Posts by Aztec

was just looking at the depression post and looking at pepole's biography.. why doesn't a lot of members put anything in there bio.. i undersatnd that many may not want to be identified, but i think bio makes it easier for us to undersand each others history.

Aztec

Wow! My bio has nothing in it. I really am the lazy slattern I always knew I was.

28

People from that island west of Europe: What do you call your country?

by seattleniceguy in

jw
friends

i'm curious.

do you call it the uk, england, or britain?

i have the sneaking suspicion that these terms each mean something slightly different from one another, but i thought i'd see how the natives use them.

Aztec

Could your pic be any cuter SNG? I suspect most of them call themselves Brit's but I could very easily be wrong. *shrugs*

26

WHO IS WORSE TO A JW, A PAEDOPHILE OR AN APOSTATE?

by diamondblue1974 in

hearing about the child molester in glasgow who has been charged but not disfellowshipped did cause me to think a little;.

as an apostate you can be shunned without the need for a jc meeting irrespective of the fact that you might be repentent (not if you have any sense though); however the child molester mentioned hasnt been disfellowshipped!!?

?...if this is true doesnt it clearly highlight the wts f**cked up sense of morals?.

Aztec

However, I'm convinced that Watchtower leaders mostly think of apostasy as far worse at all levels, because they know that it challenges their cult, and that they have no defenses against most of the charges that most apostates bring forth. Pedophilia, though, is easily handled either through disfellowshipping or ignoring it.

There is no question in my mind that apostacy is considered far worse than anything else Alan. I remember attending meetings in the mid-eighties (when I was still a little kid ) and hearing elders speak of apostacy as the "greatest sin". Intellectually it makes no sense but most of these people let emotion over-ride reason.

31

CANADIAN WTBS CHANGES it's name

by Jez in

jw
friends

letter read tonight.

said that the "watchtower bible and tract society of canada" will change its letterheads and signature to "christian congregation of jehovah's witnesses".

jez

Aztec

Someone asked me to post this:

ANDREW MARTIN DROZDOWSKI (On behalf of himself and on behalf of Jehovah's Witnesses) v. WATCH TOWER BIBLE & TRACT SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA LUC VANDERPUTTE and JACQUILENE FRANCINE VANDERPUTTE SMITH VANDERPUTTE [1997] EWCA Civ 2895 (4th December, 1997)
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE LTA 96/5634/5636-7/E

LTA 96/6512/E

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)

ON APPEAL FROM THE QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION

(MR JUSTICE KENNEDY )

Royal Courts of Justice

Strand

London WC2A 2LL

Thursday 4 December 1997

B e f o r e:

LORD JUSTICE HOBHOUSE

LORD JUSTICE MANTELL

- - - - - -

ANDREW MARTIN DROZDOWSKI

(On behalf of himself and on behalf of Jehovah's Witnesses)

Plaintiff/Applicant

- v -

WATCH TOWER BIBLE & TRACT SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA

LUC VANDERPUTTE & JACQUILENE FRANCINE VANDERPUTTE

SMITH

VANDERPUTTE

Defendants/Respondents

- - - - - -

(Computer Aided Transcript of the Palantype Notes of

Smith Bernal Reporting Limited, 180 Fleet Street,

London EC4A 2HD

Tel: 0171 421 4040

Official Shorthand Writers to the Court)

- - - - - -

Mr Drozdowski appeared in person.

The Respondents did not attend and were not represented.

- - - - - -

J U D G M E N T

(As approved by the Court)

- - - - - -

©Crown Copyright

JUDGMENT

LORD JUSTICE HOBHOUSE: Lord Justice Mantell will give the first judgment.

LORD JUSTICE MANTELL: The applicant, Mr Drozdowski, who appears in person, has four separate applications for leave to appeal arising out of four separate High Court actions. In three of them the orders in respect of which leave is sought were made by Kennedy J on 29 February 1996. The fourth involves a decision of Sir John Wood made on 23 April 1996. It is apparent that there has been considerable delay in bringing the applications before the court. It would not be fruitful, however, to enquire into the reasons for the delay except to observe that at one time the applicant indicated a wish to have them all dismissed by consent.

