Man, what a depressing picture.
That's more like it! A glass of Guinness for you!"Counsel should have tried negotiation before litigation."
William J. Rogers, Esq., attorney for the Spiritual Rights Foundation
who LITIGATED a lawsuit against us and LOST.
(gee, I guess that's why he wanted us to negotiate...)
It's Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. It's a neighborhood where the law is whatever his client wants it to be. It's a neighborhood where right is wrong and wrong is right. Mr. Rogers' neighborhood is the SRF neighborhood.
And it's no pleasant suburb. Bosnia is more like it.
We received a response to our request to compel the Spiritual Rights Foundation to pay our legal fees.
I've seen some crazy responses to legal petitions before (one from a person who called me something on the order of criminally insane). This one takes the cake.
Will starts off telling the judge that we are not allowed to demand our legal fees back because we settled the issue and he dismissed his lawsuit with prejudice.
WRONG!
My ten-minute search on Google showed articles from defamation attorneys who said to NEVER settle a SLAPP then dismiss with prejudice. If you do, you guarantee the court will award the defense ALL their legal fees.
Strike One.
Next, Mr. Rogers says the fees we are demanding (over $77,000.00) is too much. Well, we can justify all those fees for a lot of reasons. And, after looking at other First Amendment/SLAPP cases, $77,000.00 looks to me to be on the CHEAP side!
The judge sees a lot more SLAPP cases than Mr. Rogers ever has. In fact, from the looks of it, this may be the ONLY SLAPP Mr. Rogers ever litigated. Anyway, I think the judge has seen enough anti-SLAPP motions to know when a bill is too much and that our attorney is honest and has billed only what he had to (and it was a lot of work - Josh worked a straight 36 hours without sleep to finish our motions). Our demand for fees is reasonable.
Rogers tries to split hairs, saying only a small part of the hard work we and our attorney did was used to address his lawsuit. Huh? The only damn work we COULD do was address his lawsuit! And that work is expensive.
I've just gone through a textbook that lays out the anti-SLAPP procedure. They emphasize that defending against a SLAPP is really hard work that costs a lot of money. And this book said any idiot who dismisses his SLAPP with prejudice will likely need to get his client's boot surgically removed from his ass, once the defense sends their bill.
Anyway $77,000.00 was not out of the ordinary for a SLAPP defense.
Strike Two.
This next thing is really strange and it takes some explanation.
For some strange reason, Rogers believes he can bang the libel drum even after he promised everyone he'd stop that damn racket!
Rogers began his response with a statement that our blogs are purposed for anything but the revelation of the truth. He added declarations from two young women who state: "I was outraged at the lies" and "I began posting my own comments to correct the lies".
I have no idea why he's trying to persuade the court that our blogs do something we do not - especially after he dismissed his suit with prejudice.
Rogers made hay about those two young women (the adult daughters of one of his clients) who left really nasty, profane, insulting and personally threatening comments on Joy's YouTube channel. They got other SRF members and children of SRF members to join in.
It got them banned. Which I thought was appropriate. You might too if one of them vowed to deliver "spiritual retribution" to us and the comments weren't on the line of "gee, I would like to disagree" but were more like: "you fucking fat cunt piece of shit bitch and your cocksucker asshole motherfucker husband..."
In what has to be some kind of epileptic seizure, Rogers claims that Joy's exclusion of the two young women from her YouTube site showed that in fact, the two young women were the victims and Joy was the bully when she banned them.
To drive his point home, Rogers attached a crappy, blurry printout of a page in Joy's blog. In his printout, he points to Joy explaining in her blog that due to the threatening, bullying, intimidating, nasty comments left by the two young women and others, she was in fear for her safety, in fear for my safety and was compelled to take action. So she banned the two young women (and others) from YouTube and only from YouTube.
So to Rogers, because the two daughters of his clients left threats and taunts that put us in fear for our safety, their banning was all Joy's fault because Joy was the one who forced them to threaten, bully, harass and intimidate her. He's actually trying to blame the victim - just like his clients!
I think I heard this one before... Oh yeah, a guy who tries to rape a woman gets kicked in the balls instead. So, while in San Quentin he files assault charges against her and sues for personal injury while he takes the soprano part in the prison choir. Right. Makes sense. I can totally see why those two are victims.
Anyway, what the hell does that have to do with denying our demand for attorney's fees?
As you have seen, there have been hostile comments posted on this blog and several comments posted by people believed to be SRF members, ministers or their supporters.
And you might also know (especially if you also use Blogger - as SRF does) there is NO mechanism to "block" any individual reader.
