Page 31 - Pierce County Lawyer Novemer December 2024

What I observed about Eric’s job was there was a set time to
get the materials and boxes pulled. He would arrive at 9 am
and had to be at the corporate office in downtown Bellevue to
deliver the company mail by 11 am. I helped him as best as I
could. One day I came in to find Eric’s boss, Amy, who told me
he quit. About the third day of helping Amy, she asked me if
I would consider taking this job, as it paid more. I said “sure.”
She walked into the warehouse office. I saw her pick up the
phone, talk to someone, and hand it to Pat. That day I timely
delivered the corporate mail to everyone, the managers, vice
presidents, and men in suits with three letters before their
name starting in ‘C’ (CFO, COO, CEO, etc.). One day I came
in to see the boss lady had been crying. She said she gave
her two weeks’ notice and regretted hiring me. Not to cause
problems after hearing such a mean remark, I said, “I need to
deliver the mail.”
A short time later, when I arrived at the corporate office, I
was given a note to immediately go to the VP of Marketing
(my big boss). When I got there he was talking with the VP
of HR and instructed me that when I delivered the mail I was
to hand a “Hiring Policy” flyer to each manager and have
them sign that they received it, “and then personally hand the
signature sheets to General Counsel.” The flyer discussed job
posting requirements, including minimum job qualifications
and minimum requirements to keep positions open for
two weeks. It also addressed applications, interviewing
guidelines, background checks, and to avoid showing bias and
no discriminating. Well, the Comat Kid knows everything,
especially when I heard the company was being sued for
discrimination. A former employee was angry that they had
applied for my job and didn’t even get interviewed. I heard
the discrimination was about an applicant with a medically
documented disability. That day I asked General Counsel,
while handing her mail to her, if I could say something
about the lawsuit. She said she did not want to talk about it.
Instead she went and shut her door, turned to me sideways,
and pointed to her ear. I told her to do my job you need to
be physically in shape because you have to bend over and lift
heavy boxes and place them on pallets. The next day I came
into work I was handed a camera and told to take pictures of
the Comat area, for insurance purposes. A little while later I
heard the lawsuit settled.
And what happened to the Comat Kid? On February 28, 1989,
it was announced that Danzas Ltd., a Swiss-based international
freight transportation company, had taken over Northern Air
Freight. Furthermore, I was told when I arrived at Bellevue
that all marketing material would be directly shipped to the
US offices from Sweden.
The postscripts to this lawsuit:
1.) I heard the plaintiff had a bad back, but I don’t recall
mentioning this,
2.) since “minimally qualified” cannot be used as a defense,
the petitioner was asked to do a physical exam and failed; that
showed that even if the petitioner were hired, he would not
have been capable of performing the work. And I did not even
get a thank you.
Practice tip – here are a couple of ideas other attorneys
have shared with me regarding clients reviewing pleadings
before filing them with the court.
1. After the document draft is ready to go to the client, select
“Microsoft Print to PDF” (if you have this option) and create
a PDF file for your client to review. Not always, but for most
clients, this will stop them from making changes to the
document before discussing the changes with you.
2. Name your documents sent to your client with v1 for the
first draft, v2 for the corrections, etc. Then, in your email, say
something like, “I have made corrections to your declaration
and am enclosing version two for your review.” For myself,
I start the file name off with the client’s last name, what
the pleading is, date of draft, and version number. For
example, NAF_Declaration Comat Kid_2-28-1989_v1. Some
attorneys add initials of the responsible staff member. So,
if the paralegal is Jennifer Smith, NAF_Declaration Comat
Kid_JS_2-28-1989_v1. If the client signed it, I change the
version number to signed, i.e., NAF_Declaration Comat
Kid_JS_2-28-1989_signed.
Thank you for reading my article.
Happy holidays!
David Robert Shelvey is a solo practitioner in
Sumner, WA. He is a member of the TPCBA,
the Pierce County Lawyer Magazine and CLE
Committee. He has been an attorney since 2015.
He also volunteers as president and cook for a
local nonprofit. david@rockcraft.org.
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