Date: Tue, 16 Jul 1996 08:04:40 -0700 To: rnewman@cybercom.net (Ron Newman) From: Grady Ward Subject: "Joint" case management statement In theory both sides in any dispute in federal court must cooperate to form a join case management statement concerning the basic facts about a case and their proposal concerning discovery and trial schedules. The deadline for this statement in my case is July 16 since the actual conference before the Judge will occur in about 10 days on August 2, 1996. But since the criminal cult is extremely slow to provide and data or cooperate in any way with the opposing legal team (contrary to their alacrity in seeking expedited and intrusive discovery from the other side) it is no surprise that each side has a vastly difference view of the case. Enclosed are two "Joint" proposals. The first one from the cult, the second one from me. Readers are invited to compare them. ___________________ First, this is the criminal cult's official view of the case: Thomas R. Hogan, Esq., California State Bar No. 042048 LAW OFFICES OF THOMAS R. HOGAN 60 South Market Street, Suite 1125 San Jose, CA 95113-2332 Telephone: (408) 292-7600 Helena K. Kobrin, Esq., California State Bar No. 152546 7629 Fulton Avenue North Hollywood, California 91605 Telephone: (213) 960-1933 Eric M. Lieberman, Esq. RABINOWITZ, BOUDIN, STANDARD, KRINSKY & LIEBERMAN, P.C. 740 Broadway - Fifth Floor New York, New York 10003 Telephone (212) 254-1111 Roger M. Milgrim, Esq. William M. Hart, Esq. PAUL, HASTINGS, JANOFSKY & WALKER 399 Park Avenue, 31st Floor New York, New York 10022-4697 Telephone: (212) 318-6000 Attorneys for Plaintiff RELIGIOUS TECHNOLOGY CENTER UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA RELIGIOUS TECHNOLOGY CENTER, a ) No. C 96-20207 RMW California non-profit corporation, ) JOINT CASE MANAGEMENT ) STATEMENT, ADR CERTIFICATION Plaintiff, ) AND ORDER FOLLOWING CASE ) MANAGEMENT CONFERENCE v. ) ) GRADY WARD, ) Date: August 2, 1996 ) Time: To Be Set Defendant. ) Ctrm: Hon. Ronald M. Whyte ___________________________________) The parties to the above-entitled action jointly submit this Case Management Statement and Proposed Order and request the Court to adopt it as its Case Management Order in this case. DESCRIPTION OF THE CASE 1. Events Underlying the Action. The Complaint of Religious Technology Center ("RTC") alleges that RTC owns the trade secret rights in the information contained in the confidential, unpublished scriptures of the Scientology religion, referred to as "Advanced Technology," authored by L. Ron Hubbard, founder of the Scientology religion, and holds the exclusive rights under the copyrights to use, display, publish, reproduce and sell those works. The unpublished works are never published or sold. They are accessible to Scientology parishioners who have received the requisite religious counseling, and met strict, eligibility requirements, but only under strict confidentiality and security conditions. Defendant Grady Ward is a computer programmer who frequents the Internet. The Complaint alleges that defendant Ward (himself and possibly in combination with others) infringed certain copyrights and misappropriated certain trade secrets belonging to RTC by posting Advanced Technology works to the Internet both under his own name and anonymously, and by soliciting others to send to him copies of certain of those works in violation of RTC's rights. RTC notified Ward in writing that all rights in the works were protected under copyright and trade secret law, and that the copying, posting, and disclosure were unauthorized, and requested him to cease. He did not. RTC filed suit on March 21, 1996. Alleging copyright infringement and misappropriation of trade secrets, RTC sought to enjoin the solicitation and threatened posting of additional Advanced Technology works, comprising the NOTs Series. On March 29, 1996, at the preliminary injunction hearing, Ward did not dispute his authorship and posting of various Internet postings infringing RTC's copyright and constituting evidence of intended misappropriation by wrongful acquisition. On April 4, 1996, the Court entered a preliminary injunction on both copyright and trade secret claims. On April 10, 1996, defendant Ward answered the Complaint, asserting a general denial, with certain specific exceptions, including an admission that he had reproduced, displayed, and distributed RTC's works as alleged in Exhibits A and B to the Complaint (Answer,  1), and has thereby infringed RTC's copyrights and misappropriated its trade secrets. Ward averred, however, that all such use by him constituted fair use. Ward also asserts various other affirmative defenses. Ward also asserted a counterclaim for "conspiracy against civil rights" under 18 U.S.C.  241 and state law tort claims for trespass and intentional infliction of emotional distress. RTC has moved to dismiss those counterclaims on the basis that the federal claim does not state a cause of action for which relief can be granted under Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6), and that, with no valid federal claim, the Court lacks jurisdiction over the supplemental claims, which are permissive, and not compulsory, counterclaims. 