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Splitting the Agent from the Principal

A Negotiations Tactic Used Against the Pro Se 5

Coquin de Chien

Mar 16

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The 200+ plaintiffs in the Adams et al v MGB (2021) case never knew what hit them. Splitting the agent from the principal has been a negotiation tactic since agents and principals existed. First, understand rational choice theory—assume that everyone acts in their own self-interest. Next, understand that an agent has a fiduciary duty to the principal before himself.

Splitting the agent from the principal is a negotiation tactic taught and used in business deals. However, the tactic is highly unethical for lawyers to use in lawsuit cases because clients, as principals, are mostly ignorant of the law. In business, we know that our agent negotiating on our behalf has his own wants and needs. We know that he can be split from representing us, the principal, to representing his own self-interest, which is the foundation of rational choice theory. Thus, we manage the agent and keep him honest. Clients to lawsuits generally have no experience in such business affairs or knowledge that this can happen.

The best way to explain this concept is to review how I bought my current house. I analyzed the market in town, listed four available houses in my range, and ranked them by my preference. I told the seller’s realtor to provide the one-page document of my negotiation plan. The realtor is obligated to provide the document as part of the offer. The document expressed to the sellers that if they do not take my low ball offer in 24 hours, the offer is rescinded and I will make an offer to my second choice on the list. If the second choice does not take my lowball offer, I will go down the list. If none of the four take my low ball offer, I will come back in four days and raise my offer by $5,000 and run down the list each day again.

The issue with my original list was that my second choice home was being offered by the same realtor as my first choice. The realtor would not be inclined to pressure the seller of my first choice if she also represented my second choice. So I switched my second and third choices. The realtor would then pressure the owners of my first choice to sell to me at the low ball offer rather than lose the deal to the second choice realtor on my list. I switched them on purpose to split the realtor from the principal and think of herself first (as realtors do anyway). I knew what I was doing and planned the split. The sellers angrily accepted the low ball offer. My neighbor told me that the former owner hated me because the offer was so low. I have very little emotion in business. Emotion causes mistakes. And he did not have to take the offer.

The Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School is one of the negotiation training classes that teaches this concept, mostly from a defensive vantage point. They call it the “Principal Agent Problem.” That was quite an expensive training my employer put me through. I was in a group of negotiators for the government and for unions of government workers. Never in my semiconductor career had I met worse negotiators. It’s a wonder they ever come to agreement on anything, always approaching situations in win-lose postures rather than win-win as I do.

The Pro Se 5 started with more than 200 co-plaintiffs. The lawyer who represented them started out saying that he would take the case all the way through appeal and fight the good fight for his clients. This was public information. He talked about it. There were multiple public GiveSendGo accounts to which family and friends of the plaintiffs could donate to cover legal fees (the lawyer’s income). That all seems normal in this day and age of crowd funding. However, as the case went on, there were rumors from several plaintiffs that the attorney went from going “all the way” to “maybe we should think about settling” to “settling is probably the way to go” to an ultimatum to settle or be abandoned by counsel. That all took three years and about 200 docket entries.

From the docket, especially the April 3, 2023 Motion for Summary Judgment and the September 28, 2023 Order denying most of the Summary Judgment, it can be seen that significant Discovery had been accomplished. Declarations, depositions, and production of documents must have been extensive to use the numbering system they did for exhibits.

What makes no sense, unless you know “splitting the agent from the principal” is what happened next. The plaintiffs survived the first Summary Judgment motion. The evidence gleaned from the filings publicly available that came to the plaintiffs through discovery is damning to Mass General Brigham. And as all that was coming forward, the attorney pressured his clients to settle more. As we know from the check the attorney posted on his Facebook page, each client ended up with a pittance worth maybe 2 to 4 months of pay after some working decades at the company.

What I think happened

Imagine if the attorney for Mass General Brigham (MGB) told the attorney for the plaintiffs that the offer on the table was only good for a minimum number of plaintiffs to settle. By making the offer contingent on a minimum number, the plaintiffs’ attorney would then pressure his clients to take the settlement offer, which he did.

In the docket, the plaintiffs’ attorney withdrew from Plaintiff Michelle back in November 27, 2023. In the withdrawal, he stated that she will not be adversely affected by his abandonment of her as his client. He also offers reference to some issue that he would privately discuss with the judge.

The truth is that Plaintiff Michelle did not have other counsel and was abandoned. I remember her asking me if I know anyone to represent her around that time. She would not tell me much more than that at the time and still tells me to go read the docket. I know why. It’s because the docket shows two Protective Orders. So she’s afraid to talk about the case details.

Why would an attorney who made it past Summary Judgment and obtained damning evidence such as is listed in the Order denying Summary Judgment abandon his clients? Two hundred multiplied by $5,000 is a million dollars. Two hundred times $10,000 is two million dollars. In addition to the GiveSendGos and whatever the plaintiffs paid out of pocket, this attorney could walk away with a cool $2 million net before taxes by pressuring everyone to settle.

The Pro Se 5 did not settle for the pittance. Some of the stories of those who did settle are depressing. Imagine a corporation that pays zero in severance pay after decades of loyalty and a good employment record. Some people had recently bought houses and had mortgages, young children in school, and no other income. MGB destroyed the lives of so many—and why?

In Massachusetts, it’s a small community. We know that people were hired at MGB only months later, received religious and medical accommodations, and did not have to take the COVID gene drug therapy. Why would MGB fire so many people on a date set by the state and federal governments? And then hire people to fill those positions months later, but not rehire the loyal employees?

Clearly, I was right about recommending a 42 U.S. Code § 1983 claim for Deprivation of Rights under Color of Law by a State Actor. This mandate had nothing to do with keeping the patients safe from the unvaccinated as MGB and other employers purported. MGB knew well before November 2021 that COVID “vaccines” do not stop or even diminish transmission.

Let’s be real here. The reason for the mandate was that the government demanded MGB have a mandate and controlled MGB through Medicaid and Medicare payments, NIH grant funding, and CARES Act compensation. These total billions of dollars per year. I cannot tell where the government ends and MGB begins.

In the last status conference I listened to, the Pro Se 5 asked the judge for permission to file an amended complaint. He gave them a deadline of 30 days, which I think is March 18. I can’t wait to see what they file. More to come on this case. These plaintiffs have been trashed by the system. Lawyers in Massachusetts are afraid of MGB, afraid of the Mass Bar Association, and afraid of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the U.S. Government. This is tyranny.

God Bless you all