Adding Up the Score in a Test of Character
Several years ago an editor suggested I might want to develop a stable of column “characters,” regulars with quirky lives or droll habits who could be written about on the proverbial rainy day.
Frankly, I believe the editor was trying to tell me, with polite indirectness, to stop writing so much about workers’ compensation reform, the raging issue of the day.
I scanned my universe, searching for family members or friends with “character” potential. Alas, there was not a single wisecracking pickpocket or philosopher-plumber in the bunch. Fortunately, it was around this time that I came to know Ron DeLacy.
DeLacy by day covers the Gold Country for the Modesto Bee. His journalistic reputation was secured when he managed to navigate into print a defense lawyer’s complaint that the prosecutor had continually, and with mischievous intent, passed gas throughout closing arguments, distracting the jury.
By night DeLacy is a musician, performing comedy folk music with a band, Doodoo Wah. He writes most of the songs, and on stage is a master of the hangdog expression and the comic pause. He also is a prankster. Years ago DeLacy and a few friends formed a mythical organization called the Men’s Crisis Center. It was meant as a spoof on gender warfare, a frequent Doodoo Wah theme: Alimony, Sally honey / keeps me thinking of you. . . . Etc.
In short, DeLacy is a character, and over seven years of friendship he has proved to a reliable source of bizarre material. He calls frequently to pass along tips from the Mother Lode about strange legal proceedings or weird animal stories or assorted oddities that occur in his personal life.
“Did I tell you about my court case?” he asked the other day. I had stopped by his office in Jamestown on my way to Angels Camp.
“Three years ago,” he began, “I got a bulk-mailed letter from an attorney in the Bay Area, telling me I was a potential litigant in a lawsuit.”
He’d received similar solicitations before, usually involving credit-card cases. His practice had been to toss them in the trash.
“For some reason,” he said, “I read this one and . . . oh, man. Men’s Crisis Center stuff.
“The law firm was suing Wal-Mart on behalf of all men who went to a Wal-Mart garage and got their oil changed on Ladies Day, and who therefore were charged $3.74 more than women were charged.
“My name had come up when the law firm subpoenaed some Wal-Mart records. I could sign on to the lawsuit free, and if it was successful I’d give the law firm a third of the loot.”
The letter was from Donald P. Driscoll, an Albany attorney who once made headlines by running a sting operation against stores that sold cigarettes to minors. Driscoll dispatched underage cohorts to thousands of markets and liquor stores and the like. Those who sold cigarettes to the youngsters would receive follow-up letters from the attorney, proposing settlement terms.
In an interview, Driscoll said the Wal-Mart case began one day in the mid-1990s. The brother of his assistant, the attorney said, “needed an oil change.” He went to Wal-Mart. It was Ladies Day. The promotion seemed on its face to run afoul of a 1985 ruling by the state Supreme Court, a decision that had generated plenty of publicity at the time.
The court had found that “ladies’ nights” at bars, “ladies days” at carwashes and the like violated the Unruh Civil Rights Act’s provision on sex discrimination. It would be equally unlawful to stage “Men’s Nights” promotions, the court held.
The late Chief Justice Rose Bird wrote the unanimous decision, noting: “Some may consider such practices to be of minimal importance or to be essentially harmless. Yet, many other individuals, men and women alike, are greatly offended by such discriminatory practices.”
Driscoll initially attempted to package the case as a class-action lawsuit. When this effort was stymied, he contacted 1,770 males who, according to Wal-Mart records, had paid full price--$18, plus change--for oil changes on days when women were charged $15 flat. He invited them to sue as individuals. The cases eventually would be consolidated.
For its part, Wal-Mart contended that it meant no harm. The idea was to scatter its “express lube” business through the week, easing the weekend crush.
“We had Men’s Day and Veterans Day and also a Ladies Day. . . . Certainly there was no intent on Wal-Mart’s part to discriminate against anybody,” Bill Wertz, a company official, said Friday. When asked his title, Wertz said “spokesman for the company will do--or spokesperson, depending on your style.”
DeLacy signed on for the legal ride. He took a vacation day to drive down to Sacramento and be deposed by a Wal-Mart lawyer: “I wore my Men’s Crisis Center T-shirt, and swore under oath that I was a man.”
He subsequently received word that Wal-Mart was moving to jettison his complaint on statute-of-limitations grounds. He figured the adventure was over. In late November, however, there came another letter from Driscoll: Now Wal-Mart was willing to settle for the minimum fine permitted under the Unruh Act. If DeLacy agreed, he and more than 1,500 other plaintiffs would receive $1,000 each--minus the $333.33 in attorney’s fees, of course.
The check arrived on Christmas Eve.
I asked Ron if his conscience was troubled at all, accepting the money.
No, he said.
“No amount of money,” he said, mournfully shaking his head, “can truly compensate me for the shame and humiliation I felt, paying full price on Ladies Day.”
And then, as characters will do at such moments, he winked.
Postscript: DeLacy took his $666.67 and bought a 1966 Ford Econoline van to haul around music gear. It broke down as he was driving it home from the lot. And the goddess of justice grinned.
