Anybody else get sued yet today? Just curious.
You know, I've been doing some thinking about this subject. As an MBA, I often ponder the effects of business decisions. I must admit that I am in a quandry as to why this facility would even want to broach the subject of suing its former patients.
It seems to me that not only does it look really bad from an ethical viewpoint, it is absolutely horrible from a public realtions perspective. Surely the marketing management cannot believe that this will do anything but severely constrict revenue.
Exactly how do these people think a prosepective client would view the constant campaign of lawsuits against former patients? If it were me, I would say to myself, "Gee, not only are they charging an exorbitant amount of money for their services, they might also sue me if I ever talk about my experiences." This is a definite deal-killer. There are no two ways about that. It simply looks, sounds and feels completely unethical.
My second point is that should any one of the targets of this baseless litigation take the matter to trial or even to discovery for that matter, there is going to be a heck of a lot of damaging information made a matter of public record.
The media is already beginning to seize upon the issues raised by former patients. Once there are publicly documented statements and evidence entered into the public record, the "anti-program" media is going to have an absolute hay-day with it. It's going to be picked up by outlets like AlterNet first, then it's going to spin off into more mainstream media and it's going to eventually find its way into anti-program websites like ISACCORP.org as a matter of abundantly documented public record for which there will be no rebuttal.
Are Kathleen and her cronies really so obtuse that they can't see which way the wind is blowing without checking the weathervane? It is absolutely astounding to me that these people even entertain the idea that they can prevent the dissemination of damaging information to media outlets through litigation against patients. I have the distinct intuition that this is going to blow up in their faces and destroy their already tenuous public image.
