News Article

Commentary: Sideshow Begins in Suit Against Coke . . . Online

The Atlanta Journal and Constitution

Published: May 16, 1999

ATLANTA -- Like many judges, [Judge Richard] Story sees the judicial process as one devoted to balance, where all sides are heard, where each side responds to the other under his coaching and guidance, where fairness rules, and where at the end of the day everybody, winner and loser, feels his best case was heard. In Judge Story's world, the womb of fairness includes his chambers, where he reads and researches and occasionally talks to lawyers, and his courtroom, where he and the lawyers debate and talk to the world, under his guidance.

In this [Coke] case, the debate started on the street corner. Cyrus Mehri and his four plaintiffs announced their suit, claiming discrimination against African-American employees of Coca-Cola, in a press statement. National headlines followed. And in the latest fashion, the plaintiffs posted the complete opening brief, on an Internet Web site for all the world to see, right down to the last detail.

Coca-Cola Chairman M. Douglas Ivester used the new medium too, replying in two e-mail messages to his thousands of employees, saying the company was a fair company and the lawsuit was off-base and included errors in fact.

In the world of balance, control and measured reply inhabited by jurists like Judge Story, this was a grating, unpromising start. That is why he devoted much of his hourlong hearing to urging the lawyers to talk to him and one another, and less to the outside world that he does not control.

In one tantalizing exchange, however, Judge Story asked Cyrus Mehri, in effect, if he could do something about the Web site, www.essential.org, so it would not interfere with his way of doing things. Mehri said he could not control the site, which is operated by a Ralph Nader affiliate.