How Do You Know You’re Being Reptiled?
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3.
“Safety Rules”
Instead of
Legal Duties
How Do You Know You’re Being Reptiled?
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The Basic Idea:
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Plaintiff’s Focus Will Be Safety
•The Reptile plaintiff attorney has become an
expert at cleverly planting big-picture safety
questions that on the surface appear to be "no-
brainer" in nature. These questions focus on
the following big picture principles:
• Safety is always top priority
• Danger is never appropriate
• Protection is always top priority
• Reducing risk is always top priority
• Sooner is always better
• More is always better
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“Umbrella Rule” or “Safety Rule”
“A _______________ is not allowed to
needlessly endanger the public.”
Reptile, the 2009 Manual of the Plaintiff’s Revolution,
David Ball and Don Keenan, at 55
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Public Safety
The theory shifts the jury’s thinking to a much broader
concept of injury, beyond the injury sustained by the
plaintiff, to possible injury to the jurors themselves or
the public. The strategy, as defined by the authors, is
based on scaring the primitive part of jurors’ brains
and utilizing (or manipulating, depending on your
perspective) jurors’ fears. The theory posits that this
gut reaction leads to a tendency to give damages
based on a violation of a broader perception of safety.
According to the theory, the jurors believe that
awarding damages will enhance safety and decrease
danger.
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Breaking Your Own Rules
The Reptile Theory also fits with the jurors'
frequent assumptions that the defendant should
do more to ensure customer, community, and
user safety. In fact, even if the defendant has
met the required regulations, jurors often believe
that the regulations are the minimum that the
defendant has to follow. It is particularly
compelling when a Plaintiff attorney can show
that a defendant has violated its own safety rules
or the industry standards which it helped to
create.
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Themes in Employment Cases
• Having a work environment completely free of
discriminatory comments, jokes, bias, and harassment,
however minor, is the only way to protect employees.
• Employees are at the mercy of their employers.
• Employees have no control over their working
environments.
• Employers, i.e., “big business,” have all the control.
• Employers should always act to address every
discriminatory, biased, or harassing comment in the
workplace, no matter how small.
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•Employers have an ethical duty to look out for their employees.
•Employers should not make huge profits at their employees’ expense.
•Employers make it too difficult to report harassment or discrimination.
•Employees should not have a fear of retaliation when they make complaints.
•Employers should never penalizeemployees who make complaints.
Themes in Employment Cases
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•Employers should never attempt to protect a
supervisor about whom a complaint is made.
•Employers look for ways to fire or otherwise
penalize complaining employees.
•Employees are in the best position to know
what happened.
•Employees should get the benefit of the
doubt when there is a question about
something.
Themes in Employment Cases
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3. Why Does the
Reptile Work?
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Why Does It Work: Brain Science?
MacLean’s ‘Reptile Brain’ “has proven outright insane in light
of the latest scientific research.”
“Today, writers and speakers are dredging up the corpse of
this old theory, dressing it with some smart-sounding jargon,
and parading it around as if it’s scientific fact.”
• Ben Thomas, Scientific American (September, 2012):
Just One Problem…
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Why Does It Work: Brain Science?
Threat Response is More Complex
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Motivation
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Motivation
Useful Science Rather than Valid Science
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Motivation
Motivated Reasoning
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Why it Works
Jurors will almost always act out of self interest. If
jurors believe that punishing the defendant with a
big monetary award to the plaintiff will make them,
their family, or their community safer they will
almost always take the bait. This is a huge shift in
the normal plea for fair compensation for the
plaintiff. Ultimately it is a way to maximize overall
damages and convince jurors that punishment will
make everyone safer, even when punitive
damages are not in your case.
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The Reptile Theory Promoted Punitive
Awards
The Reptile Theory can be conceptualized as a
planning strategy that gets plaintiff attorneys to
focus early in the case on crafting the themes
that will be honed through deposition, voir dire,
and eventually the opening. This process
focuses on utilizing the eventual jurors’ desire to
expose and punish the existence of danger when
it exists in the community around them and to
place blame on a defendant large enough and
powerful enough to “eliminate” that danger.
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How It Works
The Reptile Theory is a strategic process. It takes
place from the beginning to the end of a case—
often with the goal of getting a case to settle, but
also with plenty of strategy for trial. The focus is
on three main sections of the process: the
deposition as the key to getting admissions from
the company or entity; voir dire to prime jurors
with the themes before the opening, and the
opening to capitalize on the groundwork set in
each previous stage in steering jurors’ responses
to the case.
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4.
How Should
Defense Respond
to the Reptile?
At All Reptile Phases
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Suggestions for Combating
Reptile Theory
• Prepare your witnesses
• Develop and deploy a controlling idea
• Focus the case on the plaintiff
• Identify a simple standard for deciding the
case
• Identify procedural hurdles the plaintiff must
overcome
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• Eliminate or reduce the perceived threat
of danger
• Create structure to undermine the need
for a referendum
• Prepare a motion in limine and educate
the judge
• Consider an admission of liability in
extraordinary cases
Suggestions for Combating
Reptile Theory
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Legal Motions
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Motion in Limine
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Legal Defenses
Regalado v. Callaghan
Brooks v. Caterpillar Global Mining Am
Biglow v. Eidenberg
Wahlstrom v. LAZ Parking Ltd., LLC
Hopper v. Ruta
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Call Out the Strategy
Let’s see if we can scare them…
It could have been anyone killed out there…
Because it’s a public danger there….