2. Principal Disputed Factual Issues. - Whether Ward copied, reproduced, displayed, or published plaintiffs' copyrighted works and the extent of such acts by Ward; - The security with which certain of the unpublished, confidential works, known as the Advanced Technology, were and are maintained; - The extent, if any, of the public dissemination of these works; - The economic benefit derived by plaintiff RTC from the confidential nature of the Advanced Technology. 3. Principal Disputed Legal Issues. - Whether the unpublished, confidential works known as the Advanced Technology are trade secrets, and in particular whether the works at issue have become "generally known" as a result of unauthorized Internet postings of those works; - The subsistence of valid copyrights in certain of the works; - The existence of valid registrations for copyrights in certain of the works; - Whether any or all of Ward's copying legally constituted fair use under 17 U.S.C.  107; - Whether Ward infringed plaintiffs' copyrights in the works; - Whether Ward misappropriated or threatens to misappropriate plaintiff RTC's trade secrets. 4. Other Legal Issues. None. 5. Unserved Parties. There are no unserved parties. 6. Additional Parties. RTC and Ward are unaware of any additional parties at this time. ALTERNATIVE DISPUTE RESOLUTION 7. The following parties consent to the assignment of this case to a United States Magistrate Judge for trial. None. 8. Assignment to ADR Process. The parties have not been assigned to court ADR process. 9. Request for ADR Referral. RTC does not believe ADR referral would be useful at this time. [WARD STATEMENT NEEDS TO BE ADDED.] DISCLOSURES 10. Certification of Disclosures. RTC certifies that it has made initial disclosures, pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 26 and L.R. 16-___, as applicable, including production of documents under those rules. Plaintiff has, however, withheld production of confidential documents and has objected to giving copies of confidential documents to Ward, who is pro se, and has been sued as a result of his infringement and misappropriation of confidential, unpublished documents. RTC has offered to permit Ward to inspect the relevant confidential documents at the offices of RTC's counsel. Ward certifies that he has made also made initial disclosures. DISCOVERY 11. Discovery Plan. Plaintiffs' Discovery: RTC has taken certain preliminary discovery, including the deposition of Ward, and deposition subpoenas to several third-party access providers, which, with one exception, will be for records only. Pursuant to orders issued by Magistrate Judge Infante, searches of Ward's computer archives under the auspices of Special Master Beth Hamilton are ongoing, and RTC anticipates further searches and/or depositions may be needed depending on the results of the ongoing searches. RTC will not be certain of the scope of needed discovery until after a ruling on the motion to dismiss the counterclaims. Assuming the motion is granted, RTC does not expect to take more than the 10 depositions permitted by Fed.R.Civ.P. 30, but reserves the right to seek leave of this Court to take additional depositions should it become necessary to do so, in light of the need to explore further into Ward's involvement in Scamizdat and other anonymous postings alleged in the Complaint. Plaintiffs also intend to propound interrogatories, requests for admission, and requests for production of documents. Defendant's Discovery: Ward has stated that he intends principally to propound written discovery. [NEED TO ADD ANY ADDITIONAL WARD STATEMENT ON DISCOVERY.] Discovery Schedule: The parties propose the following dates related to discovery and designation of experts: Discovery Cut-off November 8, 1996 Expert Designation, including reports November 27, 1996 Rebuttal Expert Designation, including reports January 10, 1997 Depositions of Experts January 31, 1997 TRIAL SCHEDULE 12. Trial Date. The parties propose the following dates related to trial and pre-trial activities: