Not Being Able To Keep Your Story Straight

I was terminated from my job at the DC law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld by a firm partner, Dennis M. Race, Esq., just before noon on Tuesday October 29, 1991.

After I left the firm's premises, my supervisor, Chris Robertson, called a meeting of her employees to tell them that the firm had decided to change the lock to the office suite where I worked because my supervisor was afraid I might return to the building to kill her.

Oddly, earlier that morning, after the termination meeting, I stopped by my old office where I saw my supervisor. She asked me if I could stay on for a while to complete the task I was working on earlier in the morning.

So, after I left the building I was depicted as a potentially homicidal maniac. But earlier that day, the same person who said she was afraid I might kill her had asked me to stay a while to complete my work. Talk about not being able to keep your story straight!

Let's read the record on Appeal in Freedman v. DC Dept. of Human Rights, at 531-532. The following text is excerpted from a letter I wrote in September 1992 and forwarded to Donald Stocks at the DC Dept. of Human Rights.

As of September 1992, two key events had not yet occurred:

--In December 1992 I received in the mail Dennis Race's response to interrogatories that denied that the quality of my work was a factor in the decision to terminate and alleged that my mental health was a prime factor in the firm's termination decision.

--It was not until July 1993 that I learned that after I left the firm's premises on the day of the termination (presumably), my supervisor had told her employees that I might return to the building to kill her.

"In the early afternoon of Tuesday October 29, 1991, after being advised of my termination -- indeed, after Dennis Race had personally overseen the sorting of my personal effects and told me not to bother even submitting to the firm my billable hours (about 2.75 hours) for that morning -- my supervisor requested that I complete the task I had been working on that morning. I refused my supervisor's request, politely reminding her that "I don't work here anymore." For a supervisor to request that a terminated employee remain to complete his work is peculiar, especially where the actions of a senior manager carried the implied yet unequivocal direction that the employee leave the premises without delay (which was itself peculiar in view of the fact that I had not been terminated or gross misconduct). But for a supervisor to request that a terminated employee remain to complete his work where the termination was in part based on the allegation that the employee's work was seriously flawed is more than peculiar -- it is incomprehensible. My supervisor's request that I remain to complete my work after my termination raises a serious question as to whether the supervisor in fact had a good faith belief that my work was seriously flawed as alleged. My supervisor's apparent equivocation on the issue of my job performance was mirrored in a notable equivocation by Dennis Race himself. In advising me of the decision to terminate, Denis Race told me that employees had alleged that when they directed me to correct my work I simply ignored them, thus calling into question my work attitude and diligence. Yet, later, shortly before we parted company, Dennis Race told me that whenever he passed by the desk where I was working [at a temporary work station on the fourth floor] he saw me hard at work, thereby complimenting my work attitude and diligence. Why would Mr. Race bother to compliment my diligence if he had a good faith belief that the work product resulting from that apparent diligence fell sufficiently short of the standards set by fellow employee to justify my termination?

In summary, the evidence points to one conclusion: that the decision to terminate on Monday October 28 1991 came swiftly and without justification and was prompted by one event -- my complaint of harassment against Christine Robertson and others to the attorney managers Malcolm Lassman and Dennis Race on Thursday October 24, 1991. Further, the equivocal behavior of Dennis Race and my supervisor, Christine Robertson, at the time of my termination strongly indicates that these individuals did not have a good faith belief that my work and work attitude were in any way deficient as alleged."

And indeed in the Response to Interrogatories that Dennis Race filed with the Department of Human Rights dated May 22, 1992 -- about 6 months after the termination -- Dennis Race said that the quality of my work was not a factor in the decision to terminate.

Why did Dennis Race emphasize that the poor quality of my work was a significant factor in the firm's decision to terminate at the termination meeting on October 29, 1991?

Why did Dennis Race deny that I had ever lodged a harassment complaint against my supervisor Christine Robertson in the Response to Interrogatories that he filed with the Department of Human Rights dated May 22, 1992? Is it because my harassment complaint in October 1991 had put the firm on notice that Chris Robertson was a problem supervisor--something the firm wanted to deny in McNeil v. Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld?