Now, up front, I will say some of these are hard to believe, even for me, having lived through them. I will note that I'm not certain if my involvement had any effect in some cases and that my memory of some of them admittedly lacks any verifiable proof, but promise that I'll tell you when that's the case. However, I'm certain they're accurate.
IMPORTANT NATIONAL EVENTS IN WHICH I'VE HAD INVOLVEMENT:
• I was a witness to the OKC Bombing. Provided statements to the FBI, including a sworn affidavit. Was interviewed by both the FBI & the defense attorneys prior to the OKC Bombing trial. I witnessed McVeigh & Peltier circling the OKC Federal Building almost two weeks prior to the bombing in a pick-up filled with fertilizer. I was in OKC for a federal court hearing with Judge Alley that day (he later was the first judge assigned to the McVeigh case). I had a strange sense about it, as if God had touched my shoulder that day and specifically told me that I was there to watch & pay attention as if something was not right and he wanted me in particular to notice. I almost even took pictures (I had yelled for my partner to get the camera, but she couldn't find it); guess I should have (we'd be very rich now). After the bombing, I called the FBI & reported what I had seen, which resulted in descriptions of McVeigh, Peltier & the unidentified indian, and most importantly in providing Peltier's truck's license plate, which is ultimately how they tracked him down & then got him to turn state's evidence on McVeigh, resulting in the conviction of McVeigh & Nichols. The FBI confirmed to my attorney during my interview that the plate I gave them was in fact Peltier's plate & the lead that led to his arrest. (100% true).
• An Enron manager consulted me about the legality of Enron manipulating energy markets in California and whether his firing for objecting to such manipulation was actionable under Texas law. At the time, Texas law prohibited whistleblowing only where the law being violated carried criminal penalties. After consulting with him several times and recommending consulting the DOJ and some other folks, I ultimately turned down the case due to the state of Texas whistleblower law. Turns out that this was the very issue which ultimately started the investigation discovering the financial fraud and cooking of financial books/records that led to the downfall of Enron and the criminal conspiracy convictions of Ken Lay & his buddies, and the collapse of the dot.com financial market bubble. (I had told senior NASD officials in another case I was handling who were predicting the market would continue to rise by several thousand points that the truth was that the market was based on highly over-valued and inflated paper which was not properly valued and did not accurately reflect the true much lower value of the assets underlying the paper).
(100% true).
ACCURATE PREDICTIONS OF CATASTROPHIC EVENTS I'VE MADE:
• I had a vision, several months prior to 9/11 of planes flying into tall buildings in NYC. I was on a flight from Houston to Dallas, and noticed the cockpit doors were open, and we had just flown right next to some tall buildings in downtown Dallas fixing to land at Love Field, when I had the vision. It so disturbed me and I had such an overwhelming feeling that I called over one the the flight attendants and told her to make a report that cockpit doors should be closed/locked. She said she would, although I don't know if she actually did. (I actually thought about getting off the plane & making a formal report to airport FAA officials, but considered that they'd probably think I was a nutcase or had some improper motive, and I didn't feel like being investigated; in retrospect, while I probably would have been, I wish I would have). (100% true).
• I predicted to my girlfriend at the time (& others) that even before Hurricane Katrina had gotten into the Gulf of Mexico, that it's path would take it right through or just to the East of New Orleans and that the levies might be compromised due to Lake Ponchatrain storm surge. If you recall, this was almost a full week prior to the Hurricane actually hitting shore. Even in the days up to the storm, I continued to predict that the storm was going to cause more damage than was being forecast. And I also predicted that Rita would hit between New Orleans & Houston along the Texas-Louisiana border before that path was eventually forecast ... and it did. (100% true).