Filing of Dispositive Motions February 28, 1997 Hearing of Dispositive Motions April 4, 1997 Pre-Trial Conference April 30, 1997 Trial May 20, 1997 13. Length of Trial. The parties expect that trial will last for 3 - 5 days. SIGNATURE AND CERTIFICATION BY PARTIES AND LEAD TRIAL COUNSEL Pursuant to Civil L.R. 16-6, each of the undersigned certifies that he or she has read the brochure entitled "Dispute Resolution Procedures in the Northern District of California," discussed the available dispute resolution options provided by the court and private entities and has considered whether this case might benefit from any of the available dispute resolution options. Dated:_______________________ _______________________________ Warren L. McShane, President Plaintiff Religious Technology Center Dated:_______________________ _______________________________ Thomas R. Hogan Counsel for Plaintiff, Religious Technology Center Dated:_______________________ _______________________________ Defendant Grady Ward _____________________________________ The following is Grady Ward's view of the case: UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT ) No. C-96 20207 RMW (EAI) NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA ) JOINT CASE MANAGEMENT ) STATEMENT, ADR CERTIFICATION RELIGIOUS TECHNOLOGY CENTER, a ) AND ORDER FOLLOWING CASE California non-profit corporation, ) MANAGEMENT CONFERENCE Plaintiff, ) ) vs. ) ) Date: August 2, 1996 GRADY WARD, an individual, ) Time: To be set Defendant ) Ctrm: Honorable Ronald M. Whyte ___________________________________) The parties to the above-entitled action jointly submit this Case Management Statement and Proposed Order and request the Court to adopt it as its Case Management Order in this case. DESCRIPTION OF THE CASE 1. Events Underlying the Action On January 11, 1995, Helena K. Kobrin, counsel for plaintiff issued a special computer command called a RMGROUP ("remove group") in order to automatically destroy the Internet discussion group called alt.religion.scientology. Because of this destructive act, the availability and services of that discussion group was denied to many individuals around the United States. While Madame Kobrin later admitted that this act was in retrospect unwise, she cited trademark and copyright rights as justification for this act apparently in violation of California penal code 502 (referring to tampering and unlawful destruction of computer data) and U.S. wire fraud statutes. Because of this destructive act, hundreds of persons not previously involved in Scientology or the Religious Technology Center became critical of scientology using criminal acts to suppress negative comments about their belief system. One such person was the defendant, Grady Ward. During several months in the preceding year and continuing throughout 1995 portions of material allegedly copyrighted and or claimed as a trade secret by Scientologists were published to alt.religion.scientology. While Madame Kobrin did not repeat the RMGROUP error (at least openly) the posts of material allegedly the intellectual property of plaintiff were unlawfully canceled by persons acting in concert and participation with the plaintiff by forging electronic signatures, and as Madame Kobrin had cited, each of these forgers cited copyright and trade secret violations as justification for their fraudulent and destructive acts. One of those unlawfully canceled posts belonged to the defendant, even though it did not contain any material claimed as intellectual property by the plaintiff. Over two hundred and seventy instances of such wire fraud by person(s) working in concert and participation by plaintiff have been collected during the period 1995 and first quarter of 1996. Beginning in the second quarter of 1996 person(s) working in concert and participation with the plaintiff have begun a new tactic to extirpate free criticism of Scientology by mechanically issuing tens of thousands of posts to the newsgroup alt.religion.scientology. Such flooding of the newsgroup, which continues to this very day, denies the intangible right of its service to tens of thousands of individuals around the world who subscribe to that group and continues to flout U.S. wire fraud statutes to prevent criticism of scientology. On June 27, 1996, the plaintiff implicitly admitted to acting in concert and participation with such unlawful denial of service attacks by introducing as a deposition exhibit a document signed by one the individuals, Vera Wallace, who has been documented as being part of the fraudulent cancel scheme. Counsel for the plaintiff, Eric Lieberman