If you can’t prove that people that had sex with Dave were unduly promoted or kept on staff or that people that refused sex with Dave were unduly kept from promotion or fired you really don’t have much. It’s risky having sex with subordinates, because it can be tough to establish a lack of harassment, but it isn’t slam dunk for the other side. In some ways the more underling Dave did the better, it can help establish a pattern, if their career track with Dave looks just like everybody else’s there’s evidence of lack of harassment.
#1 in after his idiotic attempt to make it into a joke, he mentioned several times that they worked for him. Remember, just the employee being to elucidate a feeling of harassment or much a worse, a feeling, whether acted or on or not, that sex was a part of the job is enough to drive a verdict.
#2. CBS/WWP/Letterman are permanently intertwined in the minds of the public. Forget corporate veil. This is a case CBS cannot afford to let go to depositions, let alone public trial.
Imagine you are CBS and 5 or 10 NYC trial lawyers, each trying to make a bigger name for themselves, gets to depose Letterman, Moonves and others for 2 or 3 days, EACH, by EACH lawyer!
CBS best hope is for everyone to agree on binding arbitration or a rent-a-judge. Settlement, to avoid trial will be in the millions each.
Remember, most settlements are for less than a Plaintiff would hope to get at trial. This will be for far more, to avoid the publicity.