I'm Killing My Dog!

Time To Meet Your Doggy Maker

Moments before being executed by Beneful.
Their crime? Being too adorable.

I'm kidding. I'm not killing my dog. But that's been the conclusion of a lot of people when they've seen some horrifically irresponsible news articles circulating about a lawsuit against Beneful, a popular dogfood maker.

In Federal Court in  Bahston Boston, a class action suit was filed against Beneful alleging that the dog food was slowly poisoning dogs. Such a law suit is like porn for click-bait obsessed media outlets. It's got puppies, death and TOXINS. Those three things get people fired right up. You know that lady who lets her dog fly on the plane with her just drove home from work and began forcing her dog to purge because she fed it Beneful three summers ago.

What does this lawsuit even mean? Aren't lawsuits serious?

Well, at this point, the law suit doesn't really mean that much in the way of facts. In our great country, you can basically sue anyone for anything. While lawsuits are serious and should be responded to, the fact that one is filed doesn't make the allegations within remotely true. Each side of the lawsuit filings are going to read incredibly different. 

I think the best way to describe the initial filings of a lawsuit is to imagine two children telling their side of the story as to why they were fighting. Only those children use boring language and legal citations. 

This is precisely why the the media outlet, I think, is failing. It gives you the salacious part of the lawsuit and doesn't ever bother to try to explain what the legal ramifications are. I'm sure most people would probably ignore the law part like they've ignored the end of this article. It's completely understandable that people would assume the filing of a lawsuit meant something big because courts and the legal world are serious places. And there are rules, damnit. This isn't 'Nam. But no. They don't have to have any merit behind them at all. 

Yeah, but what if they're really toxic?

Let's think this through logically as to why it's probably not toxic. 

1. These people are in the lawsuit are relying on anecdotal evidence and internet science. The guy in the lawsuits admits that he'd been feeding his dog Beneful for 3-4 years, but now the dog suddenly died from it. That's like saying my childhood dog Buffy was killed by hose water because he died after we had been feeding him hose water for 5-6 years. (Let's ignore the fact that my aunt ran him over with her Pontiac). This isn't science. It's an anecdotal example that confuses causation and correlation. 

I won't go over the science here, instead I'll let a veterinarian talk about it here. If you think you know more than veterinarians about your animal's health, take Jimmy Kimmel's challenge and stop taking your animal to the veterinarian.

We won't let Dingo eat our baby, so he settles
for baby residue.

2. Dogs are animals that would eat their own poop if we let them. They are disgusting scavengers that we have invited into our home. You could feed them organic dog food, but they'd rather have a bite of the rotting possum carcass that has been rotting in your work parking for three days because Brenda, the building manager, doesn't think it's her job to call someone to remove it. I feed my dog its own hair and he's just fine. Look at him. He's standing in a baby chair, eating baby food residue. You really think phantom mold could stop him?

3. Why would Purina want to kill its consumers? This rumor has been floating around since 2007. They'd have plenty of time to fix the issues and keep moving on. More living dogs, more Purina sold. Not only that, if they had this long to fix the issue and didn't and continued with a massive cover-up that required thousands of people to stay silent, then they'd have the largest animal lawsuit we've seen since the Circus Animal Peanuts for Pay Lawsuits of the 1910's, which was tried and won by Pebbles the Elephant.

4. The secondary dog meat market. If the dogs were full of toxins, would we be able to have a secondary dog meat market where you sell the remains of your dog to local vendors? What's that? You don't have that in your town? Oh man.

Should I feed my dog Beneful?

I have no idea. Talk to your veterinarian. I started feeding my dogs Beneful about a month ago and they seem to love it. If I were a betting man, I'd put my money on this case being a losing one. Then again, I'm the same guy who finds it amusing to feed his dog the dog's own hair. 

Did the Supreme Court Really Strike a Blow to Breastfeeding Moms?

So is the Supreme Court crazy sexist or what? 

As the husband of a new mom, I know more about breastfeeding than I ever thought I would. There's a stigma around breastfeeding that I had never known about before. A credit goes out to my mom, a nurse, who taught us that such bodily aspects were a natural part of life. She also tried to explain about the anatomy of males to me one time referencing my father, but that talk didn't really end with any thing informative, but has been seared into my brain sense.

So I'm sensitive on the issue. I've seen the anxiety on my wife's face when she needs to feed in public, though that has lessened in time. Living in a pretty liberal city, I haven't really noticed any sideways glances thankfully. So when I saw this article claiming that because a man could lactate too that firing a woman for breastfeeding wasn't sexist, I was shocked. But then my bullshit-o-meter went off, which probably irritated everyone on the 4th floor of the law library, but whatever, law students are the worst. Whenever I see a salacious claim like that, I get skeptical and start asking and answering questions in my tiny brain.

Is that a federal case really saying that women can be fired for breastfeeding because men can lactate too? That doesn't seem remotely right and I can think of 4 Justices who would easily want to review this. So what gives? Is this really a case about breastfeeding? Is The Man still trying to keep women down? (Well, probably yeah, but I mean in this case in particular.)

So let's go to the tape!

Errr.

Let's go check out the case!

