Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 780, Being Sued.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 780.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
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Me?
Pretty good.
Thank you for asking.
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This episode is about being sued when you do something wrong and someone else wants you to pay money for it.
Let's get started.
Hello, Allie McNeil.
Allie, this is Jerry Mason.
This is one of those times I wish we had in-house counsel.
Jerry, you know that our firm will do its best to represent you, as we've done in the past.
You can count on me and all of the attorneys in this office.
How about if I come to your office this afternoon and we can discuss it?
Okay, that's great.
In the meantime, can you give me a brief rundown?
Yeah, we're being sued for negligence.
In fact, it's a class action suit against our company.
All right.
Can you fax or email me the papers so I can see what they're alleging?
Yes, I can do that.
We really need your help with this, Allie.
A lawsuit like this could ruin a company like ours.
Don't panic.
We'll take a look at it and see if there's any merit in the case.
It might just be a frivolous lawsuit.
If they have a case, you'll have to find a loophole to get us out of this or negotiate a settlement.
The last thing I want is to go to court.
Let's not get ahead of ourselves.
We'll discuss it this afternoon.
And Jerry?
In the meantime, try to lay off the coffee.
Our phone conversation begins with Allie answering the phone.
And, like a lot of people do in a professional situation, they answer by saying hello and then their name or the name of their company.
So Allie says hello, Allie McNeil.
And the other person says, Allie, this is Jerry Mason.
I need to talk to you right away, right now.
He says we're being sued.
To sue S-U-E someone as a verb means to go to the court, to go to a judge and say that this person did something wrong and they owe you money.
They should pay you money for something they did wrong to you.
They hurt you or damaged you or your company in some way.
Not physically damaged although it could be that but it could also just be some sort of financial loss money that you lost because of something they did.
Jerry says that their company is being sued and we've just been served.
To be served in this case means to receive legal papers from the court notifying you, telling you that you are being served or that you must take some sort of legal action.
Jerry says, this is one of those times, one of those instances or situations where I wish we had in-house counsel.
Counsel, C-O-U-N-S-E-L, means a lawyer, an attorney, someone who is knowledgeable about the law.
In-house, I-N-H-O-U-S-E, means means working for your company.
Some companies are big and they have their own lawyers and their own accountants.
Smaller companies usually don't, so they don't have a lawyer in-house inside of the company who works full-time permanently for the company.
Allie says, Jerry, you know that our firm will do its best to represent you.
So now we understand that Allie is someone who works for a company of lawyers, a group of lawyers.
We call a group of lawyers lawyers. a group of thieves.
No, I'm just kidding.
We call a group of lawyers a firm, F-I-R-M.
The law firm is a group of lawyers who work together.
So Allie says that her firm will do its best to represent you.
To represent someone, in this case, means to be their official representative.
Really, here it just means to be their lawyer, to be their attorney, to be the person that will give them legal advice.
Allie says you can count on me.
You can rely on me or depend on me and all of the attorneys in this office.
Attorney, A-T-T-O-R-N-E-Y, is just another word for a lawyer.
A little more formal word perhaps, but they mean the exact same thing.
Allie says, how about if I come to your office this afternoon and we can discuss it?
What do you think of that idea?
How about if?
Jerry says, okay, that's great.
Allie says, in the meantime, meaning until that happens, can you give me a brief rundown?
A rundown R-U-N-D-O-W-N.
One word is a brief summary, a short summary or description of what happened, of some problem or some event.
Jerry says, yeah, we're being sued for negligence.
Negligence N-E-G-L-I-G-E-N-C-E is when you're not careful, when you don't do what you are supposed to do, and then someone gets hurt because of it.
So if you're a company and you have a door that's broken and if you open it you could hurt yourself,
So someone comes to your building and they open your door and they hurt themselves.
They might sue you for negligence.
You should have been more careful.
You should have taken care of the problem.
Jerry says his company is being sued for negligence.
It's a class action suit.
A suit is the legal action of suing someone.
The term class action is.
Usually involves a court case with more than one person, usually a whole group of people who are suing you.
