Disclosure No. 1:  My mother, Gloria Allred, represents two men who were the targets of Michael Richards' racist rant at the Laugh Factory on Nov. 17.

Disclosure No. 2:  I disagree with my mother on legal issues aplenty, and not just to generate good television when she appears on my show. 

Disclosure No. 3:  My children, family and friends spent most of our Thanksgiving holiday enthusiastically debating whether Grandma's clients should be compensated. Yes, this is a typical Bloom/Allred family gathering: Short on cooking, long on passionate cogitating on civil rights issues. All sides were probed, examined, analyzed, attacked and re-evaluated. Positions changed during the pumpkin pie, and again in the midst of our family Scrabble game, and once more, when additional facts and legal theories were dredged up on Google, laptops passed around.

After all that, I concluded that legally and morally, Richards should pay some compensation to the victims of his hate speech.  To get there, I simply followed the facts and the natural outrage that any decent person must feel in light of them.

Here's what's alleged. Naturally, if the facts change, my conclusion might change.

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A diverse group of Asian-American, Hispanic, African-American and white friends, a few dozen strong, went to the West Hollywood Laugh Factory for a birthday dinner. According to Kyle Doss and Frank McBride, two of the African-Americans in the group and Allred's clients, the evening had been planned weeks in advance, a stretch limo was rented, and the group had been looking forward to the evening.

The Laugh Factory, like many clubs, has a two-drink minimum. In practice, this means that immediately upon being seated, the patrons are set upon by the wait staff, drink orders aggressively taken. I've experienced this myself.

As Doss, McBride and the others in their large group were being seated on the second floor of the club, the server was taking their drink orders, and the exchange became somewhat loud. As Doss and McBride tell it, Richards felt that his act was being interrupted, and yelled out that they were "stupid Mexicans and blacks." Doss says he responded to Richards, "That's not funny."

Richards' racist rant then ensued, memorialized by a cellphone video camers. "Shut up!  Fifty years ago we'd have had you upside down with a fucking fork up your ass!" he screamed angrily. "Throw his ass out. He's a nigger! Nigger! Nigger!" 

From some disturbed, ugly place within, Richards blasts away, repeating the racist invective at least a half dozen times on the tape.

Not on the tape, say Doss and McBride, were additional barbs from Richards: "I have enough money I could have you put in jail," and "When I wake up tomorrow, I'll be rich, and you'll still be a nigger!"

For some, these would be fighting words. Doss and McBride left peacefully, though they say they felt degraded and threatened. Certainly, the birthday dinner was ruined.

I recently had a birthday dinner of about the same size and racial diversity, and I thought about how furious, absolutely livid, I'd be if a comic so viciously attacked my guests. A week, two weeks later, I'd still be outraged if anyone, much less the paid entertainment, yelled "nigger" at my black friends, screamed at them that they should be sodomized, evoking this country's painful history of lynchings and racist violence, or threatened to use his wealth and status to have them falsely arrested.

This is not a close call.  It's not one, or two, offhanded remarks. It's not a comedian's misguided attempts to be edgy.  It is not a case of a racial joke that missed the mark.  There is simply no attempt at humor here at all. We watch in vain, waiting for a punch line, a payoff that never comes. Richards himself acknowledged on Jesse Jackson's radio program that the tirade was meant only to humiliate Doss, McBride, and the other African-American members of the group. Even he doesn't claim it was any kind of a joke.

A jury of Doss and McBride's peers might have acquitted them had they lashed out in violence after such vile provocation. Instead, they took the nonviolent high road and consulted an attorney. Through her, they ask that Richards meet with them in the presence of a mediator, that he apologize to them face to face, man to man, and that he abide by the mediator's recommendation for compensation, if any.

In short, they have not sued. They are trying to avoid a contentious lawsuit. On the other hand, yes, in addition to an apology, they seek monetary reparations.

And that is where many part company with them. Most people I've spoken to agree that the tirade was vicious and deeply offensive, but money, well, what about free speech?  Compensation somehow sticks in the craw.

It shouldn't. There are many limits on free speech. Threats, perhaps present here, can be criminal. Libel, falsely attacking a person's character or reputation, can result in a damage award in the millions of dollars. Closer to this case, sexual or racial harassment in employment or housing can result in huge civil penalties.

They may have a claim for discrimination in public accommodations, but Doss and McBride's best legal theory is probably intentional infliction of emotional distress (IIED) — extreme and outrageous conduct intended to harm another, which causes emotional injury. In my view, if they persuade a jury the facts are as they describe them, they'd stand a good chance of meeting these elements and persuading a jury to award them some damages.

IIED requires a high threshold showing of behavior that is beyond any reasonable bounds of human decency.  We are all expected to tolerate a certain amount of offensive conduct in our daily lives (and those of us who live in New York City certainly experience more than our fair share). But Richards' racist rant is well beyond the moderate-level obnoxious buzz of life in 21st-century America. On the video, many members of the audience, of all races, are horrified, and get up and leave. The video has circulated widely, and been played incessantly on television, precisely because it is so appalling, beyond the pale.

For Doss and McBride, I doubt the evening ended when the Laugh Factory door shut behind them. When I practiced law, I learned from my clients that heartbreaking anguish that civil rights violations caused. Many of my clients became depressed, anxious, forced into therapy for the first time. Or they became angry and missed work, or their relationships suffered.  These are the typical harms that are compensable in civil court, the types of injuries for which juries award monetary damages every day of the year. If they can prove similar harm to the satisfaction of a judge or jury, Doss and McBride would be legally entitled to compensation.

And morally speaking, why shouldn't they? Why should Richards, who now bizarrely claims he's "shattered" by his own remarks, remain single-mindedly focused on his emotional distress, his career, his loss of control, rather than on the harm he inflicted on others?  Why shouldn't this wrong have a remedy?

The alternative, no consequences for Richards other than the increased name recognition the scandal has bestowed upon him, fails to right the wrong Richards inflicted. Doing nothing ignores the intended targets of his verbal attacks.

And best of all, given Richard's arrogant bragging that he can get away with wrongdoing because he's rich, forcing him to pay out of his own pocket may hit him where it hurts the most — his ego.  Sounds like justice to me.

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