In his grounds of appeal, in the written argument presented before us and in the supplementary oral arguments advanced to this court, the applicant has been concerned to attack the way in which the several actions progressed up to the hearing before the Master, District Judge, or up to the time when Kennedy J and Sir John Wood had to deal with it. In particular, he complains about the misuse, or misapplication of, or breaches of, the rules of court. In consequence he has not at any stage addressed the substance of any decision which he now seeks to attack. He complains that, certainly in one case, a hearing designed for another purpose had been converted into an opportunity for entertaining a strike-out application.

As a result of exchanges during argument, the applicant now understands that the court was entitled, in the one instance to which I have referred, to consider the question of strike out as of its own motion, his attention having been invited to Order 18 rule 19. The merits of the action, or the substance of the decision appealed against, at some stage have to be addressed. This court is not concerned merely to consider whether at various antecedent stages there has been a technical breach of the rules of court. The applicant had made it known that he approved of a judgment handed down, or delivered by, one judge who has been fortunate enough to hear the applicant in the past and, in particular, that judge received an encomium because of the number of decided cases or authorities referred to in the course of the judgment. I shall be sorry to disappoint the applicant, who seems to expect much the same in relation to his present applications, but the matters which fall for decision today are not matters which in the main are covered by previous authorities.

I turn from those general observations to consider the four applications in turn. I remind myself that we have to consider the substance of the decision, in the first three cases made by Kennedy J and in the fourth by Sir John Wood and not any antecedent breaches or misapplication of the Rules of the Supreme Court.

The first application relates to an action in which the plaintiff purported to sue on behalf of himself and on behalf of the Jehovah's witnesses. The defendant was the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society of Pennsylvania. The matter in relation to that action, from which the plaintiff now seeks leave to appeal, is the order of Kennedy J made on 29 February 1996, by which the appeal of the plaintiff from the order of District Judge Hebbert striking out the action was dismissed. Costs were ordered on an indemnity basis to be taxed if not agreed. Leave to appeal was refused by the judge. It is necessary for the applicant to have leave to appeal by virtue of the RSC Order 59 rule 1B(i)(j) because the order made was interlocutory in character by reason of RSC Order 59 rule 1A(6)(k).

The plaintiff's writ had been issued on 3 January l996 seeking damages for slander, libel, defamation of character, deception, fraud and negligence said to have occurred since 1993. The claim was pitched at £300 million. The Statement of Claim runs to a great many paragraphs, but in the course of the hearing before Kennedy J, the applicant indicated that the substance of the claim was to be found in paragraph 7 which reads:

"Comments in the December 1st issue of the Watch Tower magazine published earthwide, make assertions that the opposers of their society, in ´Legal Battles´, are linked with ´Satan and his Demons´ and also are responsible for doing all they can to thwart the efforts of God's faithful servants or make problems for them and such comments do by extension link myself with ´Satan and his Demons´ as one involved in ´legal battles´ with the society WBTS."

It is not plain from the Statement of Claim whether it was contended by the plaintiff that he himself is or was a Jehovah's witness.

On 28 January 1996 the defendant issued a summons seeking to set aside service of the writ under Order 12 rule 8, and seeking a declaration that the court has no jurisdiction over the defendant in respect of the subject matter of the claim or the relief or remedies sought. It was stated that, pursuant to Order 15 rule 12, the plaintiff was not entitled to proceed with a representative action "on behalf of Jehovah's witnesses" and that the defendant had not been properly served. In the alternative, the defendant applied to strike out the claim under Order 8 rule 19 on the basis that it disclosed no reasonable cause of action.

On 7 February the action was struck out by the Deputy District Judge. It was declared that the court had no jurisdiction to award the relief or remedies sought by the plaintiff in a representative action. It was said that the words complained of as being defamatory were not capable of being understood as referring to the plaintiff. That decision was appealed to Kennedy J who upheld the order made by the Deputy District Judge.

In the course of his judgment, Kennedy J said:

"So far as the second action is concerned, which is an action against a body known as the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, at their premises at Watchtower House, the Ridgeway, London - where the brief name employed for them is Watchtower Bible and Tract Society -the plaintiff's claim is a claim for slander, libel, defamation of character, deception, fraud, and negligence, occurring against the plaintiff between 1993 and the date of the issue of this writ of summons. In essence, the claim is one for slander, or libel, but, at all events, for defamation."

