Breasts

Hooters and the Heavy Consequences of Having Boobs

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We apologize again for yesterday’s technical difficulties, but if you thought we weren’t going to weigh in on the Hooters anti-fatty policy you haven’t been paying a whole lot of attention. Yesterday, a Michigan judge ruled that a weight discrimination case brought against Hooters restaurants could go forward.

When the suit was filed, back in May, I sarcastically quipped about fat people being a protected class in Michigan. Apparently, that’s exactly what’s happening. The WSJ Law Blog reports:

According to this story from the Grand Rapids Press, the suit cites Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination by employers based on a number of factors. Height and weight discrimination were added in a 1976 amendment by then-state Rep. Thomas Mathieu.

Mathieu originally introduced the height and weight amendment because he was “flabbergasted” by the number of cases of unfairness involving women seeking office jobs who possessed the necessary skills and personality, but were overweight.

Let’s all take a moment to reflect on the necessary skills and personality needed to be a Hooter’s waitress…

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Best Defense of the Day: My client is a hottie.

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Let’s be clear. My client is tall, brunette and has an ample breast and is therefore going to naturally be sensuous when she applies cream to her chest.

– Italian lawyer Gianluca Arrighi in defense of a topless sunbathing client, who applied sunblock in a way that “troubled” two boys, 12 and 14.

Jersey Shore’s Snooki Is Not Above the Law

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Some Italian-Americans from New Jersey end up handing down the law. E.g., Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito.

And some Italian-Americans from New Jersey end up getting in trouble with the law. E.g., Snooki, the pint-sized, gallon-breasted breakout star of MTV’s popular Jersey Shore reality TV show.

According to TMZ, Snooki — a.k.a. Nicole Polizzi — was arrested earlier today in Seaside Heights, NJ. What was her alleged offense?

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Lawyer of the Day: Brittney B. Horstman Is Above the Bra

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Would you shed your bra for a client? Earlier this month, Miami attorney Brittney Horstman did just that, while trying to pay a visit to a client at the Miami Federal Detention Center — but it did not help her case.

When Horstman visited the center on June 4, she set the metal detector off. The guards at the detention center barred her from entering while wearing a bra with underwire. The prison dress code doesn’t bar the bras, but it appears to be informal policy at the prison — presumably because an inmate might use the metal to make a Victoria’s Secret shiv and bust out.

So Horstman went to the bathroom and took her bra off. But the guards again declined to let her enter. From the Miami Herald:

In blouse and jacket, she returned, and cleared the walk-through detector.

Again, guards refused to let her pass — now, because she was braless, which is against prison dress code guidelines.

Apparently this has happened before, and there’s a special memo allowing defense attorneys to enter the center wearing a wire (bra). As women know, it’s hard to find a bra without underwire, after all…

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Debrahlee Lorenzana’s Breasts: An Attractive Nuisance

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It seems the world can’t get enough of Debrahlee Lorenzana, the former Citibank employee who alleges she was fired because she was “too hot.” She’s been making the rounds of the morning talk shows, and people have been absolutely gushing about her figure, which allegedly got her fired.

But could you call her body an attractive nuisance to the men and women who supposedly persecuted her for her beauty? Perhaps, since it now appears that Debrahlee’s boobs were not endowed, but acquired. Dealbreaker reports:

In this clip of her aforementioned knockers surgery, … she says she pumped them up to meet “a professional, well-educated man.”

Dealbreaker has a full clip of Debrahlee’s appearance on Plastic Surgery New York Style. Click here to watch it.

You could say that the video defines the word “busted”….

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The Breast Pump for the Corporate Woman

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I can’t claim to know all of the difficulties nursing mothers are up against as they try to handle their personal and professional business. But I do know that the recession has pushed “work-life” balance concerns off the front page.

We’ve all heard stories about the travails of nursing mothers. Horrible stories about women who can’t get an exception to their firm’s “no curtains” policy, thus preventing breast pumping in their own office. Discriminatory stories about women who can’t get a reasonable break to do what needs to be done. We’ve heard positive stories too: like Simpson Thacher’s lactation room — which sounds like a thing nobody would call a “perk” if more women ran law firms.

However, I can’t recall any kind of technological innovation that could actually help nursing mothers manage all the things on their plate. Until now. The device below is beautiful … and terrible. It seems like one of the most unnatural contraptions ever invented to help a natural process. It is corporate and mammalian at the same time.

And it’s just a striking freaking image….

