Last week the Mark Hurd case was back in the news. And the lesson for readers of In The Court of Public Opinion is this: assume everything is going to come out... eventually. And that someone will be to cover it. This is especially true in the age of the Internet, of video phones, iPads, PACER, Twitter and TMZ.
Hurd, the former CEO of Hewlett Packard – he’s now president of Oracle – was accused of sexual harassment by Jodie Fisher, a former event planning contractor for HP. Last week, a letter from Ms. Fisher’s attorney, Gloria Allred, was ordered to be made public by a court in Delaware.
The Delaware Supreme Court ruled that the information contained in the letter is only "mildly embarrassing" to Hurd, and therefore is not protected from public disclosure. It didn't contain trade secrets HP, or non-public financial information. Rather, it contained details of Hurd's alleged sexual pursuit of Fisher.
The letter came from celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred.
An HP investigation did not find any evidence to support the harassment claim, but instead uncovered inaccurate expense reports relating to Fisher. This was enough to force Hurd out in August 2010.
According to the letter, Hurd made it clear to Fisher that he was seeking a sexual relationship.
Allred also claimed that Hurd made several sexual advances toward Fisher, which Fisher rejected.
The letter alleges that, as a result of her rejections of his sexual advance, Hurd was not hired for any future HP events.
Hurd's attorney, Amy Wintersheimer, said his lawyers had requested that the letter be kept confidential because "it is filled with inaccuracies (it should be noted that Fisher herself in a subsequent letter disavowed some of the contents of this letter, saying it was inaccurate and distortion and that she never meant to hurt Hurd).
Hurd’s attorney released a statement last week that said, in part: "The truth is, there never was any sexual harassment, which HP's investigation confirmed, and there never was any sexual relationship, which Ms. Fisher has confirmed.”
Just another example of a legal battle being simultaneously fought out in the court of public opinion – at it seems stories like these crop up every week.