Indianapolis Recorder, Indianapolis, Marion County, 5 July 2002 — Page 10

PAGE A10

THE INDIANAPOLIS RECORDER

FRIDAY, JULY 5,2002

Jury awards damages to women discriminated against by waiter

Depression in childhood

BALTIMORE (AP) — A federal court jury has ruled that a waiter’s decision to add a IS percent tip to a check amounted to discrimination against two women he was serving. A jury of one Black and seven white members in U.S. District Court in Baltimore ordered the Cactus Grill to pay $30,000 in punitive damages and $7,500 in compensatory damages to Jennifer Spearman, 36, of Silver Spring, and Monica L. Woodard, 35, of Greenbelt. The trial included evidence that the waiter, David Guzman, had not added a tip to the bill of any other patron in the Aspen Hill restaurant that day in 1999. It also included testimony from Guzman acknowledging that he may have told other waiters that he didn’t believe Black customers were good tippers, lawyers for the two women said. During its deliberations, the jury sent U.S. District Judge Walter E. Black Jr. a note asking if it could order the restaurant to

pay punitive damages to a third Ken Armstrong, the attorney party who could provide anti- who defended the restaurant, dediscrimination training to em- dined to comment on the verdict ployees at the Cactus Grill and at but said the owners will probably other Montgomery County res- not contest the $37,500 award, taurants. The lawsuit stemmed from a Black told thejurors they could lunch on Dec. 18,1999, when the not do that. However, attorneys two women and Spearman’s two for Spearman and Woodard said young children met at the restauthey would ask Black to order rant. such a training program as part The bill came to $65.98. On of a related civil rights claim still his own, Guzman added a 15 perpending. cent tip. “I really hope that restaurants When Woodard and Spearman in this region recognize that if questioned the fee, Guzman told this is happening in their estab- them he had the discretion to add lishment, they could be held ac- a tip, according to the lawsuit, countable in court,” said Eliza- Though the women were ofbethS. Westfall, one of the Wash- fended, they paid the entire bill, ingfon lawyers who represented tip included, using Spearman’s Woodard and Spearman. “Res- debit card, lawyers said, taurants need to take some pre- Nationwide, other restaurants ventive measures.” have been accused of imposing Thomas Cambetis, one of the tips selectively. In 1999, outrage restaurant’s owners, said neither over such a case prompted Mihe nor partner Theodore Margas ami-Dade County commissionwould comment. ers to pass a law prohibiting resDuring the trial, both testified taurants from discriminating that the restaurant did not dis- against any class of people in criminate against anyone. their tipping policies.

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By Dr. Frederic Flach Cinderella. Snow White. The Wizard of Oz. Bamey the Purple Dinosaur. Where the Wild Things Are. Hide-and-seek, scooter tricks, and soccer games. Reading, writing, and arithmetic. Childhood is no time to be depressed. Unfortunately, too often it is. Practically from the time they’re bom, children can be sad and irritable, feel lost and hopeless, and become disinterested in the very activities they once enjoyed. Their confidence and selfesteem can be undermined. They can fail in school. They can even commit suicide. Children are no more immune to life’s tragedies than anyone else. In fact, they are particularly vulnerable—still small, in many ways helpless, naive, lacking in experience and coping skills that adults have hopefully acquired. Parents can be cruel and abusive. They can jump ship, abandoning everyone aboard. They can overprotect their children and make thehi too dependent. They can abuse alcohol and drugs. They can get sick and die young. Under any one or more of such circumstances as these, children get depressed. But, there is a difference between normal depression and clinical depression. When being depressed lingers on and has a significant effect on a child’s behavior, parents must start to consider clinical depression. This is also true when a child seems

to be depressed in the absence of any apparent cause. Manifestations of depression in children Children manifest depression in some ways like adults and in other ways unique to children. The onset of clinical depression may be sudden or gradual, but it usually involves a noticeable change in behavior. A six-year-old boy is no longer interested in playing with his friends. He is sleeping terribly. He grows increasingly lethargic, and would spend all day Saturday in bed if his mother allowed it. An eight-year-old girl is having an unusually difficult time studying and has become short-tempered and visibly sad at home. She gorges herself on cake and chocolate ice cream, and complains of stomach aches for which the pediatrician can find no physical explanation. She is restless and sometimes frankly agitated; her parents can hear her stomping around her room upstairs late into the night. Unbeknownst to any, she thinks about killing herself by taking a fistful of her mother’s Valium. Every depressed child is unique, in his or her own way. While it is important not to read problems into the behavioral changes of normal, healthy youngsters, it is no less important to be ready to recognize when a child may be clinically depressed, what may be causing this change in mood, and what to do about it. Flach is the author of THE SECRET STRENGTH OF DEPRESSION, 3rd Revised Edition (Hatherleigh Press, 2002)

