That is the date for oral argument.
Chaserious
JoinedPosts by Chaserious
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Re: CANDACE CONTI - What's the current status?
by CaptainSchmideo incalendar notice sent.
calendar date:.
december 10, 2014 at 9:00 a.m.. .
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Deposition of Richard Ashe
by truthseekeriam inhttp://watchtowerdocuments.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/lopez-11exhibit-8-to-dec-of-copley-iso-opp-to-plnts-mfs.pdf.
did any of you guys sit down and read this??
it's long but i assure you it's a great read.. .
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Chaserious
Do the Watchtower men have their own bible they bring in to court
It's rare these days (at least on the East Coast) for witnesses to be asked to swear on a bible. And there is definitely not going to be any swearing on bibles at a deposition in a lawyer's office. In fact, you can't be made to "swear" at all if you don't want to. As long as a witness "affirms" to tell the truth under penalty of perjury, that's enough to qualify a witness to testify.
As far as objections, what Oubilette said is right. It's not uncommon in any litigation for the majority of questions at a deposition to be objected to. As long as the attorney defending the deposition doesn't instruct the witness not to answer, it's fine. There is no judge there to referee, so they are generally just preserving objections to form. It doesn't mean that the attorney is worried that it's a damning question.
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ALERT: NEW LAWSUIT settlement - $13 MILLION
by Watchtower-Free inhttp://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/135m-awarded-to-bible-teacher-gonzalo-campos-alleged-abuse-victim-jose-lopez-281031832.html.
(published thursday, oct 30, 2014).
thursday, oct 30, 2014 updated at 11:58 pm pdt.
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Chaserious
SV - in response to our exchange on the last page - thanks for posting those quotes from Zalkin / news sources on the appeals decisions in this case. I didn't have a chance to respond earlier, but I think I've gotten to the bottom of it. The decisions by the California Appellate Court and the California Supreme Court were summary orders that refused to intervene, and did not substantively consider whether the judge was correct in issuing her discovery orders
The first indicator to me was the tone of Zalkin's own comments. He was somewhat vague about what these appeals courts did. Plaintiffs' lawyers are promoters. It's part of their job. If one of these higher courts not only said he was right, but explained WHY he was right, he would have spoken about it at every opportunity, including on the podcast.
I also ran an electronic database search today. Written opinions by state appeals and supreme courts are almost always available on an electronic legal database. Nothing there. The answer can be found in these dockets entries from the California Appellate Court, here and here.
On each, docket, you can see that on 3/27/14, there is an entry that says:
The petition for writ of mandate, request for stay and real party's opposition to the stay have been read and considered by Justices Haller, McDonald and McIntyre. The petition is denied. Thus, a writ of mandate was denied through a summary order on the papers (e.g., they never had the lawyers in to court to argue it, and the panel of 3 appeals justices did not write an opinion explaining the reasons for their decision). Then, you can also see that on 5/21/14 (in the second docket link above) the CA Supreme Court denied a petition for review.
Just to briefly summarize, the writ of mandate is a sort of request for an emergency appeal, that is only granted in rare circumstances, regardless of whether there might be merit to the appeal. In most cases, judges will issue various orders along the way. However, the parties have to wait until the end of the entire case, after final judgment to appeal. Even if the judge is wrong, you have to abide by her orders along the way. The writ of mandate is a request for interlocutory appeal, meaning that a party believes they shouldn’t have to wait until final judgment to appeal, for example if an order involves turning over some document where irreparable harm would ensue by the very act of turning it over - the "bell can't be unrung" scenario.
That request was denied, evidently without explanation, by the appeals court. The docket would indicate if a formal opinion explaining the reasons was issued, but none is shown. The CA Supreme Court then refused to entertain an appeal of that decision. The end result for a party whose request for interlocutory appeal is denied, is that they have to comply with the order that they disagreed with. However, the denial does not necessarily mean that the party appealing was wrong; it could be that it just was not an appropriate time to appeal. The bigger question (to me) in this case is what happened between May, when the CA Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal, and last week, when judgment was entered. It’s not really possible to tell from the briefs, because the briefing on the sanctions motion was completed in April, when the writ of mandate petition had yet to be decided by the CA Supreme Court.
