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Dear Dr. Philips:KAISERPAPERS.INFOI have just reviewed materials on your website concerning Downey Studios' legal action against the IATSE union which include a confidential transcript of a settlement hearing ordered strictly confidential by the Los Angeles Superior Court. These could get you and anybody else connected with this website into very serious trouble with the Judge whose confidentiality order was intentionally violated. The punishment for violating a court order is contempt, which can include both fines and imprisonment.
Further, you have other materials posted on the website which must have been posted by Leonard Martin, one of the plaintiffs in a pending Los Angeles Superior Court action against Downey Studios, including court papers and defamatory charges and allegations by Mr. Martin concerning parties to the case. You should know that the privilege shielding a publisher from defamation liability in connection with a legal matter in which the publisher of the defamatory material is a party, does not extend to Mr. Martin literally venting his spleen on this website and making some wild and unsubstantiated allegations which, because they are not privileged, constitute defamation against Downey Studios and lawyers involved in the case.
It is not clear why anything involving Downey Studios and the old NASA site which it partially occupies, also partially occupied by a Kaiser hospital (the ONLY connection between Downey Studios and Kaiser, ie., there is no connection!) is even posted on your website, which seems to be devoted to issues involving peoples' negative experiences with Kaiser. It is your website and I do not presume to tell you how to run it as I totally lack any personal knowledge of Kaiser having never dealt with the organization.
It would be wise to remove those materials from this website.
Sincerely yours,
David S. White
RESPONSE FROM DR. CHARLES PHILLIPS:
Mr. White, As I spend time some in court as an expert witness, the arena does not bother me. And when I checked with an attorney friend - I am only a law student - I was told that you might want to send me some more information: Chuck:
Have you ever been served with a confidentiality order?
Usually, such orders are binding only on the parties to the dispute before the judge. Was this order any broader than that?
Who is this David White, and what is his connection with the case? Perhaps you should ask him to send you a copy of the gag order.
How come he sent this complaint about the Kaiserpapers website to YOU?
Ordinarily ANYTHING said in court papers is privileged, and there is no libel liability in quoting these public documents. Is there some reason that Mr. Martin's allegations are not privileged?
I look forward to your sending me a copy of the gag order and giving me an opinion, Mr. White, on how the judge has acquired dominion over anyone beyond the parties. I do agree that your LA office appears in the picture on your website to be higher up than mine. But, then, our traffic is better here. Dr. Phillips