Here's the law pertinent to Ms. Ames's situation: 

1. To prove a constructive discharge, an employee must show that the employer deliberately created intolerable working conditions with the intention of forcing her to quit.
2. In addition, an employee must give her employer a reasonable opportunity to resolve a problem before quitting.
3. Evidence of the employer's intent can be proven through direct evidence or through evidence that the employer could have reasonably foreseen that the employee would quit as a result of its actions.

The article above does a solid job of showing examples of Nationwide possibly violating the point 1 above. It's important to note point 2 required Ms. Ames to give her employer an opportunity to resolve the problem and the here author neglected to post any facts that possibly went against Ms. Ames's case on this point.

Facts directly from the case not mentioned in the article:

Prior to returning to work, Ames asked a Nationwide disability case manager where she could express milk when she returned to work and was told that she could use a lactation room. Ames returned to work on July 19, 2010, when her son was two months old and breastfeeding every three hours. By the time Ames had arrived at work that morning, more than three hours had passed since her son had last nursed. Ames asked Neel about using a lactation room. Neel replied that it was not her responsibility to provide Ames with a lactation room. Ames then went to the security desk to inquire about the lactation rooms and was directed to see Sara Hallberg, the company nurse.

Hallberg informed Ames of Nationwide's lactation policy, which allowed employees to gain badge access to the company's lactation rooms after completing certain paperwork that required three days to be processed. The lactation policy was available to Nationwide's employees on the company's intranet, and Nationwide provided information regarding the policy at its quarterly maternity meetings. Ames's conversation with Hallberg was the first time that Ames had heard of the policy. Hallberg sent a copy of the lactation policy to Ames via email. Hallberg also requested that security “grant Angela Ames access to the lactation rooms as soon as possible.” 

When Ames told Hallberg that she needed to express milk immediately, Hallberg suggested that Ames use a wellness room. Because the wellness room was occupied, Hallberg told Ames to return in fifteen or twenty minutes. Hallberg warned Ames that lactating in a wellness room might expose her breast milk to germs.While waiting for the wellness room, Ames met with Brinks to discuss the status of her work. Brinks told Ames that none of her work had been completed while she was on maternity leave, that she had two weeks to complete that work, that she would have to work overtime to accomplish this, and that if she failed to catch up, she would be disciplined. After the meeting with Brinks, Ames returned to Neel's office to see if Neel could help her find a place to lactate. Neel again told Ames that she was unable to help. Neel testified that Ames was visibly upset and in tears. Neel then handed Ames a piece of paper and a pen and told Ames, “You know, I think it's best that you go home to be with your babies.” Neel dictated to Ames what to write on the piece of paper to effectuate her resignation.

TL;DR: Ms. Ames was in physical and emotional pain on her first day back from work, Nationwide gave her some options which she didn't feel were acceptable and then someone helped her write a resignation letter.

That certainly paints a different picture than the draconian one above. Here's where we take this case from enraging and black-and-white and into a grey area:

• Did the employer deliberately do things to make Ms. Ames want to quit?
• Was the wellness room an acceptable resolution as Ms. Ames awaited access to the lactation room?
• Was it unreasonable for the company to require three days on such paperwork?
• Going on to point three, by providing only the wellness room, etc, should the employer have known that the employee would quit?
• Was Ms. Ames's resignation an actual resignation or was she in actuality fired?

I think if you're being reasonable, you can argue both ways for those questions. This is important because it means that the court holding isn't egregious on its face. What you can't argue is that the article above doing a remotely adequate job of explaining the law behind the issue in the first place. They have a clear bias and manipulated the reader rather than educating and suggesting a legit solution. This drives me nuts because they have the moral high-ground that everyone believes in: New parents should feel supported as employees.

Now, let's pay close attention to that last question. It stuck out to me immediately that her resignation might not have been purely a resignation and I'm sure you felt the same. We'll get back to that in a second.

So what did the Appeals Court actually rule?

The Court held that Ms. Ames was not constructively fired. Looking at the facts, they relied on the fact that Ms. Ames did not complete the paperwork that other employees completed and the fact that Nationwide attempted to accommodate her in alternative ways. The court said that even if Nationwide didn't accommodate her and created an uncomfortable work environment, Ms. Ames did not give Nationwide a reasonable amount of time to create an acceptable remedy. Further, the Court noted that it was important that Ms. Ames resigned. Because she resigned, she really couldn't claim she was fired.

I have nipples Greg, can you milk me?

So where is the line that its not sexism because men can lactate too? I have no idea. The word men isn't even in the decision. I even did a ctrl+f search. I have no idea. I assume it had to be discussed in the trial court. Regardless, the Supreme Court certainly wasn't signing off on that statement.

Maybe she should have Amesed higher on her lawyer choice

But wait? Did she actually resign? We have that question above and you told me to pay attention to it, jerk.

I did indeed. Ms. Ames didn't even challenge the validity of her resignation initially, therefor she never had the right to make an appeal based on that issue. She loses there because her attorney never brought it up.

So what do you think, Shane?