My editorial take on this is that Zalkin is engaging in a bit of puffery by implying that the intermediate appeal court and the CA Supreme Court have already ruled in his favor on these issues. That’s not necessarily a criticism; talking up his case and promoting how well he’s doing is part of his job. Don't get me wrong - it's an extremely egregious move to refuse to turn over documents that were ordered to be turned over, after exhausting avenues for appeal. Appeals courts will not look favorably upon that. However, it's somewhat of an overstatement to say that the appeals court and CA Supreme Court agreed with everything the trial judge did, when they never had the parties in for argument and never discussed the discovery issues in a formal opinion.
tl;dr version: the appeals courts entered orders that had the result of requiring the WTS and Losch to comply with the discovery orders, but those courts never found that the discovery orders involving document production and deposition testimony were actually correct.
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Chaserious
Some of their outside counsel are JWs. Don Ridley, who represents Losch in the Lopez case, works for a NYC law firm. He was at one time a WT "in house" lawyer, so I doubt they would keep using him if he exited. I believe one or more of the lawyers involved in the Conti case at the trial level was also identified here as a JW in private practice. Who knows if they might offer their services free of charge. Im sure WTS leans on them to do so. When defense counsel is going to charge $300-400 per hour for litigation that takes years thats no small thing.
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Chaserious
For the in-house WTS lawyers, exit options might be better than some other WTS "volunteers" but probably not as good as some think. From what I have gathered, WTS lawyers enjoy a high status within the org, even if they are paid at standard Bethel rate. Anyone who was in the org at one point knows how much status and prestige are valued. They also likely get to travel frequently on the WTS's dime.
A law degree can be a valuable credential, but there are plenty of unemployed attorneys out there, just like in most other professions. For those who have done nothing in their legal career but in-house WTS work, I doubt there is high demand at law firms or in-house positions for these folks and the skills they have developed. Some of it may be transferrable, such as real estate purchasing, estate planning, etc. But law is also a very reference-driven field. It is common to have to know someone, or at least know someone who knows someone, a classmate from law school, etc, to be considered for a job. At a minimum, employers will usually at least want to talk to references from prior legal jobs. I doubt the WTS legal dept will be eager to help defectors get new jobs.
The other alternative if you don't want to work for someone is to open your own law office, but that requires (1) a lot of up front capital, and (2) a way to attract clients, which if it involves advertising, requires even more capital. The bottom line is they are probably almost as dependent on Bethel as most other volunteers and it would probably take a lot to get fed up enough to break rank and try to hack it in the outside world.
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ALERT: NEW LAWSUIT settlement - $13 MILLION
by Watchtower-Free inhttp://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/135m-awarded-to-bible-teacher-gonzalo-campos-alleged-abuse-victim-jose-lopez-281031832.html.
(published thursday, oct 30, 2014).
thursday, oct 30, 2014 updated at 11:58 pm pdt.
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Chaserious
ScenicViewer - I will agree with BOTR to the extent that she believes there is a good chance the verdict does not survive appeal. Any prior appeals would not have examined the issue of whether striking the WTS's defense and entering default judgment is the appropriate remedy, so that is a new issue for appeal.
Also, I have not reviewed every document and listened to every podcast, but it appears any opinions by the appeals courts have not been made available. It is possible- and correct me if I am wrong - that the appeals courts didn't rule on the merits of the discovery orders, e.g. found that it was the correct decision that the documents had to be turned over/ depositions had to be taken, but only held that it wasn't the appropriate time to appeal. Usually, interlocutory appeals are disfavored and you have to wait until final judgment to appeal.
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ALERT: NEW LAWSUIT settlement - $13 MILLION
by Watchtower-Free inhttp://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/135m-awarded-to-bible-teacher-gonzalo-campos-alleged-abuse-victim-jose-lopez-281031832.html.
(published thursday, oct 30, 2014).
thursday, oct 30, 2014 updated at 11:58 pm pdt.
