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"Nothing. They're doing nothing," a plaintiff attorney said to me last week and another one said it this morning, "Nothing." The church ignores interrogatories for months, makes empty excuses to delay discovery, is a no-show for depositions that plaintiffs need for trials this summer.
Roger Mahony, cardinal of Los Angeles, finally responds to interrogatories. . . and says nothing.
There were tears of relief in court this morning when the judge denied 12 motions to strike in cases concerning George Neville Rucker. One family of survivors was in court and heard their names read into the record twice by their attorney Arthur Goldberg and by Judge Haley Fromholz.
On the left in the back is a church attorney who I keep seeing, I think he’s with Hennigan. He has a rubbery face; James Spader could play him. He looks like he might be a proud founding member of Young Republicans.
Then just to my left is church attorney Donald Woods, lips tight as he reads the judge’s tentative order and shakes his head. He’s this little leprechaun like guy who whenever I see him I think of my Irish relatives in Chicago. He looks up at me over his reading glasses as I’m typing into my laptop describing him. I smile and keep describing him. He smiles, sort of.
Next to Woods, Phil Baker, church attorney, slowly lifts his eyes and I swear I think he’s beginning to realize he’s on the wrong side in these cases -- he wants to burst out of here, forget the yacht and the acreage he’s about to buy with archdiocese money. He looks at me, he looks at the tentative from the judge, where he’s just been ripped a new one . . .
It’s Okay, Mr. Baker, come over to the right side of the court. It’s not too late. You don’t want to spend eternity with the guy from Young Republicans whose face keeps changing. Bring your little leprechaun friend Mr. Woods with you, stop representing the church.
Bring me the story, bring me the story, bring me the story…
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12 Motions to Strike Denied Today
Maybe that's why Phil Baker, church attorney, looked sheepish.
Over and over again church attorneys try to use the period of time when cases were stayed, from 2004 to 2006, like a fishpond packed with missed deadlines. Church attorneys throw in their lines and pull up any case from the hundreds that were stayed during that period and of course they find documents that weren’t filed while the cases were stayed.
There are more than a hundred of these useless motions to strike, quash, dismiss, slap plaintiffs in the face, in the clergy case files since November 2006, most of them a regurgitation of these arguments that certificates of merit should have been filed by this date or that date.
In almost every case the judge has come back with the same answer. So what?
As he denied another bundle of church motions to strike, Judge Fromholz wrote: “Plaintiff filed amended certificates. The Court found reason and and meritorious cause for filing the actions based on review of the certificates and granted leave to serve.
“The Court finds that Plaintiff’s failure to file amended certificates of merit within 20 days of March 23, 2004, is not ground for dismissal of this action.
“The Court has explained in numerous prior orders that certificates may be amended.”
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Here is how today's hearing went in court
By City Of Angels Winging It Transcripts
CHURCH ATTORNEY: Phil Baker for, uh, education and welfare “corp”
JUDGE FROMHOLZ: Tentative is to deny
CA: I’ve argued this and lost before I won’t do it again.
JF: That would apply to all of them
Baker’s body language as he leaves court is depressed, his eyes look from side to side and his face is bleak.
Come over to the light, Mr. Baker, come over to the right side of the courtroom, sit with the plaintiffs, Mr. Baker.
Bring me the story, bring me the story…
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HOW ROGER MAHONY ANSWERS INTERROGATORIES
Copy and paste paragraph from first year law correspondence course here.
It’s hard to imagine how so many attorneys, working for one big defendant can accomplish so little, but here are the answers it took Roger Mahony from July 2006 to March 2007 to come up with in response to court ordered interrogatories:
Interrogatory # 1.
For each year from 1930 to the present identify each employee who was accused or suspected
MAHONY: Responding party objects to this request. It’s broad, burdensome, harassing, not relevant. Violates religion clause of First Amendment, physician patient privilege, laywer client privilege, and (don’t forget) work product doctrine.
Interrogatory # 2:
Provide dates of the above.
MAHONY: Responding party objects to this request. It’s broad, burdensome, harassing, not relevant. Violates religion clause of First Amendment, physician patient privilege, laywer client privilege, and (don’t forget) work product doctrine.
(Copy and paste answer from above and same to interrogatories 3 and 4.)
Interrogatory # 5:
Describe with particularity ALL efforts taken by YOU to identify any EMPLOYEES who were sexually attracted to minors.
MAHONY: Responding party objects (copy and paste) clergy privilege blah-blah-blah
Interrogatory #7:
For each accused individual identified describe each report made to any law enforcement agency by YOU RELATING TO alleged or suspected SEXUAL MISCONDUCT with any minor(s).
MAHONY: Responding party objects: religion clause, clergy privilege, psychotherapist-pt privilege -blah-blah-blah
You get the picture.
THESE ANSWERS SAY NOTHING
The church is doing and saying
. . . Nothing . . .
Oh wait here's something different.
Interrogatory #20:
Identify each of your employees who lived with the Perpetrator at any time at every residence provided to the perpetrator by YOU:
MAHONY: Monsignor (next three lines blacked out) lived with Hagenbach at St. Joseph.
The Supplemental response lists 11 priests with their names blacked out.
Interrogatory # 24:
Describe all documents that show you knew that the perpetratory had engaged in sexual misconduct.
MAHONY: (2 paragraphs of cut and pasted objections.)
They say nothing. The church is doing and saying nothing.
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More Document Diving in Room 106
BC307682 IS JIM ROBERTSON’S CASE!!!!!
Jim Robertson has long been my hero in pedo-priest rape survivor land. Here's why:
June 27, 2005
Man Arrested in Protest During Mass at Cathedral
LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times
By David Pierson, Times Staff Writer
A man protesting the Los Angeles Archdiocese's handling of the clergy sexual abuse scandal was arrested Sunday after he handcuffed himself to the chair used by Cardinal Roger Mahony during 10 a.m. Mass.
The incident happened while Mahony was standing a few feet away at the altar and had just delivered a homily to 2,500 congregants about how the archdiocese is dealing with the controversy.
The protester, James C. Robertson, 58, of Mount Washington, was part of a group of about 200 victims and their supporters who had demonstrated outside the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels by tying crime scene tape around themselves and the church's perimeter.
It looks like something is happening with Jim Robertson’s case.
Another firm of church attorneys has been added to BC307682 Jim Robertson’s case.
To do nothing?????
More to come…..
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PS - PERSONAL RANT
(This was for me a self esteem building day as two, no three, plaintiff attorneys introduced themselves to me, eagerly shaking my hand, smiling. This never happened to me in all my professional life. After I’d been on a job for a month or two word would start to get around, and the eager handshakes would turn to backs turned in my face.
(In fact I like to joke, I never held a job longer than one year -- except at NASA, and that's only because it took them three years to fire me….I lost every job I had because of my weird sexual behavior, and I’ve spent most my life feeling like I have a layer of grime all over me.
(This morning with plaintiffs outnumbering church attorneys, there were more smiles like mine with teeth missing, more shabby clothes, I felt more like I fit in. Before court started while most attorneys were studying tentatives from the judge a couple of us were going on all animated about the way they used sign language in the movie Babel -- I love L.A.
(Plus I’ve been around these hearings now four months and people still talk to me. On the red line riding home I thought about how at NASA I was the only person in a huge employee cafeteria sitting at a table alone at lunch each day. The way people reacted to me today, this is personal growth, but I digress….)
My story is at cityofangels1.blogspot.com
More to come.....
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