The judge then goes on to recite the terms of paragraph 7 of the Statement of Claim. He continued:

"Now, the fact is that there is litigation, a considerable body of litigation, it seems, between the plaintiff and either directly members of the society, of the society, and others which could be said to be legal battles, but, for all that, I am wholly satisfied that the learned district judge was quite right in his essential conclusion that this particular Statement of Claim and writ does not disclose any reasonable cause of action and that it too should be struck out under the inherent jurisdiction of the court."

As has been observed, the grounds of appeal in all these applications failed to address the substance of that decision. There are ten of them in all. They relate in the main to allegations that the rules of court had been misapplied or misused. Ground 1 is common to the three applications relating to the orders of Kennedy J, to the effect that he was in error to hear the three matters at the same time.

It is difficult, in my judgment, for this court to grant leave to appeal where none of the grounds of appeal upon which it is proposed to rely actually address the substance of the decision against which leave to appeal is sought. Having read all the papers in this matter, I am satisfied that the judge was plainly right in his decision and that there are, so far as this application is concerned, no arguable grounds of appeal.

I turn, therefore, to the second application. This relates, in the order in which I propose to take them, to an action by the applicant against Luc Vanderputte and Jacquilene Vanderputte. This is an application for leave to appeal against the order of Kennedy J, also made on 29 February 1996, dismissing an appeal from the decision of District Judge Higgins by which the plaintiff's request for a judgment in default to be entered had been refused. Costs were awarded on an indemnity basis and leave to appeal was refused. Once again, by reason of Order 59 rule 1A(6)(f) this is an appeal which needs leave before proceeding further.

The plaintiff had issued his writ on 3 January 1996. Again, he was alleging slander. The claim is more modestly set at £50 million. The claim arises out of statements alleged to have been made by the defendants, which the applicant contends caused his children to abscond. By virtue of Order 12 rule 5, the time limit for acknowledging service was 14 days after service of the writ. The acknowledgment was filed on 29 January 1996. The plaintiff had sought judgment in default of the filing of such acknowledgement on 26 January 1996. The matter having been referred to District Judge Higgins, he refused the applicant's request for a default judgment to be entered. It was his judgment that the requirements of Order 13 rule 13(1)(iii) had not been fulfilled. Further, it was contended by, or on behalf of, the defendants that the writ had not been served.

On the appeal before the judge, the decision of the District Judge was again upheld. The judge said in relation to that:

"So far as the third appeal is concerned [as this was before him], there it is perfectly apparent that there has been a dispute about service of the writ. It is perfectly plain that the service which was purportedly sworn to in the plaintiff's affidavit was not good service and that the learned district judge was absolutely right to refuse to enter judgment in default of defence on the material before him. This action is not at this moment struck out, all that happens is that the plaintiff's application -- that judgment should be entered in default of defence, fails."

As a result of the order which Kennedy J made in relation to this matter, the action for the time being lives on. But, with regard to the application for leave to appeal against this judgment, I observe once again that none of the grounds advanced, and none of the arguments advanced, seek to address the substance of the decision against which leave to appeal is sought. For that reason, if no other, I would refuse the application. It appears to me upon reading the material in this case, such as it is, that the decision of the District Judge and that of Kennedy J, cannot be impugned. There is no argument which can be presented to the court which would have any chance of succeeding.

I turn to the third and final matter which exercised Kennedy J on 29 February. On that occasion, in an action which had been brought by the applicant, ostensibly on his own behalf and on behalf of his wife and children, against Robert Smith, defined as Group 1 in the Statement of Claim, Deputy District Judge Lamb had made an order on 23 January 1996 striking out the claim. Once again leave to appeal is required.

The writ in this matter had been issued on 1 November 1995. The plaintiff complains that the defendants had abducted one of his children contrary to Section 19 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956. On 29 November 1995 the defendant applied to set aside the writ pursuant to Order 12 rule 8, a declaration that the writ had not been duly served and that the court had no jurisdiction over the defendants in respect of the subject matter or of the claim, or relief for the remedies sought. It was said that the plaintiff was not authorised to bring a representative action on behalf of his wife and remaining children, and was not entitled to proceed with an action on behalf of the defendants as described, and, by that action, to include any unidentified persons engaged in the causes of action. The District Judge made the order sought.

On appeal Kennedy J found that the appropriate steps had not been taken to bring a representative action into being. Once again I refer to Order 15 rule 12(11) which provides that persons bringing a representative action, or being sued in such capacity, must have the same interest in the proceedings. The judge also found (this arising of his own motion) that the statement of claim did not disclose any reasonable cause of action. For that reason the action was struck out.