subsequently sought to justify such cancels by individuals working in concert and participation with the plaintiff by suggesting that that response was justified to protect the plaintiff's intellectual property. Counsel for the plaintiff, Roger Milgrim also stated during a hearing in a related case in this court that since the alleged infringements of plaintiff's intellectually property rights were promptly canceled they had not become "generally known" in the language of the California trade secret statutes These implied admissions continue to add weight to the overwhelming evidence that the plaintiff is engaged in a wide-ranging clandestine scheme to commit multiple acts of wire and mail fraud in violation of federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations statutes and California felony computer statutes. The cancel forgeries and denial-of-service flooding of alt.religion.scientology has only been one prong of the unlawful attacks against critics of the scientology belief system. The plaintiff has acted in concert and participation with the long-time RTC investigator Eugene Martin Ingram to unlawfully obtain photographs of the defendant, his wife and children from the defendant's elderly mother and to use the U.S. Mails in furtherance of the fraud. This theft by deception resulted in a criminal complaint 95-1530374 in Tacoma, Washington. In April of 1995 two scientologists visited the home where the defendant, his wife and his children live in Arcata, California without prior notice. The trespassing scientologists were asked to leave the property several times and warned that the police would be summoned to eject them if they did not comply. Since they did not comply, the Arcata Police were in fact summoned. This resulted in the defendant filing the criminal complaint 95-1322 against Jeffrey George Quiros and party unknown. Jeffrey George Quiros is the head of the investigative and enforcement branch of scientology called the Office of Special Affairs, Church of Scientology, San Francisco. In May of 1995, my publisher in Austin, Texas received a phone call from a man identifying himself as Gene Ingram who proceeded to damage my reputation with untruthful defamatory remarks about the defendant's previous employment in order to interfere with the defendant's lawful interstate commerce with his publisher. Madame Kobrin subsequently claimed that Mr. Ingram was sincerely mistaken about Ingram's remarks about the defendant. During this period Madame Kobrin also unlawfully alleged that I had violated the Lanham Act by warranting a document called OTVIII was an authentic Scientology document, even though I had carefully placed the disclaimer that "[Madame Kobrin] says that it is a forgery." Subsequently she said that she was sincerely mistaken about this charge as well. She also issued a communique to alt.religion.scientology in order to intimidate lawful criticism to libelously say that my Internet Service Provider, Netcom, Inc., had "warned a copyright infringer [Grady Ward]," although Netcom had in fact only given me a generic terms of service notice and simply repeated Madame Kobrin's allegation. They did not, in fact, alleged that I had infringed copyright as announced by Madame Kobrin. Madame Kobrin later said that she was sincerely mistaken in this instance as well. Board Member Mike Sutter admitted on July 1, 1996 that indeed Eugene Martin Ingram was shielded from Religious Technology Center by use of attorneys so that both plaintiff and Ingram could cite attorney privilege in order to thwart any investigation into RTC or Ingram's wrongdoing. He ("we sent") also admitted to sending Mr. Quiros on the mission to my home in Arcata. He also claims to have spent $xxx,xxx on litigation against the defendant to this point. Since the defendant is imminently filing for Bankruptcy under Ch. 7 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, it is clear that something more than financial relief is sought by the plaintiff for the alleged misconduct on the part of the defendant. Grady Ward has in good faith offered to settle this litigation with a mutual consent decree and to mitigate the waste of judicial resources in pursuing the mutual claims and counterclaims, and is in fact eager to use ADR services to reach such a resolution, but the plaintiff seems to have another agenda planned for this court. During this period of fraudulent cancels and portions of alleged intellectual property licensed by the plaintiff posted to the newsgroup alt.religion.scientology, the defendant coined a word to refer to the such anonymous postings of material alleged