Philadelphia Summation
Beckett v. and Wheeler (1991)
Angela Tam
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, today, I stand before you representing Mr.
Beckett, a victim of wrongful termination and discrimination. Mr. Beckett obtained
AIDS during his time as an employee at Wyant and Wheeler. An important file
mysteriously went missing when the senior partners of the law firm discovers that
Mr.Beckett was induced with AIDS, thus giving the senior partners a reason to
fire him. Mr. Beckett got taken out of his job because he had a deadly disease
that he was fighting against; a disease that can only be transmitted through
bodily fluids.
Mr. Beckett's promotion to represent the firm in a big case caused him to be
seen as an astonishing lawyer. However, because of the misplacement of the
Highline file, which was not by Mr. Beckett's hands, caused Mr. Beckett to be
fired. Luckily, the file was eventually found and the firm won the case. The senior
partners of the firm believed that Mr. Beckett risked losing an important case.
They also believed that he had attitude problems. However, that was only a short
time after Mr. Wheeler had praised Mr. Beckett for his work at the firm and
promoted him to being a partner. If you think about it, the pieces in this puzzle do
not fit well together due to the fact that Mr. Wheeler went from praising Mr.
Beckett on his work to thinking that he was incompetent after making a minor
mistake that proved irrelevant in the outcome of the case. Despite losing the
Highline file, Mr. Beckett still won the case; therefore there is no excuse for Mr. Wheeler to fire him. In addition, the other senior associate knew Mr. Beckett has
AIDS and that is why they fired him. As well, Mr. Seidman even admitted that he
suspected Mr. Beckett had AIDS. Mr. Kenton had previous experiences with
AIDS and he noticed lesions on Mr. Beckett's forehead, therefore he should've
known that he had AIDS. Moreover, in a previous case of Mr. Kenton's, Ms.
Benedict was also diagnosed with AIDS yet she still got to keep her job. This
demonstrates that AIDS has no effect on how well a person can do their job. With
this said, the seniors had no reason to fire Mr. Beckett even if they knew he had
AIDS. In Mr. Kenton's testimony, he expressed his prejudice against
homosexuals. Because Ms. Benedict was infected with AIDS through no fault of
her own, Mr. Kenton felt that it was excusable. However, Mr. Beckett developed
AIDS due to unprotected sex and therefore it was inexcusable. How Ms.
Benedict and Mr. Beckett were diagnosed with AI
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