Staring Down an Idiotic Nutbag

OK, so I'm at a Labor Board Hearing today representing the owner of a small mom & pop bakery in L.A. whose own brother and sister in-law, both of whom were unrepresented, filed a complaint against him for failing to pay them due wages. The brother and sister in-law claimed they were owed about $25,000, while my client was of the position they were owed nothing because they were never employed with him. Although my client had witnesses and documentation to back up his position, my client, upon my strong recommendation, settled the case for less than 10% of what the brother and sister in-law were claiming.

The reason why I encouraged settlement in this matter was because the State Labor Board is notorious for being employee/claimant friendly. Indeed, the experience at my firm has been that even though an employer may have great evidence to present at a Labor Board "trial," Labor Board hearing officers, who aren't even attorneys for crying out loud, will more often times than not award an employee what he is asking for.

When it looked as though there would be no settlement between the parties (all of whom are Mexican and speak little english) the interpreter that we were using left the room to get the hearing officer. In the interim, my client's brother started talking a bunch of smack to my client in Spanish. When I told the brother, in english, to stop speaking to my client, he started getting mad and told me to quit pointing my finger at him. When I "asked" him what he was going to do about it, he "answered" by repeating my question and told me in a hushed aggressive tone to stop pointing my finger at him. At that point, I asked him if he was threatening me. Possibly knowing better not to do that, he again repeated his command for me to stop pointing my finger at him, even though I wasn't. When I then sarcastically asserted that he didn't understand english, he angrily mumbled some gibberish about my not understanding something or other. After that, we just stared each other down for a minute or so until I looked away with a slight smile.

I tell ya, if it wasn't for the total unpredictability of Labor Board hearing officers and the amount of money my client possibly could have been personally liable for, I would have loved to have tried this case. Clearly, I had gotten under the skin of this nutball brother of my client(during settlement discussions, he and his wife were being argumentative when I brought up the evidence I intended to present to prove that my client never employed them). But, alas, the interests of my client came first, and since these two crooks were willing to take the absoulte amount of money my client was willing to give them to just go away, settling was the most prudent thing for him to do.