Stockton Rush Needed Slapped, not SLAPP
W:OceanGate, CC BY 3.0
Not sure if Plato was contemplating the design specification of deep ocean submersibles when he quipped “good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws” but nevertheless here we be.
Many tried to warn Stockton Rush that he was flirting with deadly disaster. When Karl Stanley, a friend of Rush and a submersible expert, heard a cracking sound during a dive on the Titan, he cautioned Rush to conduct extensive testing on the hull. Rush replied to Stanley saying “Keep your opinions to yourself,” and “I hope you of all people will think twice before expressing opinions on subjects in which you are not fully versed.”
When Rob McCallum—an expedition leader and former adviser to OceanGate—raised concerns, Rush replied, “We have heard the baseless cries of ‘you are going to kill someone’ way too often. I take this as a serious personal insult.” Rush followed what might be the worst-aged email ever with a phone call to McCallum.
As McCallum recently explained to me, Rush threatened him with litigation if he criticized OceanGate to others. (To his great credit, McCallum told Rush that he would not be intimidated into silence by the threat.)
And when one of his own employees sounded the alarm about OceanGate’s dangerous trajectory, Rush lashed out with a SLAPP. David Lochridge, once OceanGate’s director of marine operations and chief submersible pilot, had serious concerns about the Titan’s safety. After his concerns were ignored by the company, Lochridge wrote a detailed inspection report of the vessel’s defects—resulting in his termination. When the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) informed OceanGate that it was investigating Lochridge’s termination as a whistleblower protection matter, things took an even uglier turn.
Rush and OceanGate had Washington attorney Thomas Gilman threaten that, if Lochridge did not withdraw his OSHA complaint and pay the company’s legal expenses, OceanGate would “sue him, take measures to destroy his professional reputation, and accuse him of immigration fraud.” And OceanGate did exactly that.
Ultimately, after being put through financial and emotional hell, Lochridge settled with OceanGate. In order to get the company to stop destroying his life, Lochridge withdrew his OSHA complaint and was forced into silence about the Titan’s safety issues.
It’s impossible to know for sure whether a full OSHA investigation and public scrutiny would have forced OceanGate to reconsider its plans, or if it would have deterred potential expeditioners from entrusting the company with their lives. But Stockton Rush and OceanGate did everything they could to ensure that they didn’t have to find out.
SLAPP has been something Ari Cohn has railed on for a long time, and there has been much push-pull over SLAPP laws and similar types of legislative efforts to deal with “frivolous” lawsuits. 32 states have some version of anti-SLAPP on the books. There has been a concerted effort to get a unifying federal anti-SLAPP law that comes up every congress, and goes no where every congress. Like any other legislation, the devil is in the details of how they are written as to effectiveness and application. Cohn further down in the piece talked about Washington state’s anti-SLAPP law being struck down in court and having to be revised.
Still, the debate over lawsuits — while important to hash out and refine a huge part of our legal system — is secondary to the true villain of the OceanGate tragedy. Stockton Rush was dead set on doing what he wanted, how he wanted, when he wanted, and was happy to use any and all means legal and otherwise to get himself there. Someone like Rush whose opening line was “I’m so disruptive the rules can’t apply to me” wasn’t going to be deterred by any regulation. Story after story has come out now how much good advice and honest criticism of the Titan vehicle went not only unheeded but was rebuffed and argued with.
So, sure, you can blame it on the SLAPP if you want. SLAPP and anti-SLAPP laws are messy things that need coherent, consistent legislative and legal boundaries. But out-of-control rich guy on an ego trip who refuses to listen to anyone isn’t going to have a regulatory fix. Such individuals will always find a way around such barriers. It might sound harsh to say someone like Rush needed a good slap of the non-legal kind somewhere along the line to check his ego. But consider, dying in an implosion and costing 4 other people their lives at the site of one of humanities most infamous man-made tragedies in the process is harsher still. Ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure, and whatnot.
It’s the leadership people…..
Any guy who chooses not to listen to, essentially SMEs, is a fool. Listen, you can then discard, but listening is always a good thing. Stockton sounds like a douche.Report
SLAPP is short for Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. It is when someone has a semblance of a claim or one with enough teeth to survive a demurrer/motion to dismiss but it is also clearly done in a way to silence someone making a complaint or comment in the public forum/sphere.
A good example would be if Mr and Ms. Smith create a website that accuses a major agricultural company of environmental damage and animal cruelty along with evidence and photographs. They are doing this in the public sphere and exercising their rights to discuss matters openly. In return, the major agricultural company accuses them of industrial espionage or some such because somehow Mr. and Ms. Smith got a hold of photographs and documents to support their accusations. Is there enough here for a claim, potentially but the reason for the suit is to create a chilling effect because now Mr. and Ms. Smith need to spend lots of money on lawyers to defend themselves and this will send a message to other activists.
Anti-SLAPP motions and statutes are supposed to protect against such lawsuits.
A frivilous lawsuit is more subjective (eye of the beholder and all that) but one where there was really no factual or legal merit in bringing it.Report
I’m a bit skeptical about the ability of an individual to unilaterally withdraw an OSHA complaint. He may have withdrawn his complaint, but I don’t think that necessarily resolves the issue for OSHA unless OSHA agrees.
The most common situation in which a complaint is withdrawn is when OSHA determines in pre-screening that a complaint is either untimely or fails to state a claim. Because OSHA has to notify the employer before taking any official action on the complaint, including dismissing the complaint, OSHA notifies the employee of their intentions and provides the employee an opportunity to withdraw the complaint so that the employer isn’t notified. These are general statements, OSHA administers a number of statutes and there is always some variance by industrial sector.
But it sounds like the complaint passed screening and if OSHA dropped the case, that would have been OSHA’s decision based upon what information it was provided. Would be interesting to see what that was.Report
Having worked for a federal agency that investigates complaints of federal regulation violations, often times cases will be dropped if the complaint is withdrawn. Doubly so when it’s a whistleblower complaint–there’s truly nothing to investigate if the complainant ceases alleging that they were fired in retaliation.Report