Zalkin in the Lopez case was asking for all of Watchtowers documents on child abuse cases that have been reported to them. That was the basis for the 13 million dollar sanction back in 2015. The Court of Appeals ruled in 2016 that Lopez and his attorney are entitled to those documents as part of the discovery process. The Court ruled that the documents and files may or may not be admissible in a trial court, they did not decide that part of it. The question before the Appeals Court was, does Lopez have the right to the documents, whether the documents can be used in court or not, and the Court ruled that he is entitled to the documents, even if it is just for a fishing expedition. The Court though never had before them the question of how much of those documents could be redacted, the court ruled that third party information is private and can be redacted by Watchtower. Subsequently, in the Pardon case both sides stipulated to a protective order on the documents. That is what Zalkin talked about in the Trey Bundy interview, that he has all of these documents but he cannot talk about them. The protective order basically states that the plaintiff's attorney and those working with them, in a legally established activity, can look at the documents, read them, and determine how best to use them in their current civil case, but those documents cannot be shared with anyone else nor can they be used in any other legal matter. In fact part of the order is that once the case is resolved within 30 days all the documents must be destroyed by Zalkin.
In the Padron case Watchtower redacted all third party information including abuse victim's names, abuser's names, congregation names, witnesses' names, elder's names and so forth. Zalkin argued that the redaction was too onerous and that the information could not be used. The judge, in that case, asked Zalkin what the purpose of the documents would be used for. Zalkin stated that his intention to use that information was to get statistical data to show a jury that Watchtower has all of these unreported cases. The judge asked why can't you use the redacted information to gather that statistical data, since you are not going to tell the jury third parties personal information. Zalkin responded that he and his investigators want the full information so that they can check to see if Watchtower has provided him with all the information that they have, by checking on legal authority or media reports. In essence he stated that the Court cannot trust Watchtower to turn over all of the documents. Watchtower said that Zalkin is trying to use the information in order to get more clients in suing Watchtower. They point to Lopez, where the plaintiff had no desire to sue or want to even talk about what he went through until Zalkin's investigator-initiated contact with him about what happened to Lopez and encouraged him to become a client of Zalkin.
The other argument that Watchtower is using for keeping the documents redacted is that it would force a California court to rule on the laws of other states. The data that Zalkin is requesting is not limited in time or geographic location but he wants all documents held by Watchtower. Each state has their own laws on child abuse, reporting and priest-penitent privilege along with their own common law precedents which would require the court to rule on those laws.