The grounds of appeal once again are chiefly concerned with technical objections relating to proceedings which predate the hearing before the judge and, in some instances, predate the hearing before the District Judge. They do not address the substance of the decision which it is sought to appeal. I can find no arguable grounds which would justify the grant of leave and accordingly in that application also I would refuse the application for leave.

I turn finally to the application which relates to the order of Sir John Wood, made on 23 April 1996, by which he set aside the writ on the basis that it had not been duly served. Unfortunately this court does not have the advantage of any reasoned judgment by Sir John Wood delivered on the occasion when he made the order. It would appear that the recording machine had not been switched on. However, it is plain from the material before us that, by his order, Sir John Wood upheld a decision which had been made previously by the District Judge.

On 7 August 1995 the plaintiff had issued his writ in the action which was said to be on behalf of Jehovah's witnesses against Luc Vanderputte and another. By that writ he sought to claim £40 million in damages for impeding his, the applicant's, work over a period of 12 years. Acknowledgements of service were filed on behalf of the International Bible Students Association, one of the defendants, and Mr Vanderputte. However, on 13 August 1995, judgment in default of notice of intention to defend was entered long before the time limit for acknowledging service had actually expired. At some time prior to 10 October 1995 the defendants issued a summons returnable on that day seeking to set aside service of the writ, together with a declaration that the writ had not been properly served and the court had no jurisdiction over the defendant. One of the arguments advanced was that the applicants daughter, Michaela Drozdowski, should be removed from the action on the basis that she was a minor. At the hearing on 10 October she was struck out from the action.

On 11 January 1996 judgment was entered in default of defence, which the defendants then applied to set aside by summons dated 15 January 1996. This was on the basis that judgment had been entered prior to the determination of the application to set aside service of the writ. On 15 January 1996 Master Foster ordered that the execution of the judgment be stayed, pending the hearing of the summons to set aside judgment. On 31 January Master Foster set aside the judgment, and on 19 March he set aside the writ declaring that it had not been properly served. He further ordered that the plaintiff should pay costs on an indemnity basis. Those orders were appealed and the matter came, as I have indicated, before Sir John Wood. He upheld the orders which had been made by the Master.

This is yet another case in which the grounds of appeal do not address the substance of the decision against which leave to appeal is made. Nevertheless, I have examined the papers available in the case and can see no basis upon which those decisions could be attacked. Once again, for my part I would refuse the application for leave to appeal.

LORD JUSTICE HOBHOUSE: I agree. All four applications are refused.

Order: Applications refused.

61

"I can't stop thinking about Jehovah's Witnesses!"

by logansrun in

jw
friends

i've heard this said by a few ex-witnesses in my three years away from the organization, and have sometimes said it myself.

sometimes it is said in the context of, "i'd like to move on, but i just can't stop thinking about them.

could it not be that one of the reasons ex-jws "can't stop thinking about" the organization -- and their past involvement with it -- is that they daily log onto this site, read about the society and talk about them?

Aztec

LT, it's a euphemism.

61

"I can't stop thinking about Jehovah's Witnesses!"

by logansrun in

jw
friends

i've heard this said by a few ex-witnesses in my three years away from the organization, and have sometimes said it myself.

sometimes it is said in the context of, "i'd like to move on, but i just can't stop thinking about them.

could it not be that one of the reasons ex-jws "can't stop thinking about" the organization -- and their past involvement with it -- is that they daily log onto this site, read about the society and talk about them?

Aztec

Bradley's clear logic is superior to almost everyone else. There are a few who come to mind that may be more logical. They are the few that I allow to frolic in my forest.

I doubt that he is sitting there thinking "I'm so superior. I think I'll start a post." If you do not understand his original post than you may wish to re-read it. If you still do not understand it than the onus is on you to educate yourself.

61

"I can't stop thinking about Jehovah's Witnesses!"

by logansrun in

jw
friends

i've heard this said by a few ex-witnesses in my three years away from the organization, and have sometimes said it myself.

sometimes it is said in the context of, "i'd like to move on, but i just can't stop thinking about them.

could it not be that one of the reasons ex-jws "can't stop thinking about" the organization -- and their past involvement with it -- is that they daily log onto this site, read about the society and talk about them?

Aztec

Oh...puhleeze!