The September 15, 1980, headline in the Racine Journal Times blared, “3 at AMC Sued for $4.2 Million.” The defamation suit had been filed by four supervisors and the son of a superintendent at the Wisconsin American Motors Corporation (AMC) plant where the three of us worked. The litany of allegations asserted that Tod Ohnstad, John Drew, and I had “damaged” the plaintiffs by publishing false articles in our shop-floor newspaper, Fighting Times, that caused severe emotional distress as well as loss of reputation and damage to their careers.

Early in the winter of 1983/84, as if manna had fallen from the sky, we fortuitously gained incontrovertible evidence of what we had suspected: AMC was surreptitiously financing and directing the litigation.

The pivotal discovery occurred almost by happenstance. On a cold winter day, Rudy Kuzel (at that time Local 72’s substance abuse representative, for union members suffering from substance abuse problems) serendipitously observed a seemingly inconsequential occurrence that a less discerning person would have ignored.