to be plaintiff's intellectual property, "Scamizdat," a portmanteau invention from "scam" and "samizdat," or distribution of critical writings in the Soviet Union. The defendant did not hide the fact that he enjoyed the free distribution of information about the plaintiff as best described by the word "schadenfreude." The defendant did lawfully solicit information about the cult of scientology for teaching purposes from other members of the internet in spite of the attempts at unlawful intimidation by the plaintiff, but always was careful to ask for only material not in excess of the "fair use" guidelines of the U.S Copyright Act and never to wrongfully ask for material that was protected by trade secrets laws. The defendant even quoted the full text of the California trade secret code in early 1995 on the newsgroup alt.religion.scientology in order to counsel potential contibutors to be cognizant of the plaintiff's lawful intellectual property rights. The defendant has never published plaintiff's intellectual property in excess of clear fair use nor misappropriated trade secrets. In spite of these events, the plaintiff filed suit against the defendant alleging copyright infringement and trade secret misappropriation in March of 1996. Although based upon a complaint and declaration containing unauthenticated documents and documents admittedly altered and falsified by the plaintiff, the court entered a preliminary injunction against defendant Ward on April 1, 1996. Even while undergoing abusive accelerated deposition the defendant managed to file a timely counterclaim. The plaintiff moved to dismiss the counterclaim. The defendant immediately (May 17, 1996) moved this court leave to amend his counterclaim. The plaintiff's motion to dismiss counterclaim is moot since the defendant proposes to amend his claim to the more appropriate Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organization statutes. From the preliminary injunction hearing on, Defendant Ward has always challenged the authenticity of postings allegedly made by him and has moved and does move that each and every alleged posting be struck from the record as without foundation, unauthenticated, and hearsay. While defendant Ward can and will provide eyewitnesses to the fraud perpetrated and admitted by the plaintiff, the plaintiff -- even after months of accelerated abusive discovery including three days of deposition, seizure and search of his disks, and suffering the service of six or more third party subpoenas -- has no credible evidence to any wrong-doing on the part of defendant Ward. Defendant Ward has denied all allegations of wrong-doing. On the other hand the plaintiff it has not denied a single allegation of wrongdoing contained therein, in spite of its motion to dismiss counterclaims. 2. Principal Disputed Factual Issues Whether the defendant did infringe plaintiff's copyrights and/or misappropriated plaintiff's trade secrets. Whether the plaintiff is working in concert and participation with other scientology organizations such as Church of Scientology, San Francisco, Church of Spiritual Technology, Church of Scientology International and multiple individuals and should be considered a single entity with respect the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organization statutes. Whether Chairman of the RTC Board David Miscavige is directly responsible for the unlawful executing the Racketeering activites of RTC, Scientology, inter alia. Whether Eugene Martin Ingram is working in concert and participation with the plaintiff to commit wire and mail fraud. Whether Vera Wallace and multiple John Does are working in concert and participation with the plaintiff to unlawfully deny service to participants in alt.religion.scientology, thus violating federal wire fraud statutes. Whether Madame Kobrin is working in concert and participation with the plaintiff to commit various felony violations of California law, federal wire fraud statutes and libel. Whether Mike Sutter, David Miscavige and other board members of the plaintiff are obstructing justice by wrongfully interposing attorney's between themselves and their investigators such as Eugene Martin Ingram or feloniously participating in the plaintiff's racketeering enterprise. 3. Disputed Legal Issues. Whether the entire set of plaintiff's claims ought to be dismissed for lack of any credible evidence of wrong-doing on the part of the defendant. Whether all incidental quoting of the intellectual property of the plaintiff was "fair use" under the Copyright Act. The number of scientology organizations that should be considered as one organization under RICO statutes. 