This is an excellent example of why we need a loser pays court system. You see these sorts of allegations can be made by just about any female in the workplace, and they can be difficult to prove or deny. The company gets stuck in the middle of these arguments and knows that it has two choices, either pay attorneys tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars fighting claims like these in the courts, or pay the accusers a little bit of money to get them to go away. The money doesn't necessarily mean the accuser was right, but that the company knows that even if it wins in court it still loses out on a lot of money in legal fees. If we had a loser pays court system these accusers would be less likly to make these claims, and even if they did the companies are more likely to fight them in court knowing they should get fully reimbursed at some point in the future if they win. In Herman's case this would have been a non issue because the court would have already decided the women were just a couple of gold diggers looking to extort money from their company and his reputation would not be put into the jeopardy that it is.
Those of you cheering on this circus better understand one thing, and that is if Herman comes out of this unscathed, and starts to win primaries when they start up in Jan. this will not weaken him, but only make him stronger. He is still polling ahead in Iowa as well as other states so obviously people are not too worried about this, and when this is all over you are going to have to contend with a nearly bullet proof candidate who will completely decimate Obama in the general election.