"This is one where it really doesn't matter what the reality is - that WILL be the appearance to Joe Sixpack and Sally Housecoat."
Often with law - and especially when law is presently so unfairly in the press- reality is a lot less dramatic and provocative than much of the public takeaway. One good thing about social networking is that it allows for a check on that.
Many on this thread are acting as if settlement and countersuit are mutually exclusive things. They aren't. Often settlement negotiations precede a lawsuit filing and continue for a very long time; a countersuit is a response to a lawsuit. It is not a general rejection of the option of settlement as endgame.
No one knows what is really happening behind the scenes with this one. But the idea that anyone being sued is better off immediately just giving in to the demands of the claimant when that claimant is a beloved celebrity is an elitist celebrity-infused recipe for the celebration of extortion - mind you I'm not suggesting that Harper is an extortionist; for all I know her claim is completely valid. But no one knows what is happening here. Settlement negotiations may well have been going on. And any particular offer up to this point may have been rejected by either side, perhaps for good reasons. We just don't know.
I would think the conversation on this thread would be very different, however, if the pleadings of the parties had been presented more fairly by tmz. This if perhaps an ordinary employment dispute and not the kind of sensationalized and revolting thing the headline suggests. But ordinary employment disputes presented accurately usually don't make for good copy.
Updated On: 5/26/14 at 08:22 AM