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Lawsuit of the Day: Miss California’s Breasts Are Entered into Evidence

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miss california carrie prejean.jpgThe legal issues swirling around the Miss California pageant are as messy and troubling as the state’s budget problems. Carrie Prejean was crowned Miss California 2009, and was first runner up in Donald Trump’s Miss USA 2009 contest. But her beauty has not been able to distract from controversy.
Topless photos of her emerged on the Internet. She told Miss USA celebrity judge Perez Hilton that she didn’t believe in same-sex marriage during the contest in April. And pageant officials dethroned her in June, giving the Miss California crown to the 2009 runner-up.
Prejean sued the Miss California USA organization in August. She has accused them of religious discrimination — claiming they fired her because of her beliefs about same-sex marriage — and invasion of privacy — for revealing to reporters that her breasts were fake.
Now the organization is firing back with a countersuit, reports CNN. The organization lent Prejean $5,200 for her breast enhancement, and they want their money back. They also deny invading her privacy:

The truth about Prejean’s breasts “ceased being private during the swimsuit competition of the nationally televised Miss USA pageant, in which Ms. Prejean walked the stage in a bikini,” pageant lawyers said.

We present exhibit A — before and after photos — after the jump.

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Discriminating Against Women With Breasts Doesn’t Amount to Gender Discrimination

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Breast feeding discrimination.jpgLast month, I roundly criticized a receptionist for peeing on herself. She claimed that her employer wouldn’t allow her to take bathroom breaks. I argued that personal hygiene and basic self respect demanded that she use the bathroom and worry about suing the firm if they actually fired her for it.
A woman in Ohio was in a somewhat analogous situation. She needed additional bathroom breaks so she could go pump breast milk. Evidently her employer objected, but instead of just — I don’t know — leaking in the middle of the office, she took the breaks anyway. She was fired, she sued her company, and an Ohio court held that firing a new mother for taking breaks to pump breast milk wasn’t gender discrimination.
???
True/Slant has the trial court’s decision:

In its verdict in favor of Totes/Isotoner, the trial court found that:
“Allen gave birth over five months prior to her termination from [Isotoner]. Pregnant [women] who give birth and chose not to breastfeed or pump their breasts do not continue to lactate for five months. Thus, Allen’s condition of lactating was not a condition relating to pregnancy but rather a condition related to breastfeeding. Breastfeeding discrimination does not constitute gender discrimination.”

On appeal, the trial court’s decision was upheld. And there were women on the appellate panel. Details after the jump.

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The Curious Case Of Randy: Part 3

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randy yellow hat.jpg[Ed Note: This is the third and final installment in the Curious Case of Randy, a rather eccentric law firm partner. You can read Part 1 over here and Part 2 over here.]

Weeks pass, and Randy continues to be randy. Stopping by my office no less than three times a day. Gawking at the summer associates as they get their lunches downstairs. I kind of just check out.

I decide to ignore him, figuring that eventually he’ll go away. I do, however, find myself staring at his chest each time he comes in and interrupts me. I’m looking for milk. Or the emergence of breasts. But I don’t recall seeing anything. I think the pills must have gotten that problem under control — but not the other thing. He’s so antsy and manic — sometimes I thought he might start touching himself in my office. Anyway, here it comes, and I’m not lying.

Several weeks later, as February approached — the month that I have always contended is the cruelest month (not April, as T.S. Eliot alleges) — Valentine’s season begins. I tend to ignore all this heart/love crap because I think it’s stupid. I was never one to send out Valentine’s Day cards, even in elementary school. I rejected it. I mean, I can barely say I love you to my parents or my boyfriend; I’m certainly not going to say it to some random person. And I doubt my meatball (non-lawyer, a big plus) boyfriend will do anything anyway.

So I walk into my office at 9:00 a.m., maybe 9:30 actually, on February 14th. There is a large, blood orange, inter-office envelope on top of my desk. I figure it’s my expense report or the report of my billable hours, which I haven’t met for two months. As I open it, however, a pink something falls out. I turn it over. It is a homemade Valentine, constructed out of pale pink construction paper, topped with an old-school white doily, and on it, there is a poem written by a dark purple crayon. My first thought is, how cute; it must be from my partner’s daughter, Rose.

Find out what the poem is about, after the jump.

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The Curious Case Of Randy (Part 2)

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randy yellow hat.jpg[Ed Note: Yesterday we learned that Hope's partner pal, Randy, was taking testosterone pills to treat his "lactating man-boobs." Today we learn about the downside of hormonal supplements.]

“Testosterone pills? Like, how many do you have to take?”

“Well, right now three. One with every meal.”

I wanted to end this conversation and finish the bloody filing so I could go out and get wasted.

“Well, I hope it helps and you feel better soon!” I gathered my papers and stared at my laptop.

“Well, my chest isn’t hurting as much, but there’s this other problem.”

Good Lord.

“What?”

“Well…” Randy leaned forward and whispered, “I can’t stop thinking about sex. I’m like obsessed with it. I can’t do my work. It’s all I think about — I feel like I’ve turned into a teenage boy again.”