• I predicted the tidal wave that hit Maylasia - Sumatra/Java, a month or so before it happened. (100% true, although probably not verifiable)
• While in Thailand this past spring for my surgery, I had a weird feeling that there would be an cataclysmic event in Szechuan China that would dwarf the flood event then occurring in neighboring Burma several days before it actually happened. (100% true, although since I didn't tell anyone, not verifiable)
LEGAL LANDMARK CASES FOR WHICH I'VE BEEN RESPONSIBLE:
• I was able to convince the Fifth Federal Circuit that a topless dancer could establish a prima facie case of age discrimination and that the legal standards employed to determine whether she legally met the qualifications for the position should be objective rather than subjective. (This case has been cited by numerous lawschool texts). Lindsey v. Prive Corp. (5th Cir.) (100% true)
• I convinced the Fifth Federal Circuit to adopt a manifest disregard of law exception to the strict rules restricting a Federal Court's ability to set aside an arbitration award, such that where the arbitrators manifestly disregarded proper application of anti-discrimination laws, that their award could be set aside where previously it would have been upheld even in such circumstances unless actual bias, etc., was proven. Williams v. Cigna Financial Advisors (5th Cir.) (100% true)
• I wrote the decisive persuasive brief, and the only one filed in the case which even addressed the issue, which caused the Oklahoma Supreme Court to adopt an exception to the employment at-will rule for situations where employees were fired for reasons contravening the public policy of the State of Oklahoma, resulting in compensatory and punitive damages for such violations, including in discrimination cases. Burk v. K-Mart Corp. (Okla. Sup. Ct. 1987) (100% true)
• A municipality or local transit authority is not entitled to claim that it is immune from suit under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA). Williams v. Dallas Area Rapid Transit, 242 F.3d 315 (5th Cir. 2001) (100% true).
NATIONAL & LOCAL MARKETING/BUSINESS IDEAS I'VE INSPIRED:
• I sued Southwest Airlines for religious discrimination & defamation (McCauley v. Southwest Airlines). As a result, I deposed it's owner Herb Kelleher. At the time, his airport was providing in-terminal food service through one of those air industry food companies. During a break in the deposition, I gave him the idea of contacting companies like McDonald's & Pizza Hut & Chili's, etc., & having them bid on setting up restaurant stations in the airport. He wrote down the idea. Within a year or two later, he had implemented the idea. Love Field had a McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Chili's, etc. Then other airports followed suit. (100% true).
• I sued GM on behalf of two clients. During the lawsuit, I had thrown out the idea of providing either the clients or I automobiles at cost to lower GM's settlement costs. During these discussions, I made the suggestion to GM's corporate attorneys that if they really wanted to stimulate their sales they should offer the employee pricing discounts to regular customers. One of my clients said that she was also going to formally submit the idea through their employee suggestion box (she said if they accepted the idea she might get some kind of reward or award). This was well BEFORE any of the US auto makers started offering any of their employee pricing programs. (100% true). As I recall, GM was the first auto maker to offer employee pricing.
• Immediately after graduating from college in the interim before going to law school (to which I'd already been accepted), I got a job working for Taco Bell, first as a line cook, then promoted to Shift Manager. While working at the 2nd Street store in Edmond, Oklahoma, the regional manager came to the store and we had a meeting in which he questioned me because Pepsi was taking over Taco Bell and he needed ideas to present in their planning meetings, and because he was interested in my point of view as I was a recent college business management degree graduate & college student, about ideas to bring business to Taco Bell. I told him the college kids would regularly go to local competitor Taco Mayo for the cheap tacos and that if Taco Bell created a menu of 99¢ items, with smaller portions to make it profitable, that they could likely improve their market share and dominate the low-end mexican food market. We talked about employing microwaves to save time & various menu items. He finally asked me what I would call the menu ... & I said the "Fiesta" menu. Well, unless you lived in Siberia, you know the rest. (100% true)
I started using "Peace" to sign off my e-mails (e.g. Peace, Beth) a good year or more before I saw anyone else doing it - now it's fairly common.
I'm sure I'll remember other things, and maybe new stuff will happen & get added, but just wanted to get this up & posted before forgetting.
Anyway, pretty weird eh? Particularly for all this to actually happen to one person!
B. Isbell