Facebook Page: Freedom Outside of Work - Marilyn Tagocon v. JP Morgan Chase

I created a facebook page: Freedom Outside of Work - Marilyn Tagocon v. JP Morgan Chase.

Many thanks to those who like this facebook page. It includes links to articles I have written about the case. I posted links to news items and other internet posts; I refuted inaccuracies and clarified misconceptions. For the benefit of other private employees who blog or who post comments on the Internet, I included information I did not know about until after I was fired: The National Employment Lawyers Association (NELA), New York Labor Law Article 7 Section 201-d, and related articles.

The discovery stage of the case has just passed. Of the 239,831 JPMC 2010 employees, I know of no other who openly objected to JPMC's outside-work speech infringement.

The civil justice system is unaffordable. A lawyer’s fee is $400.00+ per hour. It is my understanding that if there is no settlement after a court-mandated mediation, one could end up paying for the cost of the justice system procedures associated with the case.

The law firm representing me is getting paid on a contingent-fee basis. If the firm advises me to settle, I would be forced to, because I don't want to force the firm into representing me when I cannot pay the usual $400+ per hour fee. But I have made my terms clear: I am not going to take down anything I have written about the case, and what I refused to do while employed at JPMC, I cannot do at any point in time.

I worked on a consulting job for the last quarter of last year. I found another consulting job this year. Almost two months into the job, I was offered permanent employment – I pray it materializes. I am doing my best; I pray that God will do the rest.

Freedom Outside of Work – the Moneyed vs. the Penniless

On June 11, 2010, I took the required JP Morgan Chase (JPMC) Code of Conduct online training. It prohibits OUTSIDE-WORK speech on the internet, e.g. “I think the financial services industry is over-regulated and should be governed by market forces only.”

This JPMC OUTSIDE-WORK prohibited statement is a premise in my second novel, Royal Serf, and in many of my blog articles. Royal Serf refers to Corporate America, shackled with regulations. As a backdrop in Royal Serf, I depicted how Mike Milken and his kind were gestapoed by tyrants in the justice system and in the financial services regulatory agencies.

The villain in my first novel, Reason Reigns, is named Hunsec. HUN-SEC. On my novel’s back cover are these words: Independent thinkers cannot be ruled, so die they must.... A moral man does not rule, nor can he be ruled by men.... Between tyrants who crave to rule and thinkers who cannot be ruled, once again, the battle is joined.

On the front cover of Reason Reigns is a sculpture of a naked woman triumphantly raising a torch. The sculpture is entitled, “The Power of Science over Death.” The sculptor was Philippine National Hero Dr. Jose Rizal, a polymath and polyglot executed at age 35 for writing novels that dramatized a double-faced Goliath: theocrats and a tyrannical government.

On the front cover of Royal Serf are the Thomas Jefferson Memorial and the George Washington Monument under a sky that glorifies the Declaration of Independence, as well as the American flag with an A is A triangle bearing the names of the great advocates of reason: Aristotle, Aquinas, and Ayn.

My managers knew of Reason Reigns and of my penname when I was offered employment at JPMC. They knew of Royal Serf as soon as I self-published it in June 2009. It is dedicated to businessmen.

The JPMC OUTSIDE-WORK prohibited statement cannot coexist with freedom outside of work. My managers referred me to Code specialists. On July 2, 2010, a JPMC Associate General Counsel together with a Code specialist ordered me to shut down my blog and to stop talking about my novels using any media.

Thus, my firsthand instruction about lawyers and the existing civil justice system has begun.

Lawyers say that the First Amendment may not be violated by the government, but that private-sector employers may dictate what their employees can say or do outside of work.

I disagree, and so did the Founders:

"We are bound, you, I, and every one to make common cause, even with error itself, to maintain the common right of freedom of conscience." - Thomas Jefferson

“Conscience is the most sacred of all property.” - James Madison

After JPMC fired me, a lawyer advised me about the National Employment Lawyers Association (NELA).

A New Jersey NELA lawyer informed me about New York Labor Law Article 7 Section 201d, which protects lawful outside-work political and recreational activities.

A lawyer’s fee is $400.00+ per hour. It is my understanding that if there is no settlement after a court-mandated mediation, one could end up paying for the cost of the justice system procedures associated with the case.

The civil justice system is unaffordable. It looks like the penniless have no chance.