National Restaurant Association chairman during Cain’s tenure: ‘It’s a hatchet job’

In an interview with The Daily Caller, former National Restaurant Association board chairman Joseph Fassler offered a firm defense of GOP presidential front-runner Herman Cain, along with an explanation for how Washington’s best kept secret — the identities of Cain’s sexual-harassment accusers — was also kept from the association’s board.

“The accusations? It’s a hatchet job, in my opinion,” Fassler told TheDC from his Phoenix, Ariz. office. “My gut tells me it’s a hatchet job. He gets a lead, he gets some traction, and the next thing you know, here come these allegations. It’s sad.”

Dear Cindy:

Legal would only inform the Board if there was evidence of actual harrassment and it would have been done by the attorneys in Executive Session without Herman present. HR would not do this. If the investigation did not prove evidence of harrassment, then the Board would not be made aware of baseless charges.

Boards set vision and goals; policy implementation and HR issues are handled internally. In national associations, the Board does not involve themselves in the minutae of everyday operations. (In small associations, the Board typically represents hands-on volunteers, but NRA is HUGE). I know; I work in the Association world .

It would have been handled through legal and HR. The association's legal team would have taken the lead on this, and moved all aspects of the claim to their office. Herman would not have been able to talk about it, or any of the details, to anyone but HR and the attorney. He would have been advised whether he was cleared or not and then told to move on with his business.

If this woman settled for $45,000, it's most likely a severance to ensure against her making future baseless claims. In all likelihood, it would run through the association's insurance policy and the attorneys were hired by the insurance. It's SOP to settle out of court because low settlements, even against frivilous charges, are less expensive than going to trial.

This hits close to home for me. I've been harrassed at a prior job in the public sector, but chose to walk away and find another one. I also had a former boss who was falsely accused and his career was destroyed and he was terminated without even having a chance to defend himself.

As someone who's seen it from both angles and understands how associations work, I'm sticking with Cain. I believe he is innocent.

If this woman settled for $45,000, it's most likely a severance to ensure against her making future baseless claims.

One of the best things about Free Republic is that, no matter the subject, there's always somebody on here who knows a lot about a subject. I learn things. On the other hand, sometimes when I know just a little about a subject, I am surprised when something is stated as fact and is continually repeated as a mantra, chanted over and over again from post to post until it achieves a life of its own.

We don't know if the payments to these women were severance or settlements. However, what they were called is often irrelevant. A settlement agreement will often state that the payment is severance so that the party that pays can state, honestly, that it never paid a settlement. The party who receives the money doesn't care what it's called. If these women received a payment based on a sexual harassment claim made to the company and never filed with the EEOC, it very likely could have been called "severance" and not a settlement payment.

Second, Free Republic has been buzzing with people saying that $35K, $45K, and eve $85K 'proves' that any claims were baseless and settled as nuisance claims. I support Herman Cain. I hope that any claims made, if claims were made, were baseless.

Cain was President of the National Restaurant Association from 1996 to 1999, so I've been looking for any reference to the average settlement of a sexual harassment claim during that period.

The best I can come up with is this reference tothe 1998 book, Sexual Harassment Claims Step-by-Step, by Dale Callendar. According to this reference, in a section called "Settlements: Why Should I Settle?", this book, written during the time period of the claims against Cain, states:

"[T]he EEOC recently settled the class action sexual harassment claim of seventeen women, who together were awarded $1.3 million. A brokerage firm settled the sexual harassment claims of six women for $750,000. The Army settled a civilian's harassment claim for $60,000. But the average settlement is actually much smaller. One study found that the average settlement in a discrimination case is $38,500."

If (a) some claims were receiving over $100,000, and (b) the average claim was $38,500, then a lot of claims were being settled for under $38,500. Suddenly, if the three claims against Cain were settled for $35K, $45K, and $85K, they don't seem so small (and yes, I realize that the average included nuisance claims - but that's what we/I want to believe the charges against Cain were). The settlements - if the figures quoted have been correct - are around or above the average. If Cain's transgression was supposed to have been merely to indicate the height of his wife, and other sexual harassment claims include quid-pro-quo sexual favors, or groping cases . . . I start to get uncomfortable when Cain's cases are being settled at and above the average settlement amount.

The book also states: "It can be difficult to prove a sexual harassment case. The EEOC made "no reasonable cause" findings in almost 40 percent of the cases that it decided." The NRA may not have wanted the embarassment, but if 40% of EEOC claims result in "no reasonable cause" even in the heyday of sexual harassment claims . . . I start to feel uncomfortable about whether all Cain did three times was to indicate the height of his wife. A "this high" hand signal should have had a much better than 40% chance of being ruled "no reasonable cause," and any settlement for something that inoffensive should have fallen far below the average settlement of $38,500.

I'm still a Cain supporter. But I'm not announcing to the world that he's innocent of all possible charges. Because I don't know enough yet, and the tiny bits of information that are being presented as facts don't smell good.

Only one woman received any kind of settlement.

Let's mark this for future reference, because this thing is a moving target. The rag, Politico, is now stating that two women received payments. The New York Times confirmed the $35K payment on Tuesday. Politico says that the $45K payment is to the woman that Cain refers to when he says the NRA settled with a woman.

I don't know the facts. None of us does. We have some serious filters between us as the facts.

Information is coming from one more sources, including:

Current executives or employees of the NRA with access to the information;
Former executives or employees of the NRA with access to the information;
The women involved;
Attorneys for the women involved, or current or former employees or other attorneys in those firms who had access to the information; and
Disgruntled former members of Cain's campaign who were briefed on the one incident, as Cain had briefed a staffer on in 2004 Senate bid (and remember that Cain lost high-ranking members of his Iowa staff, and I have no idea to which candidate they went).

Next, information is being given to us in drips, partly because it's coming that way (as the "I though about accusing him" anonymous sources surface), and partly because Politico appears to be playing games.

But before you state as a fact that only one woman received a settlement? I'd wait a few days.

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