But if you give us $ that will somehow eliminate this danger…
They call this their “Reptile” strategy.
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How Can Defendants Tap In?
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How Can Defendants Tap In?
The Authors’ Reasoning:
It’s Ours not Yours!
“The Reptile prefers us [plaintiffs] for two
reasons: First, the Reptile is about
community (and thus her own) safety –
which, in trial, is our exclusive domain.
The defense almost never has a way to
help community safety. The defense
mantra is virtually always, ‘Give danger a
pass.’ Second, the courtroom is a safety
arena, so when we pursue safety, we are
doing what the courtroom was invented
and maintained for.”
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The “Reverse Reptile”?
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The “Reverse Reptile”?
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So What Can Defendants Do?
Safety is Not the Only Motivator
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How Can Defendants Tap In?
Motivations Lead, Reasons Follow
Motivations
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What Matters?
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How Can Defendants Tap In?
2-Stage Model
Identify
(& Shape)
Motivation
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The Persuasive Route
Q: What
Motivates in
Defense’s
Favor?
1. Protecting Values: Quality Service, Reliability, Competition, Unencumbered by Frivolous Suits
2. Not Being Played:Sound Policy, Law, Logic – Not Emotion.
3. The Individual Claim: The Unique Situation
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5. How Should
Defense
Respond to the
Reptile – Voir
Dire?
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To Prime Jurors for Safety
Voir Dire
Reptile Plaintiffs Want…
Do Your Own Priming
So You Should…
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Counter Simplicity
An employer should always take the
safest route…
Or
An employer needs to make sure
the customer is satisfied.
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Don’t Overestimate the Power of Agreement
Wouldn’t you agree…
How many of you think….
Acquiescence Bias
Social Desirability
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6.
How Should
Defense Respond
to the Reptile
– Witness
Examination?
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To Commit to Safety Rule
Witness Examination
Reptile Plaintiff Wants…
Avoid Over-Simplifying
Instead Witnesses Must…
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The Witness Can Thwart the Safety Rule
1. Prevent Danger
2. Cover a Variety of Situations
3. Be in Clear English
4. Focus Explicitly on “Must” and “Must Not”
5. Practical and Easy to Follow
6. Defendant Agrees or Looks Silly Denying
The ‘Safety Rule’ must…
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1.Break out of the
“Yes/No”
2.Demand Precision
3.Avoid Absolutes
The Witness Can Thwart the Safety Rule
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Q: “You would agree with me, that a
employer should never needlessly
increase job stress, right?”
A: “I agree that minimizing worker stress
is always important, and that is balanced
against the goal of achieving a good
outcome for customers.
The Witness Can Thwart the Safety Rule
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Depositions
• Reptile plaintiff attorneys need to get damaging admissions or contradictions in testimony from key witnesses in order to force settlement early. The biggest reason for the success of this “focus on the deposition” strategy is that most witnesses are poorly prepared to answer deposition questions posed in the manner taught in the Reptile Theory books.
• Defense witnesses are often lulled into believing that their best strategy is just to "listen to the question, answer the question, and don't volunteer anything unnecessary." This strategy leads to a series of yes and no answers, with no explanation or caveats provided until the witness is boxed into a corner which he or she cannot escape.
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Demonstration: Witness Examination
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7.
How Should
Defense Respond
to the Reptile
– Openings and
Closings?
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Embrace Safety
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Potential Counter-Themes
• Employer X does a lot of good for the general
public.
• It hurts the community (and honest people) when
people make false claims of discrimination, bias,
and harassment.
• The costs of doing business, and in turn the costs
of goods and services, go up when people make
phony complaints.
• Employers must not settle phony complaints,
because innocent other employees (those
accused) can get hurt.
• Unfortunately, there are dishonest employees who
try to take advantage of their employers at the
expense of everyone else.
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Potential Counter-Themes
• The general public will suffer if employers pay or
overpay on complaints made to them.
• It is important for employers to investigate each
complaint to determine if it is valid, and to not act
if there is no evidence to support a complaint.
• Employers are not meant to be a guaranteed
slot machine or free ATM machine and give out
cash to anyone who makes a complaint.
• Employees have an obligation to read the
Employee Handbook and ask questions if
anything is confusing.
• It is wrong for employers to look for loopholes or
act unethically, and the same is true for
employees.
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• Employers and employees should be held to the same
standards of ethics and honest conduct.
• Employees must make complaints in a timely manner, as soon
as they are aware of a problem.
• Employers don’t want to not act on valid complaints, but if they
make a mistake they will work with the employee to fix it.
• Employers are made up on honest people who want the
business to succeed, and want their employees to be happy
and productive.
• Lawsuits are supposed to be about fixing discriminatory,
biased, or harassing situations. Lawsuits are not necessarily
about firing the offending party when training and an apology
are all that is needed to fix the situation
Potential Counter-Themes
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Questions?
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Dr. Ken Broda-Bahm
Combatting Reptile Tactics in Employment Litigation:
Strategies for Discovery, Voir Dire, Opening and Closing Argument,
Direct and Cross-Exam
July 17, 2019
Nicole Rhoades, Shareholder
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