Okay, this is weird. Really weird. And, weird is what I sought to escape. I found myself longing for the hairy armpits, unbuckled trousers, and pool parties back at Pants Down.

“I mean… I can’t even go to lunch in public without staring at every girl that walks by.”

This proved to be true. I later witnessed this at a lunch with some summer associates. Each time a remotely attractive girl walked by, his neck moved more rapidly than the ducks I fed stale bread to at our lake house. Clearly he was hungry — and not shy.

“Well, I really think you need to talk to your doctor about this. Maybe they can lower the medication.”

“Well, he has lowered it. Still. All I think about its sex! Even my wife is sick of me — I want it like three times a day.” My mind flashed back to the photo of the blond trophy wife on his desk. Please. She probably doesn’t even want to do it with him three times a year.

“I’m really sorry about your problem. But, I do have to get this filing done in an hour.”

I get him out of my office — and fast. I mean, what does he want me to do here? Service him? Well, he can try the self-service island. I wanted to tell him to go whack off and leave me alone.

Hope tries to finish the task at hand, after the jump.

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The Curious Case Of Randy (Part 1)

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randy yellow hat.jpgFirst of all, never ever shoot your cerebellum up with botulism two days before a deadline. God. My head hurts. Yet, I rise …

Here we go.

“Listen, go work somewhere where people like you… I mean, really like you. Then, you can screw up, and it doesn’t even matter. Hope, just go somewhere where people like you, and you’ll be in. Nothing else matters.”

Sage advice given to me from a senior associate at the Pants Down law firm. I mean, he was forced to eat white buns at his desk, the only staple stashed in desk drawer, because he never, ever left his office — not even to get lunch. But he was brilliant, the golden child of Litigation. And he knew this firm was pure evil. He wanted me to escape while I was still young enough.

So, after putting in a few years at Pants Down, I decided to leave. In addition to fending off the advances of creepy middle-aged male partners, I had become increasingly fed up with the partners there, in general.

Plus, at the end of every single day, I was so completely drained. Had I been a mother required to feed a child, my breast would have just dried up. I just had nothing left to give. Anyone.

I was ready to jump.

So, I decided to go to a firm that was less prestigious and international, but that was fine by me. I liked it better anyway when the world was round, not flat. And I was really sick of reading The Economist. There are just way too many countries. More importantly, I was excited to go to a place where the partners actually cared about me and what I wanted to do with my life. And my friend Molly, who had recently left the firm, was really happy now.

She e-mailed me from her new firm: “Listen, Hope. I came to Pants Down because I thought the people were kind of eccentric, interesting — not the super stuffy lawyers you usually find. Now, actually, after seeing all their erratic crazy behavior, I want boring, dull, bland. That’s fine by me.”

I e-mailed her back: “I know. These people are nuts. I mean, who goes to a ‘pool party’ and jumps in the pool in a bikini in front of their colleagues – especially with unshaved armpits? So gross.”

Query: What woman doesn’t shave her armpits? And, if you opt not to shave your pits because you fancy yourself some Nicaraguan rebel leader, then please, keep your arms down. The summer associate pool party was my breaking point — I had to get the hell out of here. These people were just too weird. And the partner for whom I worked was mean as hell and had an old school mustache. That also was weird.

Well, the new firm proved to be everything I expected. They cared about me. Too much.

Read more, after the jump.

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Judge Kent Indicted on Sex Charges

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Samuel Kent Judge Samuel B Kent Above the Law blog.jpgFor about a year now, ever since he took a mysterious leave of absence in August 2007, we’ve been following the troubles of Judge Samuel B. Kent (S.D. Tex.). A suspension from the Fifth Circuit, allegations of breastfeeding and BJ requests — it hasn’t been pretty.
Yesterday things got even worse for Judge Kent. From the Houston Chronicle:

U.S. District Judge Samuel Kent was indicted Thursday on charges of abusive sexual contact and attempted aggravated sexual abuse of a female employee, making him the first federal judge to be charged with federal sex crimes and the first in Texas indicted in recent history.

Congratulations, Your Honor? It’s a privilege to be FIRST.
The alleged victim — Judge Kent’s former case manager, Cathy McBroom — issued a statement after the indictment came down:

“After a very difficult 17 months, I feel like I have finally been validated. I have listened and read with horror as Judge Kent’s lawyer suggested that what happened to me was ‘enthusiastically consensual,’ ” wrote McBroom, who remains a federal court employee. “I am relieved to find that even federal judges are not above the law, and that sexual abuse in the workplace is never acceptable, no matter the status of the offender.”

Thanks for the shout-out, Cathy!
A little bit more, below the fold.

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