Respect by Susan Fanetti

Author:Susan Fanetti [Fanetti, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: biker, motorcycle club, outlaw, soldier, wounded warrior, animal rescue
Publisher: Susan Fanetti
Published: 2023-09-01T18:30:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Tyrone Miller, the lawyer Margot worked for as a paralegal-slash-secretary, put his elbows on his desk and gave Phoebe a serious look. “It’s good you haven’t called her yet. We should have a clear strategy before you do.”

“I don’t want to talk to her at all,” Phoebe said. “I wish I’d never heard her name.”

“Understood. Do you have solid evidence that this woman,” he glanced down at the notepad before him, “this Lydia Copperman is the one who filed the complaint? Or is trying to get your donors to cut you off?”

Phoebe pressed her fingers to her forehead. She could feel the beginning of her scar there, and beneath it the slight dent in her skull. Her head hurt worse today than it had in years, and she was having a lot of trouble making sense of what Ty was saying. Since she’d been injured, stress created a fog that rolled through her head and made it difficult to find her thoughts and put them in the right order, and she’d been running on maximum stress for days now. Since that fucking certified letter.

“Besides the fact that she threatened to do exactly this?” she finally answered.

Ty nodded. “Yes, besides that. It is extremely difficult to prove defamation, Phoebe. We need hard proof—and corroboration. Someone who heard her make the threats, someone she spoke directly to and made false claims. Someone who can back up your accusations.”

With a sigh, Phoebe gave him the best evidence she had. “Rebecca Salisbury at the Humane Society told me that Copperman contacted her and tried to pressure her to remove me from the list of grant-eligible rescues.”

Ty jotted down a few words. “And did she make false claims about the ranch, or did she simply try to influence them to stop helping you?”

“I don’t know. Aren’t they both bad?”

“For you, sure. But if all she did was ask them to reconsider you, or even if she threatened to withhold her support if they continued supporting you, she would be completely within her rights. It’s only if she lies about you and that lie does real harm where defamation comes in—but again, it is extremely hard to prove to a legal standard. We might have better luck if she made false statements in her health-department complaint. They did the inspection this morning?”

Sitting at Phoebe’s side in Ty’s humble office, Margot scoffed loudly. “They showed up at six-fucking-thirty this morning. Tell me that’s not harassment.”

Ty gave her a level look. “Now, I know you know better than that. We might feel sure there was malicious intent, but as this was an unscheduled inspection based on a complaint, you know they can and will show up when they want. Without proof, a text message or memo or voice mail, something like that, where someone involved states clearly that they mean it as harassment—or better, that this Harry Morgan is colluding with Copperman—we can’t prove harassment. Filing a false report is a crime, but that’s for the health department to address.

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