4. Other legal issues -- none known at this time. 5. Unserved parties -- multiple John Does who fraudulently forged cancels on the newsgroup alt.religion.scientology. 6. Additional Parties -- not aware of any at this time, however since the defendant is pro se with virtually no legal knowledge, this may change when he commences his discovery. ALTERNATIVE DISPUTE RESOLUTION 7. The parties do not consent to a trial by Magistrate. 8. The parties have not been assigned to an ADR process. 9. Request for ADR referral. In order to conserve judicial resources, the pro se defendant does hereby request in-person mediation by a magistrate judge in order to seek a mutually agreeable settlement. INITIAL DISCLOSURES 10. Defendant certifies that he has made full initial disclosures. Plaintiff admits not making such a full disclosure under the pretext that it would endanger its intellectual property. The plaintiff has also not made required disclosures with respect to Eugene Martin Ingram, Jeffrey George Quiros, David Miscavige, Helena K. Kobrin, and other facts alleged in the defendant's counterclaim. DISCOVERY 11. Discovery Plan -- the plaintiff has already indulged in extensive accelerated discovery that has been prejudicial to the efforts of the pro se Defendant to defend himself and learn legal procedure. Besides three days of deposition and production of documents and things, RTC has issued at least six third party subpoenas and have seized hundreds of megabytes of the defendant's computer archives in order to search for vaguely-defined contraband allegedly contained therein. The defendant has not yet been allowed to commence discovery. As much as the defendant is able to afford given his pauper and pro se status, he will be taking depositions from principals such as David Miscavige (Chairman of the Board of RTC), Eugene Martin Ingram (RTC private investigator who eye-witnesses will identify as having stolen photographs), Vera Wallace (forger on a.r.s. and admitted intelligence agent for RTC), Jeffrey George Quiros (trespasser and agent of RTC), and Helena K. Kobrin (accused of wire fraud as counsel/agent for RTC). Other depositions may be required as discovery is commenced. The defendant will propound interrogatories, third party requests for production of documents, admissions, and other written discovery. Discovery Schedule: The parties propose the following dates related to discovery and designation of experts: The defendant needs a substantial time for discovery as his resources are extremely limited compared to the plaintiff. In addition through accelerated discovery the plaintiff has acquired a three month "head start" in discovery. Finally, the legal and factual issues and multiple actors involved in the serious racketeering allegations will require much more additional time for discovery than the relatively simple allegations and issues presented by the plaintiff. Discovery Cut-off August 8, 1997 Expert Designation, including reports August 27, 1997 Rebuttal Expert Designation, including reports October 10, 1997 Depositions of Experts October 31, 1997 TRIAL SCHEDULE 12. Trial Date. The parties propose the following dates related to trial and pre-trial activities: Filing of Dispositive Motions November 30, 1997 Hearing of Dispositive Motions January 3, 1998 Pre-trial conference January 31, 1998 Trial February 28, 1998 13. Length of Trial. The parties expect that trial will last for 7-10 days. SIGNATURE AND CERTIFICATION BY PARTIES AND LEAD TRIAL COUNSEL Pursuant to Civil L.R. 16-6, each of the undersigned certifies that he or she has read the brochure entitled "Dispute Resolution Procedures in the Northern District of California," discussed the available dispute resolution options provided by the court and private entities and has considered whether this case might benefit from any of the available dispute resolution options. Dated: _________________ _________________________________ Warren L. McShane, President RTC Dated: _________________ _________________________________ Thomas R. Hogan, Counsel for Plaintiff Dated: _________________ _________________________________ Grady Ward, defendant pro se MANAGEMENT ORDER The Case Management Statement and Proposed Order is hereby adopted by the Court as the Case Management Order for the case and the parties are ordered to comply with this Order. In addition the Court orders: Dated: _________________ _________________________________ Ronald M. Whyte United States District Judge JOINT CASE MANAGEMENT STATEMENT, ADR CERTIFICATION AND ORDER FOLLOWING CASE MANAGEMENT No. C 96-20207 1