For some reason, Rogers wants to convince the court uhh.. well... Hell, there's no damn thing to convince. The statements from those two young women are relevant to NOTHING. Nothing, that is, but the way they embarrassed themselves.
Anyway, if spinning the aggressive and intimidating actions of the two young women as mere defense of a maligned parent isn't enough, Rogers tries to say since we settled, we can't go after SRF for our attorney fees. So, to prove his point, Rogers digs the hole deeper: he added a copy of the settlement agreement (HE wrote it).
Rogers agreed to this: "Nothing in this Agreement shall be construed as limiting in my way the claims K&B (that's Me and Joy) may have against SRF, including but not limited to any claims to attorney's fees..."
Uhh... it is just me, or did his clients agree to let us go after them for attorney's fees?
This hole is getting so deep, it's reaching China.
Inexplicably, Rogers adds a declaration from the Spiritual Rights Foundation itself. Again they bang the libel drum then repeat the claim that SRF members were always banned from our blogs (I've already shot that notion down) and whine they "did not want to draw more attention to the defendant's accusation" (so instead, they filed an idiot response - ensuring even more attention would be created.) .
Here is a great tidbit from the SRF declaration. Say hello to your grounding cord or get your tomatoes ready, as appropriate:
"The second reason that the plaintiffs agreed to dismiss the lawsuit was because, after a period of reflection, meditation, and prayer, we decided to take the high road. We forgave the defendants. We decided that engaging in litigation over the defendants' statements, even though false, was not reflective of our religious teachings and spiritual ideals."
Actually, they only saw the road when they got hit in the face with four inches of anti-SLAPP motion. As our inspiration, we relied on Bill Duby's adage: "Whip it out and slap her in the face with it!" Thanks for the advice, Bill!
As for whether that road is high or low, well maybe their posted response (saying you, me and everyone who ever heard of SRF is a spiritually defective malcontent projecting his shortcomings on poor little them) will give you a clue.
As far as forgiveness is concerned, If they drop a dozen Krispy Kremes on my doorstep (without poison or hidden explosives, please) that would be a tremendous gesture. Behaving above the law - not so much.
And of course, they repeat that this blogs contains "lies". Since there are many, many references that confirm and support what is presented in this blog, the "lies" must be the first media reports describing the dysfunction, deceit and malfeasance at SRF some ten years ago. If those reports are indeed lies, then those media would have received similar suits as Joy and myself. They never did.
Now for the item that has me shaking my head in amazement: a declaration from Mr. William J. Rogers himself. Mr. Rogers wrote the most fearsomely worded and aggressive cease and desist letter and lawsuit I have ever seen - and most factually incorrect and legally confused.
After reading the documents and knowing the plaintiffs as well as we do, Joy and I realized we were facing fanatical religious zealots who would stop at nothing in their quest for our total destruction.
However, Mr. Rogers says in his declaration: "I'm a lover, not a fighter." (sorry, MJ - God rest your soul)
Rogers points with pride his ability to settle 98% of his cases and that we could have settled the case if we only sat down to tea with his clients.
And that statement, his claim of being a negotiator tells it all. His clients never really intended to go to trial so they never really needed a legally substantial case.
They hoped their bluster and swagger alone would be enough to force us to capitulate. They never expected to obtain a judgment - they wouldn't need it. Fear, intimidation and the tactics of a schoolyard bully was all they thought they needed to make us fall to our knees.
They never considered they would face an appropriately vigorous defense and they never expected to face a wall of protection so strong, their attempts at legal combat would blow up in their faces. They never thought they would face an opponent who had such a strong resolve to defend his right to speak the truth and the right for all ex-members to live in freedom.
Freedom from the fear of the Spiritual Rights Foundation.
It's all clear now: since they dismissed their lawsuit with prejudice, Mr. Rogers and his clients presented a claim that could not stand up to the rigors of judicial review or to the scrutiny of a jury of their peers.
Obviously, SRF wanted to beat Joy and I into submission in order to force us into silence and to create an atmosphere of fear and intimidation among the dissidents so the Witches of Ellsworth may perpetuate their insane climate of denial, control and exploitation.
And that makes their suit a textbook example of a SLAPP. You couldn't imagine a more perfect reason for the lawmakers to have created the anti-SLAPP process.
Their claims of victimization can't overshadow their bluster.
Their claims of spiritual piety can't overcome their swagger.
And their statements to the court will not only prove to be ineffective, they do more damage to the holy SRF image than a million Joys and Mikes can do in a century.
That's what happens when SRF blows their own horn with someone else's lips - the tune they play is "retreat!".
Strike Three. You're Out!
