Eye - Schectman downplays past legal problems

In this article, it was revealed that Attorney Steve Schectman, who ran as the shill in the Recall election, stiffed his own guys, the little Earth First!ers who were working for him on two high profile PL related cases.

Schectman downplays past legal problems
Arcata Eye
By Kevin L. Hoover & Rebecca S. Bender, Eye Staff

In August, 2001 and January, 2002, Arcata civil attorney and District Attorney candidate Steve Schectman was on the receiving end of $42,655 in state-dispensed justice over a dispute with four former employees.

The Labor Commission determined that the four were employees rather than independent contractors, and awarded them back wages, interest and penalties.

The story has been bruited in legal and journalistic circles for months, but details first emerged in last Thursday’s Times-Standard.

The labor ruling hinged upon hundreds of hours of work done by four apprentice legal workers between 1998 and 2001.

Angela Wartes, Steven Christianson, Jamie Romeo and Stephanie Bennett, activists for environmental groups including EarthFirst!, performed research and office tasks as part of an apprenticeship program that satisfied California State Bar requirements.

Much of the work done during this time involved two high-profile cases against Pacific Lumber Co. One centered on David "Gypsy" Chain, the forest activist who was killed by a felled tree in 1998, and another for residents of Stafford, whose community was destroyed by a landslide in 1996.

Schectman contended that the individuals had worked as independent contractors and that their agreement stipulated a $1,000 per month payment, based on a 30-hour work week, 18 hours of which were unpaid. Schectman said that these unpaid hours were bartered for legal experience.

However, the Labor Commission found that Wartes, Christianson, Romeo and Bennett qualified as employees. The rulings stated that the agreements between Schectman and the four workers established specific assignments and client contacts for each apprentice and set out a monthly salary for a particular amount of time. It also noted that Schectman had provided computers, office space, equipment and telephone extensions for each worker.

According to Labor Commissioners office records, Romeo, who, at $23,376.85 garnered the largest of the four settlements, signed on with Schectman in October, 1998 as he took up the Chain case. He suggested she become an apprentice and enroll in a law study program. There was no discussion of employment status or pay, though Schectman apparently said he’d be able to offer compensation in the future.

And he did, beginning with a $1,000 per month salary in July, 1999. That changed to $20 per hour a year later. For the duration of her employment, Romeo’s duties included research, scheduling, preparing memoranda and legal briefs, filing, answering phones, taking out garbage and more.

The ruling in Romeo’s case observed that the assignments she was given were related to Schectman’s business and provided an "integral and crucial" part of his business. It also notes that Schectman utilized no other employee labor during the period of the complaint, instead relying on apprentices and volunteers for all support work.

Bennett received just over $9,000; Wartes received just over $6,000; and Christianson received just over $5,000, nearly half of which was due to "willful" failure by Schectman to pay his wages in the designated time period after his discharge.

Reaction

Schectman maintains that the information is "old news" and irrelevant to the recall election. "It’s totally unrelated to the recall and my candidacy," he said.

He said any inference that he doesn’t understand labor law or is not fair to workers is inappropriate. "I understand labor law; I’ve worked most of my career in support of labor," he said.

"There were four people out of the 12 or so that worked in the office at the time that felt they wanted more money and that’s what this is all about," Schectman said.

Deputy District Attorney Worth Dikeman, the DA candidate Schectman has relentlessly skewered as unfamiliar with the law, among other alleged deficiencies, didn’t take the opportunity to hoist his antagonist on his own petard. Instead, Dikeman fell back on a fanciful fable, telling the story of a person who’d sued a bakery when a barrel of flour fell on his head. By way of dashing the defendant’s denials of responsibility, Dikeman said, the judge in the flour-barrel case deployed a Latin phrase applicable to Schectman’s labor dispute: "Res ipsa loquitor - ‘The thing speaks for itself.’"

Police back Dikeman

Last Friday, the Fortuna Police Employees’ Association became the latest police group to endorse Dikeman. The association issued a statement saying members "proudly support" Dikeman and "encourage him wholeheartedly on in his endeavors."

Sandi Bertain, president of the Fortuna Police Employees Association, remarked, "The FPEA strongly believes that because of Worth’s lengthy work experience, his commitment to a positive working relationship between law enforcement and the District Attorney’s Office, and his overall dedication to the justice system, that he would be an excellent candidate for the position of District Attorney."