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Comment by mgiannopoulos | Hacker News Reader

From the article > According to the Kansas Star, the company reached a settlement with the former employee who had made the allegation, Gary Funkhouser. <

A financial settlement means that there was some basis to the allegations. The fact that she was not convicted does not mean much in a political environment where we need more people with a higher set of standards.

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> A financial settlement means that there was some basis to the allegations.

Absolutely not true. Being accused of misconduct can ruin a person's life and it can be better to settle rather than fight it. There are plenty of innocent people who have accepted plea bargains as well.

Apple vs oranges. Being offered a financial settlement to drop a complaint is the exact opposite of accepting a plea bargain.

They are both risk management decisions, so I don't get the "exact opposite" explanation. I suspect it cuts both ways. Some cases were buyouts for obvious bad behavior, and some cases were more like trumped up extortion. I don't know that there's a credible source for how often it's one vs the other.

> A financial settlement means that there was some basis to the allegations.

It means nothing of the sort. It just means that the business decided the cost of fighting the case was likely to outweigh the cost of settling.

Usually it is the company that has more resources at its disposal, not the employee

Sensible companies do cost/benefit estimations and settle if it's financially the best course of action. They're not going to the mat on every case just because they've got money to spend.

Well there analysis wasn't very good, was it? It was her company and it's come back to hurt her years later.

Note she fails to mention the settlement in her denial, giving a misleading version of events.

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