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Man Bites Dog

By Ailish M. Nic Phaidin
Brevard Technical Journal

You remember Doug Williams and Kourosh Kenneth Hamidi? If you're a senior executive, manager or supervisor, you should remember them. In fact, you should have a complete file on them both. That way, you may never need a human resource special counsel.

So, for the few of my readers who do not remember these two men, let us all have a moment of recollection, and reflection.

Doug Williams, or should I say, the late Doug Williams, was the angry employee who shot dead five of his co-workers and seriously injured nine others, in early July at the Lockheed Martin aircraft parts plant a few miles outside Meridian in Mississippi. He also shot himself. This act of unmerciful vengeance and savagery is not unprecedented in corporations all across the world. The Doug Williams case was a matter of the system-against-one-man; the system being the corporation.

The case of Kourosh Kenneth Hamidi exhausted itself on June 30, 2003, but in the California Supreme Court. Hamidi was an engineer with the Intel Corporation for several years when he injured himself in a car accident whilst driving home from a work-related conference. The bones of the case are that Hamidi, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Iran, filed a claim for workers' compensation benefits and his claim was granted. Then, for some silly reason, the Intel Corporation appealed the case and won. Hamidi then apparently tried to get his job back, but Intel's spokesman, Chuck Mulloy, would only comment that in 1995 Hamidi was dismissed with cause.

In spite of Hamidi's pain and personal problems (he declared bankruptcy in 1997), he pursued Intel with a vigor that might leave even the most persistent amongst us gobsmacked. His campaign, amongst other innovative actions, included emailing almost all of Intel's employees. The crusade against Intel culminated in the Intel Corporation suing him for "trespass to chattel".

Intel's lawyers, Morrison & Foerster, although not authorized to discuss the case after the ruling, in their brief before the California Supreme Court contended that the basic issue was one of property rights, when they stated, "Ownership of private property carries with it the right to prevent others from using this private property to harm the owner".

The unclothed bones of the case are that Intel won in the lower courts but lost in the California Supreme Court. It is doubtful if the case will reach federal level since legal issues related to trespass are state issues. The case of Intel Corporation v. Hamidi is a matter of one-man-against-the-system; the system being the corporation.

Why a company with over 65,000 employees did not have the wit to get advice, other than legal, in their tussle with Hamidi, shrivels the imagination? Hamidi's lawyer, William McSwain, an ex-Marine and rookie lawyer, hinged his main argument on the protection of all of our First Amendment rights. "If Intel could use trespass laws, without demonstrating any damage to its equipment, then this would have huge implications for all kinds of communications taking place on the Internet. It is ironic that a technological giant such as Intel, which has helped to usher in and has greatly benefited from the cyberspace age, now expects the state to protect it from a creature of its making", McSwain argued.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a not-for-profit public interest group, who filed a brief in Hamidi's favor, said, "To us, it seemed very clear that if Intel won this case we'd all be at risk of losing the fundamental value of the Internet, which is its openness." The potential to stifle communications, had Intel won this case, is staggering.

However, the two cases have, individually, huge implications for corporations all across our nation - and the world. The power of communications in this era of global business transactions is crucial to all our ability to be productive, valued and respected workers and human beings. That power can be a negative or a positive element in our daily lives.

The case of Doug Williams is enormously sad for the families of those who were brutally murdered and injured, and also for the Williams family. In the work environment it appears that his employers were endeavoring to deal with his problems which, from press reports, spanned the spectrum of social, racial, cultural, environmental and ethnic questions. It is difficult to render an analysis of this type of situation without intimate knowledge of all the nuances of the case. However, it may be said that when a manager has exhausted all his or her tools for dealing with difficult personnel, then it is always time to consult with more senior people who may know a better way and/or the outside professionals who have expertise for dealing with such sensitive matters.

The case of Intel Corporation v. Hamidi was ill-informed, ill-conceived and illogical from the beginning. Had the Intel Corporation had a policy in place, or indeed upon receipt of Hamidi's initial email message to its employees, put a corporate-wide policy in place, to deal with this destructive behavior, then their own destructive behavior would not have been necessary.

The essence of a contented workforce is positive reinforcement of corporate policies, ethics, and essence, and the timeliness and consistency of its communication to all employees from senior executive level. First and foremost in that process should be a written communications policy. Any communications policy isn't worth the paper it's written on if it's not communicated properly. There's really no point in having a dog and barking yourself. More often than not dogs are loyal friends who give and need positive reinforcement. They can also be trained to nip at the ankles when necessary. A barking manager is as worthless as a dog trainer in an alligator pond.