John Roe 1 vs. Defendant Doe 1, Congregation is a child sexual abuse case pending before the Superior Court of California, Orange County (Judge John C. Gastelum). Jury trial is scheduled on June 15, 2020, but it may not occur: the judge is expected to decide on multiple pre-trial motions including motion for sanctions filed by plantiffs; next hearing on pre-trial motions is scheduled on May 14.
Case docket is available here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DbQcRONNkEax492pshgWPuOubt-xaaBZ/view?usp=sharing
Case documents are available for purchase here: https://ocapps.occourts.org/civilwebShoppingNS/Search.do (case number 30-2014-00741722-CU-PO-CJC).
During the course of this litigation the Court ordered Watchtower to produce molestation complaints it received, redacting only names of victims and elders handling the matters. In August of 2018, Watchtower produced the documents with redactions of all identifying information.
In September, six Jehovah's Witnesses mentioned in the (unredacted) documents - three victims and three victims' relatives including an individual "accused of, investigated for, and exonerated of, sexual abuse of his daughter" - filed a motion for protective order before the Court "to assert their privacy rights, their clergy-penitent privilege and religious freedom objections to disclosure of the documents".
Moreover, on August 23, 2018 they (later, an elder joined them) filed federal lawsuit against the Californian Court seeking injunction on enforcement of the discovery order at issue, "with respect to the unredacted names or identifying information of Plaintiffs or their family members".
Plaintiffs are members of some of the congregations of Jehovah’s Witnesses that supplied the documents at issue in the State Litigation to Watchtower. Each one of them is named, identified, or described in the documents that must be produced pursuant to the May 17 Order, and each one of them faces a serious risk that their privacy will be violated if the documents are produced without the redactions requested herein. Three of them are victims whose names will be redacted, and yet each faces a risk of identification because the names of their family members will not be redacted. The other three are family members of victims who are concerned for their own privacy and for the privacy of their victim family members. Plaintiff Doe 7 is a congregation elder. All seven Plaintiffs are mentioned in the documents in the context of sexual abuse, assault, and molestation—allegations that expose Plaintiffs to extreme harassment, humiliation, ridicule, social stigmatization, and physical and emotional distress, and that infringe upon their religious freedoms.
The plaintiffs also requested a judgment declaring the order null and void. On January 14 the case was dismissed without prejudice.
Interestingly, plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit were represented by Robert Crockett, a business lawyer and a member of the LDS Church (long time ago, he even was a Mormon bishop), and his law firm.
The case documents I was able to obtain:
Motion to Dismiss filed by Defendant, the Superior Court
Declaration and Memo filed by Zalkin Law Firm on behalf of Intervenors, Plaintiffs in State Lawsuit
P.S. I have to mention Mark O'Donnell who first wrote about the federal lawsuit, even though I dislike him and he didn't provide case name or number or any case documents.
Sorry for my poor English.