Two secretaries will share a settlement of around $450,000 from the Atlantic City, N.J. school district and its insurer after filing sexual-harassment charges. Carol Lee and Jennifer Torres sued following
a comment Assistant Superintendent Thomas J. Kirschling made to them and two others in July 2002. At some point mid-month, Kirschling said “I ride them hard and put them away wet.”
The two secretaries sent him a memo saying they were outraged. He later explained and apologized, according to a subsequent memo.
Kirschling was apparently using a rural idiom that means someone is tired or worked hard. The phrase is taken from the need to cool down a horse after strenuous exercise. Only a mistreated horse is stabled while it is still sweating.
After the women complained, the district assigned an outside attorney to investigate, but that probe inadvertently lapsed….
The school board approved the settlement at a meeting last month, although some members considered the amount excessive. “Board member John Devlin said ‘It’s nuts, though, just for that comment.'” (Derek Harper, “Harassment settlement in A.C. totals $450,000”, Press of Atlantic City, Dec. 2; “A.C. school board settles harassment claim for undisclosed sum”, Dec. 1)(& welcome Ramesh Ponnuru, Cathy Young, Michael Fox, Dave Zincavage, Liberty Belles readers).
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I have used a version of that quote before. When someone is tired and worn I say “you look rode hard and put up wet”.
Well, Gunner, looks like you’d better be ready to pony up $450k…
The Next Thing We Do, Let’s Dig Them Up and Kill Them Again
Is there any thing that could make me hate lawyers more? You really have to ask? Ugh. I think I’m going to go punch myself in the face a few times….
It tells me these women have pornographic minds..a lot of ignorant people interpert his quote as having to do with sex.
Misinterpretation Good for Big Bucks
Walter Olson reports that two secretaries will share a settlement of around $450,000 from the Atlantic City, N.J. school district and its insurer after filing sexual-harassment charges based on a fallacious interpretation of an assistant superintenden…
This looks like a job for Don’t-Sue-People Panda.
File Under: Things Sure Have Changed Since We Got Kicked Out of School
An eighth grader in Stronghurst, IL has been removed from school and faces criminal charges for compiling a list of people he found “annoying.” When I was a lad, there was no need to keep a list, as such a…
Sure, give them them money… then sue them for all the money you ever paid them, as they are obviously incompetent.
The phrase is about horses, pure and simple. I’d be surprised if it weren’t in occasional use in at least 50% of the land mass of the United States. Just because they are too ignornat to know that doesn’t mean it was sexual harrassment.
Or, if someone says, “This is a yummy hotdog”, can I sue them for sexual harrassment? It doesn’t matter that they were referring to, you know, an ACTUAL HOT DOG as opposed to a sex organ – all that matters is the way *I* interpret it, right?!?!?
What a load of crap.
Let the lesbian cowpersons clarify.
http://www.suspectthoughts.com/greenvalencia.html
The phrase is about horses.
If that is reliably confirmed, then the misinterpretation by the plaintiffs, the attorneys, as well as the judge, may itself be sexual harassment of the defendant, not to mention a slander.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slander
“Rode Hard and Put Up Wet”
The title phrase is one that I heard my mother, and probably my grandmother, use many times in my youth. It basically refers to having worked hard and being overly exhausted. They both grew up in south Georgia, so it may well be a regional thing.
I…