In two child abuse cases litigated in a US district court in Montana, plaintiffs recently filed identical motions for sanctions against Watch Tower PA, Philip Brumley (General Counsel for WHQ/WT) and Joel Taylor (Associate General Counsel for WT), accusing them of lying to court and vexatiously delaying the case:
Here, with the hope that the Court would dismiss Plaintiffs’ cases against WTPA, in-house counsel Brumley signed affidavits that were materially false and intentionally misleading. Doc. 86 at 2-17 (setting forth how WTPA’s own documents establish that Brumley’s sworn statements were obviously and materially false). Brumley’s affidavits formed the sole evidentiary basis of WTPA’s Motion. Both in-house counsel Brumley, as well as WTNY Associate General Counsel Taylor (who also represented WTPA in this case), were uniquely in possession of the documents and information establishing the falsity of Brumley’s representations to the Court. Brumley and Taylor knew that Brumley’s representations were false.
The perpetuation of Brumley’s false and misleading statements wasted Plaintiffs’ and the Court’s time and energy litigating and resolving matters that were not legitimately in dispute. This included not only litigating WTPA’s Motion, but also litigating collateral discovery matters. All told, Brumley and Taylor’s conduct resulted in a 17-month delay of this case, unnecessarily forced Plaintiffs and the Court to waste significant time and resources, and was an intentional attempt to undermine the integrity of these proceedings with false statements and obstruction.
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Brumley and Taylor knowingly made and perpetuated false statements and then attempted to cover those false statements up by refusing to produce discoverable and material evidence. The record in this case, as well as the record from other sexual abuse cases, establishes that Brumley’s and Taylor’s conduct is not an aberration; it was immediately obvious that Brumley’s sworn statements to this Court were false and their bad faith conduct here is consistent with how WTPA’s lawyers have conducted themselves in other cases. In short, this is what they do.
Based on the foregoing, Plaintiffs believe that sanctions are appropriate, including:
Awarding Plaintiffs’ attorneys' fees and costs for all of the time spent addressing WTPA’s Motion - including all the time spent on all of the jurisdictional discovery;
Requiring attorneys Brumley and Taylor to self-report to all applicable licensing boards and courts for knowingly perpetuating false and misleading statements; and
Daily sanctions of an amount determined appropriate by the Court for each day that WTPA, acting through Brumley and Taylor, improperly and vexatiously delayed this case.