Hello HoltCJ,
Your comments are, as ever, highly informed and much appreciated. My apologies for this long delay in replying.
My user name is in fact my "callsign", and was awarded to me by colleagues in the Navy some years ago. It refers to the low and slow nature of the aircraft I was flying at the time. And although it was somewhat of an embarrassment then, I wear it now, perhaps a little childishly, with head held high. (I preferred "Poontang", but alas it was not to be.)
Perhaps you have seen the thread where a certain pilot was failed and terminated after a simulator check ride, not because he was unable to do the job, but because he was extremely unpopular. (Perhaps this is the very legal scrape you speak of.) I am an amateur observer of the human animal, and have always been fascinated by the propensity of that certain caste of individual, hiding behind the managerial title and powers bestowed upon him by the corporation at large (without which he would feel himself to be the toothless eunuch that he is), to vilify and condemn those that "rub him the wrong way". The current Cathay dispute is replete with this kind of atrocity. In any Samson & Goliath scenario, you will always find me in the peanut gallery, right or wrong, tossing sharp and pointed objects at the bully's aft lavatory.
With regard to tort law, how does one assign a quantifiable value to the "standing and reputation" of an individual. It would seem to me that reputation is a matter of democratic opinion in most cases, and, as such, a question of deft and skillful maneuvering by the legal counsel concerned.