Gainey Law, PLLC Seattle Employment Law Attorney

The Rhino Report - Paused (Indefinitely)      Sometimes I get a bit more than a bit anxious, and I start asking ChatGpt, who I call (Geo) "Hey Geo, could we create a (fill in the blank) thingy that could save the world? And you know how that thing is, it can be very optimistic and over-promising. (Hallucinations much?), and it always says, "Absolutely, would you like me to outline that, or mock-up a website page, start coding that, or whatever." And then we are off to the races.  Here’s one mock-up by Geo:  I start planning, and it keeps feeding me more options, and we go down lots of rabbit holes. Rabbit holes where I get to test the real-life frustrating limits of ChatGpt, and my patience - often ending up with nothing but sleep deprivation to show for it.  To be fair,  sometimes it works. Not usually when trying to save the world, but like when I automized organizing this mess of an excel sheet I had had going for ten years. But often it does...

    No More Denial.  The Dismantling of Democracy is Underway I am not the first to notice or to say, that our democracy is under attack , but it is alarming how many people who should be saying it aren't saying it. Or maybe getting my news off ads on Instagram is not exhaustive. So, I had a great idea. I’m building a public dashboard that monitors the legal, political, and cultural dismantling of democratic norms in the U.S. It will feature news highlights, state-level legislation, court rulings, and data-backed summaries — updated regularly. The goal isn’t fear. It’s clarity. The dashboard will, with luck, go live soon. In the meantime: The harms are real. Silence is dangerous. The choice to see clearly, and speak up is still ours. Talk to each other, reason things out, find credible sources of information and share them. Stand up for and with your neighbors. 

Most people are unaware that statutory caps apply to damages available in Federal Court. These caps drastically limit the recovery that a plaintiff can receive from a winning lawsuit. To put it simply even if a jury awards Millions of dollars to a plaintiff that was discriminated against in the workplace, in most cases that plaintiff's recovery will be reduced to AT MOST $300,000. Why don't people know this? The media loves an exciting headline that sells the seemingly contradicting ideals that a) that David can beat Goliath - a single person we can speak truth to power and win against all odds and b) there is too much litigation, and people are just out to shake down corporations. Otherwise, headlines would look something like this: Jane Doe wins 127-million-dollar lawsuit against Acme Executive for Racism and Sexual Harassment BUT  Damages awarded will be reduced to the statutory limit of $300,000. Not exactly effective click bait.     But the truth, in this emplo...