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Harish Bharti, dedicated lawyer.

Swami on the Legal Battlefield

By Erik Derr
AsianWeek Pacific Northwest Correspondent

The Seattle attorney who spearheaded a class-action lawsuit against McDonald’s for allegedly cooking french fries in beef tallow — and who eventually won an apology and $10 million settlement from the fast-food giant — is now asking the court to take the case out of his and other attorneys’ hands.

Last week Harish Bharti filed a federal motion in Cook County, Ill., that asks the court to assume responsibility for distributing the settlement money offered by McDonald’s earlier this year. He contends McDonald’s has been able to direct money to those sympathetic to the company through others involved in the case. As a result, many groups with valid claims to the funds could be denied their fair shares. Bharti also wants full public disclosure about who receives the money.

The case involves millions of Hindus and vegetarians who say they were misled and hurt by the restaurant’s claims it used pure vegetable oil to cook its popular french fries. Bharti, a Hindu Brahmin and vegetarian, tells of the humiliation he felt after serving fries to a holy man who would have rather died than eat beef. Bharti says cows are generally considered sacred by those from India and other Southeast Asian countries, regardless of spiritual beliefs.

McDonald’s has admitted using beef extract to flavor fries. In the apology stipulated by the settlement, the company concedes it could have done a better job telling customers how fries were prepared. McDonald’s has agreed to establish an advisory panel to provide greater oversight of its nutritional guidelines and food preparation.

After the settlement was first announced, some speculated the attorneys involved could be paid upwards of $2.4 million.

Bharti notes, however, that his latest motion will likely infuriate his fellow lawyers. He runs the risk of having his share of the settlement greatly reduced or even cut out entirely. Nonetheless, Bharti says he’s only interested in protecting the rights of those impacted most by McDonald’s. His life — as a husband and father of two young boys — may be complicated considerably by his work, but it’s fine as it is.

A Path of Service

Bharti’s comments — especially in today’s politically charged, cynical environment — could seem too good to be true, a veil of altruism worn by someone who knows how to work the media.

But those who know the work of the 49-year-old native of Punjab, India, assert he really is as selfless as he seems.

Rashmee Sharma, founder of the regional India Arts & Heritage Society and a news correspondent for India West, a California-based publication, says Bharti is known in the Indian American community as a champion for those otherwise discarded by society’s powerbrokers.

“He’s an undaunting spokesman for people,” she says. “Harish is not afraid to stand up for rights — and what is right.”

Though the McDonald’s case is perhaps his most visible, it’s just one of a long line of civil rights battles Bharti has waged since 1992, when he began practicing law in America. He earned a general science degree from Punjab University and a law degree from what he refers to as a “Mickey Mouse” law school. He served as a judge in one of India’s lower courts for two years before he immigrated to the United States in the mid-1980s.

Bharti with his wife Anoop, two sons Munish (left) and Manu, and their dog Buddy.

Since early in his youth, Bharti intently studied the teachings of swamis, those who devote their lives to helping others and achieving spiritual enlightenment. In fact, he had hoped that he, too, could become a swami.

But, explains Bharti, “I’ve always had this fighting energy,” which doesn’t follow a swami’s ascribed lifestyle of peaceful detachment.

The 5-foot-4-inch counselor says even as a boy, he willingly answered the call to defend others. He recalls coming upon a neighbor boy who was being harassed by two other kids. The other boys were throwing rocks, which Bharti didn’t think was fair. So, Bharti picked up rocks himself and threw them back — harder and faster — until the bullies ran away.

From those early days, Bharti recognized it was his lot in life — what he believes is his karmic destiny — to meet on the battlefield. Fisticuffs, though, are “inefficient,” he says.

“I couldn’t suppress my fighting energy, so I saw two ways to work it out: either fighting on the street or fighting legally,” Bharti says. “The second way, you clean up a whole lot of the mess with one shot,” or, more to the point, one lawsuit.

‘The More You Push Me’

Bharti eventually opted to live in a place where the justice system had more pull — and more teeth. With what he says was little more than a backpack full of belongings, Bharti headed to America.

Once here, he spent a few years taking graduate courses at the University of Washington. It was during this time that he served as a legal volunteer — and garnered intense public attention and scrutiny when he was fired as a child-rights advocate for King County, Wash. As an advocate, Bharti took measures many thought were well beyond his scope of service — to protect a young girl from her politically powerful stepfather. Bharti refused to back down from his efforts, even under strong pressure from his supervisors.

“The more you push me, the worse it gets,” Bharti says with a smile.

He was later dismissed from his post, but not before earning ongoing headlines in the local media.

In 1996, Bharti successfully argued a case in which a woman fatally stabbed her boyfriend out of fear for her own safety, and saw the woman’s sentence reduced from murder to manslaughter. Although the “battered-women’s syndrome” was not a new defense tactic, Bharti’s use of the approach put him at odds with at least one local judge, but ended up raising public awareness of abuse against women.

Aside from the McDonald’s case, Bharti’s current caseload includes a medical negligence suit brought by the parents of a 5-year-old who claim their child was left irreparably brain damaged because their doctor failed to order necessary procedures during delivery; a class-action suit involving thousands of Asian Pacific American Boeing workers who say they suffered ongoing discrimination in the workplace; and another fast-food related suit against Pizza Hut, which, like McDonald’s, is accused of using a beef product in a dish specifically marketed to vegetarians.

For the last five years, Bharti has served as a trainer and advisor for the exclusive Trial Lawyer’s College, created by famed Wyoming trial lawyer Gerry Spence. Bharti proudly displays photos of the two together and ongoing notes of encouragement he’s received from Spence, who regularly served as a TV legal analyst during the O.J. Simpson murder trial.

A Healthy Disrespect

Over the years, Bharti says he’s answered the call of clients “who have nothing.” He’s developed a healthy disrespect for lawyers who see their professions as ways to make money instead of divine opportunities to improve the world.

Bharti’s been the fly in the ointment of many large companies, who he complains know nothing but greed and a whitewashed business world. Yet, he’s markedly upbeat about American society as a whole. He sees an irrepressible longing for truth in American people.

“I’m very, very proud of the jury system,” Bharti says. “I think, overall, there’s a sense of justice in the conscience of Americans — they have a sense of fair and unfair.

“When you compare, human beings will always have prejudices,” Bharti continues. “I think we’re OK. I think we’re still way ahead.”

Fellow civil rights lawyer Yvonne Kinoshita Ward suggests Bharti is way ahead of others as a role model for younger generations.

“What he has done should inspire new attorneys,” says Ward, one of three attorneys who represented a group of APA teens, who alleged they were racially profiled by a Seattle police officer last year as they walked through the city’s Chinatown International District.

Bharti’s work should make others feel “hopeful,” Ward says. “It lets them know that they can take on large foes, and prevail. It should give them courage to take on the ‘good fight.’”

Those who defend the rights of others, like Bharti does, “work hard and tirelessly for people without a lot of fanfare,” says Ward.

Sharma suggests the main message of Bharti’s work is clear: “You can’t take people for granted.”

Bharti says his work reveals something else: He’s a genuine idealist. “People like us, I think we have a stupid side, no issue about it.”

Eventually, Bharti would like to earn the title of swami and provide a helping hand to everyone who crosses his path. He wonders, however, if he’ll ever be able to give up the rush of courtroom drama entirely. Maybe, he says, he can find a happy balance that allows him to do both. In the meantime, Bharti has but one hope for everyone who meets him: He wants people to always think, “This guy never rejected someone, never said no to a deserving client based on business revenues.”

Reach Erik Derr at elwderr@yahoo.com.