You wont be able to read anything usefull with a DMM when dealling with static electricity.But I don't really understand where you are comming from on this question,it is very easy to generate extremly high potentials on your body simply by walking over a carpet and modern logic families can tolerate a static discharge or about 15Kv or less before they give up the ghost,so I don't think that anyone is using static discharge as an excuse,its very real and it does break stuff.