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Chaserious
I don't understand the outrage at all, BOTR. As a practicing lawyer, I understand working many (sometimes excessively many) hours performing work that clients are paying for, and thus not wishing to give free legal advice in your free time, especially if you view it as unappreciated. However, this is a discussion board where participation is voluntary. Personally, if I am too busy to post, I simply don't. To analogize this to real life as you suggest, if I freely chose to join a casual conversation with non-lawyers about a hot-button legal topic, such as gay marriage, it would be absurd for me to demand that they pay for my time before I learn enough about the issue to discuss it intelligently.
Law is only like brain surgery in that you need an advanced degree and a license to practice it. Unlike brain surgery, untrained but intelligent people can usually understand the basic concepts. There is a long history of coverage of significant legal developments in the press, geared toward non-laywers, especially when it impacts public policy. So if I were to comment on documents and rulings that I hadn't read, I would expect to be corrected by those who have read them, whether they are attorneys or not.
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ALERT: NEW LAWSUIT settlement - $13 MILLION
by Watchtower-Free inhttp://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/135m-awarded-to-bible-teacher-gonzalo-campos-alleged-abuse-victim-jose-lopez-281031832.html.
(published thursday, oct 30, 2014).
thursday, oct 30, 2014 updated at 11:58 pm pdt.
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Chaserious
I don't find it shocking or even nonBiblical that the GB has counsel present.
The WTS lawyers represented to the court that the governing body is purely a spiritual entity, just like the Dalai Lama. This was in the context of arguing that Losch is not an employee or director of any of the parties in this case, and not even a part of the WTS organization, so they allegedly have no power to be able to make him appear for a deposition. So having WTS lawyers present for their meetings seems to cut entirely against the idea that it is just a spiritual think tank with no power over the organization.
Rocky Copley, Esq. (To the Court): "These are just men who get together and discuss spirìtual concepts. That is it. It's like the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama, for their religion. . . . And our posìtion is he's not a managing agent because he's not even part of the organizatìon, and so we have no ability to even compel him to appear."
(From Lopez-14 document)
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ALERT: NEW LAWSUIT settlement - $13 MILLION
by Watchtower-Free inhttp://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/135m-awarded-to-bible-teacher-gonzalo-campos-alleged-abuse-victim-jose-lopez-281031832.html.
(published thursday, oct 30, 2014).
thursday, oct 30, 2014 updated at 11:58 pm pdt.
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Chaserious
Thanks for posting the documents. It seems that the WTS really pissed the judge off by willfully refusing to comply with discovery orders. However, it is extremely rare for default judgments to stand, as there is a strong preference for cases to be decided on the merits whenever possible. In fact, it doesn't appear that Zalkin was able to cite a single case in his brief where a CA court allowed sanctions in the form of a default judgment on the entire underlying case to permanently stand when challenged.
But I would think that if the WTS is successful in having the default vacated, they will be required to comply with the discovery orders as a condition of vacating the judgment. Unless, of course, they are able to succeed in appealing both the default judgment and the discovery rulings simultaneously. It will be interesting to see what they do if put to the choice of having to turn over all those documents and produce Loesch for a deposition or get the default judgment tossed.
An interesting snippet from the deposition of Mario Moreno (WTS attorney)
Q: Have you ever attended these [Governing Body] meetings?
A: I haveQ: And in what capacity?
A: As a lawyer
Q: And have you attended those meetings for purposes of providing legal counsel?
A: YesTruly in the model of first century Christianity... just as the 12 apostles were always lawyered up when they met.
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Can I block tv.jw.org from my internet?
by Emily24 inmy spouse and i have not been to the meetings in about 10 years.
recently i have noticed a very very strong push from my spouse's family.
they have been sending jw shit in the mail all the time.
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Chaserious
If your kids try to access it and see that you've blocked it, they will probably only be more curious to find out what is so offensive about it that it has to be censored. Perhaps a talk with your spouse would be more useful than leaving him to discover that you've attempted to block the internet sites.