Has anyone, ever successfully been able to sue the WTBTS for whatever reason...be it blood, organ transplants, disfellowshiping or neglect with child abuse allegations? I'm just not aware of any one who has been really successful against them?
Sueing the WTBTS...any success?
by Gill 10 Replies latest jw friends
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Amazing1914
You can look back to the Olin Moyle case, the former Bethelite and Watchtower attorney who successfully sued and won a case of liable against the Society and Joseph Rutherford. There are cases that would have been won, but the Society was able to settle these out of court before case law precedant was established. There are cases that have been lost against the Society, such as the one recently in Canada and one in Maine. I have no comment on the many cases in the works right now, except to say they are moving forward. - Jim W.
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Elsewhere
There are cases that would have been won, but the Society was able to settle these out of court before case law precedant was established.
They have smart lawyers who always make a substantial offer to settle out of court when they know they are going to lose. The primary reason for this is so that no precedent is created and also so that they can brag that they rarely ever lose any court cases... very useful for intimidating plaintiffs.
The problem is that most people tend to take the settlement. I wish there was a way to contact plaintiffs and encourage them NOT to settle out of court when suing the WTS so that a court precedent can be created.
Bottom line: YES you CAN win a case... just don't settle when the WTS makes an offer.
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metatron
They changed some procedures about disfellowshipping after a woman in Texas won a slander suit against a fundamentalist
church there - so that's a potential vunerability. They also settled out out of court for over a million dollars in a case involving
a Bethelite who killed somebody in a car accident. They tried to say he was just a volunteer, not an employee.
metatron
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DevonMcBride
Here is a big case that cost the WT a lot of money. They settled out of court but it was their costliest out of court settlement.
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Elsewhere
Here is a big case that cost the WT a lot of money. They settled out of court but it was their costliest out of court settlement.
That's what I was talking about. If the plaintiffs had not settled out of court this case would have created a precedent for showing that JWs are agents of the WTS and therefore creating liability.
If this case had followed through to a guilty verdict, the WTS would have been exposed to thousands of very costly lawsuits. The WTS lawyers are not dumb... that's why they were willing to pay an enormous amount of money to make the suit go away. -
Big Tex
Many people seem to think that Jehovah's Witnesses or the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society is focused on the end of the world and a coming kingdom. At least that's the impression many have when its members come knocking at the door.
But through the Coughlin case a different view of the organization emerges, which looks more like a business protecting its worldly assets and focused on the bottom line.
Couldn't have said it better.
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Amazing1914
Hi Elsewhere,
Bottom line: YES you CAN win a case... just don't settle when the WTS makes an offer.
Excellent post. And, the good news is that some cases in the works will go to trial.
The problem is that sometimes a victim has to settle. The Vicky Boer case in Canada is an example. She went through trial and won, but lost when the Society petitioned for court costs. The basis is that their settlement wqas larger than she would of could receive under Canadian law.
The US has similar laws. The courts reason that if you are offered more in settlement than you would get by winning at trial, then you have really wasted the court's time. Therefore, the defendant can petition or sue for costs. To bad the court does not have to live with its own decisions, then they might make different rulings.
What may need to happen is for the Society to be found guilty of somekind of criminal negligence ... then perhaps, it would help in moving a plethora of civil suits. - Jim W.
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Gill
Thanks everyone.
So what's the chances of their being found guilty with regard to not reporting the child abuse allegations?
Is this what's in the pipeline at the moment? After all the elders who these things were reported to are the representatives of the WTBTS.
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loveis
Gill:
The New Hampshire Supreme Court is about to hand down a decision in that regard that could potentially be precedent-setting. It is the case commonly referred to here as the Berry girls' case, and a number of threads have been posted about it (most in the Child Abuse section) discussing the pros and cons. The suit seeks to hold the WTS responsible for negligence in connnection with the sexual abuse suffered by the Berry girls. You can even hear audio of the oral argument session (back on October 20, 2004) before the NH Supreme Court justices, there are links to it on several threads.
(The case is an appeal of a lower court decision to throw out the case. The girls appealed to the NH Supreme Court to have it reinstated and go to trial.)