Recorder Editor Anard V. Holme*

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FCC wants more minorities in broadcasting

By DAVID HO WASHINGTON (AP)- Broadcasting companies need to hire more minority and female employees, industry and government figures said Monday, even as differences arose on how to boost such hiring. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell told industry figures that ensuring the presence of minorities and women in media companies is a “strategic priority for the nation and any industry that hopes to make money in a diverse future.” The FCC held a hearing on a new set of government rules designed to

improve diversity. The agency had equal opportunity rules in place, but a federal appellate court last year declared them unconstitutional. In December, the FCC proposed a new set of regulations which would require media companies to make information about job opportunities widely available. Companies could publicize openings by sending job vacancy announcements to recruitment organizations, participating in job fairs and offering internship programs. Larger broadcasters would be required to file annual reports detailing their efforts. Minorities owned 449 commercial radio and TV stations in 2000.

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Beware of Internet schemes

(NAPSI) — Dramatically punctuating the need to be alert to Internet scams, the nation’s largest producer of television infomercials is the subject of a class action lawsuit alleging that it defrauded thousands of investors, including senior citizens, of an estimated $30 million. The suit, filed on behalf of an elderly California couple by Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles attorney Timothy D. Naegele (www.naegele.com), charges that Guthy-Renker conspired to commit fraud and violated the federal RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) Act by promoting an Internet “shopping mall” (and Web sites on it) that promised riches but was in reality part of a worthless scam. Based in Palm Desert and Santa Monica, Calif., GuthyRenker is a successful producer of infomercials for such celebrities and their products as Anthony Robbins (“Personal Power”), Vanessa L. Williams (“Proactiv Solution”), Kathie Lee Gifford (“Natural Advantage”), Corbin Bemsen (“Excelerate”), Victoria Principal (“Principal Secrets”), Daisy Fuentes (“Winsor Pilates”), Vanna White (“Perfect Smile”), Cindy Crawford, Leeza Gibbons, Joan Lunden and Susan Lucci. With a company like GuthyRenker, which earns huge profits by using the images and reputations of stars to sell products in its infomercials on hundreds of television stations around the country, it is important that the general public be aware of the. allegations that the company has been involved in a corporate conspiracy to market a valueless Internet scheme. “Guthy-Renker’s allejged misrepresentations fOcused on duping naive individuals, many of whom were elderly, into believing that their investments in an Internet venture called “ America’sChoice Mall’ would result in quick and substantial returns,” according to Naegele. “We estimate that around the nation perhaps as many as 10,000 investors like our clients were victimized to the magnitude of $30 million or more.” The strategy conceived and endorsed by Guthy-Renker appealed to a cross-section of Americans intrigued by the lucrative potential of Internet commerce. The inner workings of the alleged scheme provide an important lesson in how to identify guile and avoid being lured into a similar artifice that does nothing but target one’s savings, especially the limited life sayings of seniors. According to the lawsuit, Guthy-Renker intended to leverage its direct response expertise onto the Internet marketplace to promote new products that would have broad appeal. The company advertised seminars in various parts of the country at which attendees were solicited and sold ownership interests in “America’sChoice Mall”as well as Web sites on it. However, the company lacked the computer and technical knowledge to develop and support the infrastructure of such a major Internet venture, the suit charges, and made exaggerated claims about profitability. The Californians who initiated the legal action are a 92-year-old mother and her 63-year-old son. The mother and her now-de-ceased husband, who died at 86, were on a fixed income and invested $36,000 in the Internet scheme, eventually losing all of it. Thousands of investors failed to recognize until it was too late that Guthy-Renker had no Internet expertise to operate “America’s Choice Mall” and instead relied on its cachet of affiliations with major celebrities to target such victims, the lawsuit alleges. In the process, Guthy-Renker induced some who were elderly to jeopardize their Kfe savings in what was nothing more than a scam.