I think that there needs to be more empathy in the workplace for new parents. Employers have to understand that there are physical and mental changes occurring in both men and women. When they come back to work, some patience needs to be shown. What seems more troubling about Nationwide isn't that they didn't have her badge for a breastfeeding room ready (HR probably should have), but they should have been prepared to deal with an emotional bump. Rather than help someone fill out a resignation letter, maybe you say take the rest of the day off as a sick day instead. 

I think this goes back to our stigma we use against mental illnesses. The old "Suck it up, champ." You have an employee who needs support, not someone telling them to ignore what's going on. A lot of this is avoided if we grant better maternity and paternity leave, which I think is the biggest issue. (I'm not saying a post-birth mother is mentally ill, by the way. But there are chemical changes that are occurring that affect mental health, so it's the spirit of the example, not the exactness. Please don't murder me in my sleep.)

I think Ms. Ames is ultimately a victim of a larger societal issue rather than a wonky legal ruling. If I were the boss of Ms. Ames, I absolutely would have assumed my behavior was unreasonable and would have led her to quit. However, I also think a reasonable person might not, especially if they've never had experience in breastfeeding. The point here is that there is area for a disagreement and differing and valid opinions.

Not only that, but as always, make sure you're getting sound legal advice. The trial lawyer in this case failed to bring up a point of contention that laypersons saw. If I can see that, they should haave been able to see that because I'm not even good at this lawyerin' stuff yet. (Also I'm not even a lawyer yet.)

Finally, the "journalism" displayed is at best lazy and uniformed. At worst it's a slick piece of click-bait, dishonest propaganda that is intentionally manipulative. Alternet.org should be embarrassed this passes for analysis. They completely took a dump on their readers and they don't seem to care. I suspect the advertisers on their site didn't mind. 

So the Supreme Court isn't against breastfeeding. Rather, we have a sound legal decision that is distasteful when you don't look at the law. There's no reason for the Supreme Court to take this case.

Sidenote: I really wanted to use the line "putting the labor back into labor law," but I couldn't quite fit it back in. So you can keep that joke for yourself now. Use it on a rainy day.

Anti-Vaxxers and the Right to Parent

Sad Shane Time

Sigh.

I don't even know where to begin. As someone who is incredibly pro-vaccination because, you know, the benefits far far far far far far far outweigh the risks (which do not include autism or harmful chemicals), I got a rage headache when I saw Chris Christie's vaccine comments. I was relieved when I saw that he walked those comments back the next day.

Then Rand Paul steps up to the plate and instead of swinging at the ball, he turned around began metaphorically beating science with a bat. In rationalizing his stance that parents should have a choice to vaccinate their kids, he claimed that vaccines can lead to mental disorders. He blew it. I'm going to ignore how incredibly dumb and unfounded that opinion is. I'm not a science or medical guy, but these people are and do a thorough job: http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/.

Instead, he blew it for himself in order to make what is legitimately a grey area, a place for public debate. People are going to kill him for his shitty science, but we should be discussing compulsory vaccinations for children. With our laws and customs, I have to agree with him. It -should- be the parents's choice. While we have standards for how people are expected to raise their children, this threshold is higher than we've customarily done before.

Subpar Legal Analysis 

However, there are consequences for everything and not vaccinating your children is no different. Again, ignoring the medical side, the consequence of not vaccinating your children should disqualify them from attending public schools (medical exemptions are, um, exempt from that statement). I don't care if it's a religious exemption, though I'm sympathetic. I doubly don't care if it's a philosophical exemption and have no sympathy there. Philosophical objections aren't exactly protected by the Constitution. That's about one step away from being a sovereign citizen.

Requiring vaccinations has actually been tried at the Supreme Court level before, as noted in this piece on legal issues with vaccines. " In Zucht v. King, the Supreme Court upheld a local ordinance requiring vaccinations for schoolchildren.31 The Court invoked Jacobson for the principle that states may use their police power to require vaccinations, and noted that the ordinance did not bestow "arbitrary power, but only that broad discretion required for the protection of the public health."" That was in 1922.

1922. We've been having this argument awhile and it's been accepted legal precedent. I'd love to hear Rand Paul blame such "draconian" methods on President Obama.

The argument for a religious exemption holds some water as 48 out of 50 states allow for a religious exemption to vaccines for public schools. It shocked me that Mississippi and West Virginia were the only dissenters because, well, it's Mississippi and West Virginia. Lawsuits have challenged the lack of exemptions, but the Mississippi Supreme Court stood firm relying on Equal Protection and the Fourteenth Amendment saying the exemptions, "require the great body of school children to be vaccinated and at the same time expose them to the hazard of associating in school with children exempted under the religious exemption who had not been immunized as required by the statute." Brown v. Stone, 378 So.2d 218, 223 (Miss. 1979). Basically, all kids should be able to attend public school, including the medically fragile. While religious reasons to not vaccinate are legit and protected, the right to send an unvaccinated child to school is not protected because the medically fragile have the same right to public education and putting them at unnecessary risk is not acceptable.

So, while Paul and Christie (if he even knows what he's trying to say) have a valid point that parents shouldn't be mandated to vaccinate their children. However, when it comes to public schools, they should be able to ban unvaccinated children from their hallways because it protects the kids who have no choice in the manner.