Often it can be an entire category of customers.
So some customers are mad about the way Starbucks serves its coffee.
So they file a class action lawsuit, a class action suit.
They're representing all of the customers of Starbucks.
That's the idea.
Allie says, all right, can you fax or email the papers so I can see what they're alleging?
To allege A-L-L-E-G-E is to say that someone else did something wrong.
To accuse someone else of doing something illegal or wrong.
Jerry says, yes, I can do that.
I can email you the papers.
We really need your help with this, Allie.
A lawsuit like this could ruin a company like ours.
A lawsuit again is just another word for a suit, which is the legal action that someone takes against you.
When someone sues you, we say they have filed a lawsuit.
Allie says, don't panic.
We'll take a look at it and see if there's any merit in the case.
Merit, M-E-R-I-T, is whether it's of any value, if it's worth anything, if it's true.
The word merit can also mean excellence, being good at something, or some accomplishment.
Allie says it might just be a frivolous lawsuit.
Something that is frivolous.
F-R-I-V-O-L-O-U-S is not serious something that someone does, but there isn't a good reason to do it.
A frivolous lawsuit would be someone suing you over something that isn't true or isn't very important.
Jerry says if they have a case, meaning if they might have some merit to their argument.
A loophole L-O-O-P-H-O-L-E one word is a part of the law that is poorly written or it's not very exact.
It's not very precise, so that people can find a way to not break the law by finding some exception to the law, by finding some vagueness or some imprecision in the law that allows them to still do something legally.
Jerry says if there is a case here, Allie and her law firm need to find a loophole or, if they don't, to negotiate a settlement.
A settlement is when a company agrees usually to pay the person who is suing them some money.
They say, okay, we won't go to the judge.
We won't have a legal case.
We'll just pay you some money, and then you'll sign a paper saying I'm not going to sue you anymore.
Jerry says, the last thing I want is to go to court.
That means I don't want to have a trial.
I don't want to go to a judge.
Allie says, let's not get ahead of ourselves.
To get ahead of yourself means to start planning or doing something before you should, before you really know what you're doing or before you know you should be doing it.
I have a friend who wants to get his driver's license.
And even before he got his driver's license, he went out and he was looking at cars to buy.
And I told him don't get ahead of yourself, meaning you can't buy a car until you get your driver's license.
So don't worry about that.
Start doing the things you should be doing about getting your driver's license.
That's getting ahead of yourself.
Allie says, Jerry.
And Jerry says, yeah.
Allie says, try to lay off the coffee.
To lay off, the L-A-Y-O-F-F is a two-word phrasal verb meaning to reduce the frequency or amount of something, to do something less.
To lay off something is to do less of it.
In this case, to drink less coffee, because Jerry's getting all excited and when you drink coffee you get more caffeine, which can get you more excited than you should be.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Hello, Alec McNeil.
Alec, this is Jerry Mason.
I need to talk to you right away.
We're being sued and we've just been served.
This is one of those times I wish we had in-house counsel.
Jerry, you know that our firm will do its best to represent you, as we've done in the past.
You can count on me and all of the attorneys in this office.
How about if I come to your office this afternoon and we can discuss it?
Okay, that's great.
In the meantime, can you give me a brief rundown?
Yeah, we're being sued for negligence.
In fact, it's a class action suit against our company.
All right.
Can you fax or email me the papers so I can see what they're alleging?
Yes, I can do that.
We really need your help with this, Allie.
A lawsuit like this could ruin a company like ours.
Don't panic.
We'll take a look at it and see if there's any merit in the case.
It might just be a frivolous lawsuit.
If they have a case, you'll have to find a loophole to get us out of this or negotiate a settlement.
The last thing I want is to go to court.
Let's not get ahead of ourselves.
We'll discuss it this afternoon.
And Jerry?
Yeah?
In the meantime, try to lay off the coffee.
We have the best in-house script writer in podcasting.
Her name is Dr. Lucy Say, and we thank her.
From Los Angeles, California, we thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2012 by the Center for Educational Development.
