Today in Yet Another WPP Discrimination Suit Update news, the New York federal court judge overseeing the case now wants to check out the video that WPP’s legal team and the firm representing Erin Johnson’s sparred about last week.
Someone at the law firm of Vladeck, Raskin & Clark has a very good relationship with someone at Campaign, which reported on the latest developments this afternoon.
According to the byline-free piece, District Judge J. Paul Oetke released the following statement this morning:
“Plaintiff is directed to deliver a copy of the video to the Court’s chambers for review in camera. Plaintiff is also directed to serve a copy of the same video on Defendants. Defendants may file any further letter or motion regarding the video within one week of the date of service.“
This means…bring the DVD to court so I can watch it myself and also bring a copy for WPP so they can figure out whether they will file another objection. Only after that process plays out will the judge determine whether to include the DVD as evidence in the case.
As we noted last week, WPP argued that the tape cannot be allowed because it might compromise the intense strategic innovations of JWT’s “Proprietary Process.” They also claimed that Johnson hid the (allegedly) offending portion of the video even though her lawyers say she let both Gustavo Martinez and chief talent officer Laura Agostini know that she was going to delete it so every other JWT executive could avoid sitting through Martinez’s rape jokes in future strategy meetings.
Looks like this one will go drip, drip, drip for some time.
[Pic via the JWT blog]