Maybe Halliburton Won't Get Away With This One

Okay...so they probably will.

The AP is reporting that a woman gets to take her rape case against Halliburton to court instead of hiding it in arbitration. Lucky her!

Jamie Leigh Jones filed a federal lawsuit last year, saying she was attacked while working for a Halliburton Co. subsidiary at Camp Hope, Baghdad, in 2005. Her lawsuit claims that after she endured harassment from some of the men where she lived in coed barracks, she was drugged and raped by Halliburton and KBR firefighters.

Jones...said a KBR representative imprisoned her in a shipping container for a day so she wouldn't report the assault...KBR split from Halliburton last year.

Apparently, she signed an agreement that said "any claims made by an employee against the company that in any way touch on his or her employment have to be settled through arbitration, in which a third party would resolve the case through a private hearing process."

Maybe this is a normal agreement, maybe not. But rape should not be confined to arbitration, and thankfully, U.S. District Judge Keith P. Ellison agrees with me. But first, "other workplace-related claims" have to go through arbitration. I wonder what those claims involve?Halliburton has gotten away with murder...literally. Maybe they'll finally have to answer for something. Or maybe Bush-ney will step in somehow and 'save the day'."Attorneys for Halliburton, KBR and other subsidiaries that have been sued have disputed Jones' allegations." Shocker.