Watchtower's Billion Dollars of Property Cannot Be Sold until Outcome of Conti Appeal

by Dogpatch 171 Replies latest watchtower child-abuse

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  144001

  The Watchtower is only responsible for 40% of the judgment; the other 60% was assigned by the court to the perpetrator, which means that the real monetary value of the judgment against the Watchtower is 40% of $28M, or $11.2M. If the WT seeks court approval to sell any of its properties, counsel for Candace Conti will have a very difficult time in opposing any such request, as $11.2M is a very small percentage of the assets of the Watchtower and Ms. Conti will be required to show that the sale of such property would somehow prejudice her ability to collect $11.2M from the WT.

  The WT will appeal the judgment and may be successful in reducing it on appeal, or via a remittitur issued pursuant to a WT motion to reduce or throw out the judgment rendered by the jury in this case.

  Regardless of the outcome, the Conti case will not put the WT out of business. But it is certainly a step in the right direction, and it is the sort of bad publicity that the Society has aggressively sought to avoid. Congratulations to Ms. Conti and her lawyers for their win and for landing a good punch to the Watchtower's face!
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  Violia

  It is amazingly bad press ( and morally) to be mentioned with Penn State . I heard discussion that there may be a way to hold Penn State itself responsible for what happened to all those children and if so the WTS can certainly be held responsible too.

  Common sense should have told them to warn others about a known or suspected child molester.
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  Band on the Run

  This is my last post on Conti's case. Penn State's liability will be judged by PA law. Conti's case involves CA law. CA law sets no precedent for PA law and vice versa.
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  AnnOMaly

  FYI:

  07/09/12

  Notice of Motions for JNOV and Notice of Intent to File Motions for New Trail Filed

  http://apps.alameda.courts.ca.gov/domainweb/service?ServiceName=DomainWebService&TemplateName=jsp/imgviewer.html&rofadt=07/09/12&Action=27563958

  From page 2:

  
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  moshe

  The ignorant JWs will just have to work a little harder in field service giving away WT literature (which JWs pay for) to pay their legal judgment.--and maybe they can dupe more elderly JWs into willing all their property to the WT Corporation.

  
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  sir82

  The Watchtower is only responsible for 40% of the judgment; the other 60% was assigned by the court to the perpetrator, which means that the real monetary value of the judgment against the Watchtower is 40% of $28M, or $11.2M.

  That is incorrect.

  The WTS is responsible for 40% of the $7 million in compensatory damages, and 100% of the $21 million in punitive damages.
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  Band on the Run

  Rick Simons is spinning the case in public. Any lawyer would. You have no idea what is discussed within his office. He may be a very good lawyer.

  Every lawyer I have ever met is optimistic to the public. It is an important job skill. It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall and hear the inner commentary.
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  AnnOMaly

  More just in:

  07/17/12

  Memorandum of Points and Authorities in Support of Motion for New Trial Filed

  This details the points of contention the WTS has with how the proceedings went, citing legal precedents and codes. I've only just started reading it myself, only through the first paragraph of the Introduction, and already I'm riveted.

  http://apps.alameda.courts.ca.gov/domainweb/service?ServiceName=DomainWebService&TemplateName=jsp/imgviewer.html&rofadt=07/17/12&Action=27594149
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  Euphemism

  Read that yesterday, it's quite interesting. IANAL, but the Watchtower's position seems to boil down to three arguments:

  1. They claim that the 1989 letter is insufficient evidence to prove that there was an organization-wide policy of secrecy around child abuse. I think they're going to have a hard time with this one; while you can argue whether it was right or wrong, the organizational policy was pretty clear.

  2. They claim that the trial was prejudiced by various decisions of the judge that they objected to. At this point, that is just a formality, since the claim is going before the same judge who made the decisions in the first place. They're just mentioning it now so they can bring it up on appeal later.

  3. The weirdest claim is that punitive damages are disallowed because the plaintiffs are trying to change Watchtower's national policy. They cite case law that states may not impose punitive damanges based on actions committed in other states. But the plaintiff's intentions are irrelevant to whether they have a legal claim; and the punitive damage award was purely based on how the national policies took effect in California.
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  mind blown

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Exercise_Clause

  The Free Exercise Clause is the accompanying clause with the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause together read:

  The first case to closely examine the scope of the Free Exercise Clause was Reynolds v. United States in 1879. A case dealing with the prosecution of a polygamist under federal law, and the defendant's claim of protection under the Free Exercise Clause, the Court upheld the law and the government's prosecution. This case, which also revived Thomas Jefferson's statement regarding the "wall of separation" between church and state, introduced the position that although religious exercise is generally protected under the First Amendment, this does not prevent the government from passing neutral laws that incidentally impact certain religious practices. This view of the Free Exercise Clause would begin to narrow again in the 1980s, culminating in the 1990 case of Employment Division v. Smith. Examining a state prohibition on the use of peyote, the Supreme Court upheld the law despite the drug's use as part of a religious ritual, and without employing the strict scrutiny test. Instead, the Court again held that a "neutral law of general applicability" generally does not implicate the Free Exercise Clause. This was followed by intense disapproval from Congress and the passage of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in 1993 to attempt to restore the prior test. However, in City of Boerne v. Flores, the Supreme Court struck down the act as well, holding that it unconstitutionally attempted to usurp the Supreme Court's role in interpreting the Constitution, thus leaving the Smith test in place. ************************************************************************************ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Establishment_Clause

  The Establishment Clause is the first of several pronouncements in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, stating, The first case to closely examine the scope of the Free Exercise Clause was Reynolds v. United States in 1879. A case dealing with the prosecution of a polygamist under federal law, and the defendant's claim of protection under the Free Exercise Clause, the Court upheld the law and the government's prosecution. This case, which also revived Thomas Jefferson's statement regarding the "wall of separation" between church and state, introduced the position that although religious exercise is generally protected under the First Amendment, this does not prevent the government from passing neutral laws that incidentally impact certain religious practices.