1. Introduction
Now, some readers may have wondered what I meant by some of the lawsuit references in the previous entry. What was the Bauer v. Glatzer case about? Isn’t that “so 2008”? Why is it still of interest? Why should I be the one to say some things about it?
And, perhaps the key question—isn’t it merely Bauer who tries to keep that suit alive? Why should I say anything about it, lest it encourage her?
Two things need to be understood: one is the set of considerations I will outline below, and the second is that this issue isn’t black-and-white (on this latter point I won’t elaborate much in this blog entry). First, remember that Bauer is the one who filed the suit in its first version in 2007. I had nothing to do with that. I was included in the “second amended version” in 2008 (see link to a representation of it below)—and then she started to fight me through much of that year with far more energy than the merits of her case against me (which were none) deserved. She fought me so hard, and with results that inevitably turned up on the Internet, that she couldn’t help but make an enemy out of me. And a lot of the moves she made in her suit in 2008, and not just regarding me, showed a terrible wrongheadedness about how to pursue a suit based on allegations tied to Internet statements, which I felt I was in a good position, and in a way obligated, to point out publicly (not least in the process of defending my own reputation).
Also, her suit was dismissed without prejudice in November 2010. Does this mean I want to see it fought again? No—certainly not in the form in which she pursued it in 2007-10. Is there some legal question that validly should be, or could have been, pursued with her claim? To me, this would have been the question of whether it is appropriate to “Googlebomb” someone you regard as a fraud. On what basis can defendants win a case by arguing that they were justified? This is not to say a basis can’t be established; I think it is also the primary question. And on what basis (in relation to this primary question) can a plaintiff win on a claim of having been wrongly maligned? (which is the secondary question).
These questions are the only ones that would have dignified the case. But they would have meant the complaint had to be reformulated, perhaps radically, if it was to be re-filed. Well, judging from the representations about this case on The Write Agenda, including echoing the original (2007) complaint in all its erratic glory, it seems there is no intent on Bauer’s part to reformulate the complaint. And if Shweta Narayan is to be listed as a defendant again, despite the fact that she already received adjudication in 2008, then Bauer also does not want to follow court procedure and rules, which tendency she did show (as I witnessed) in 2008; this tendency also was an apparent basis on which her suit was dismissed in November 2010. So it almost seems as if we need not worry about this case causing any more havoc (if re-filed), because she is not exercising the minimal smarts needed to make a re-filing a viable case. But of course, strange things have happened in connection with this case before.
Still, it pays to look at some details of the case, not simply for me to help my own reputation, though I did seem to find that when my Web site was down after about August 12, 2011, one source of numerous pieces of “insider information” on the case was thereby virtually gone from the Internet; and it was amazing how, as I seemed to find in fall 2011, this meant that you couldn’t find a whole lot of concretely orienting info about the suit—about what actually got done in court, and not just regarding me—online.
Wouldn’t it be nice to put this mess behind me? You might say, to theorize why I don’t: “Well, it has significance to you; it is a career setback, etc.” Indeed; and whenever I review my old paper files, it’s like what it must be like for a person who helped mitigate a nuclear-meltdown disaster to review photos and other vivid evidence of the crisis: you can’t believe how bad it was, how you got through it, and how bad it could have been…there certainly is a story here that is of use to some segment of the population. (By the way, if you think if I had just had an attorney, it would have been easier for me, I suggest not; if I had an attorney, probably approximately the same type and extent of fighting would have to have been done on my behalf, and I would have had the added burden of thousands of dollars in fees to pay.)
But of course…now let’s see some more recent historical circumstances that have spurred me into my posting here. First, an Internet entity like The Write Agenda spends much of 2011 doing its thing, at first seeming a bit, oh, I don’t know, rather bloody-minded and contentious. And after a while, it seems like the odd family that moved in down the street (in a relatively nice neighborhood) that gets crazier as the year goes on, the quality of obstreperous noises progressing from bottles breaking at 3 in the morning to screams, gunshots, police arrivals, blood-curdling threats at all weird hours…and then you feel quite justified in saying, “Yes, those people really are trash”…
And when The Write Agenda raises the specter of the Bauer lawsuit being re-filed (by August 2011), and that on patently objectionable (court-rule-flouting) terms, such as to include as defendants people who were dismissed from the suit in 2008 (not just Shweta Narayan but also Brian Hill and Dee Power)…and in particular, when it makes reference to seeking information for the sake of the suit on “matters involving sexual abuse” (this latter inflammatory topic is something I will return to in a future blog entry), then the situation is not only that sober men are given pause. There is a call for more.
Not only this, but I (as I’m sure do others who were a party to the suit) sensibly have wanted to keep Bauer and her suit in the past. Having her well up again with more overreaching demands would be—well, importunate only begins to describe it. You want to put this person on a short leash, shunt her away, relegate her to a sort of cellar. And meanwhile, the Write Agenda crud has spread all over Internet search results like toadstools after a summer rainy spell. Do you respond in any way? You’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t. You want to say, “This is irrelevant shit; I have a life to live.” In fact, for my own part, I kept pretty quiet about it for months, because it didn’t address me obviously and directly. But, as a general matter, if you don’t address it in some fashion, it’ll fester and cause more problems later. Indeed, it did seem to start chewing on my interests in October 2011. As I will maybe make clearer and more accessible in a future blog post, the problems that The Write Agenda appears to have stimulated, or at least helped, regarding Google Books listings of two of my books, comprise a good example of a Bauer-tied problem I can’t ignore.
And if other people are at risk of somehow being roped into more mess from her (which I hope doesn’t happen), then this problem doesn’t simply concern me alone.
2. Gory details of my part in the 2008 suit, redux
Here is an edited regurgitation (yes, with a lot of technical language and explication; this isn’t dance music), with some solidly “as they are” legal documents, of some of the material I had posted on the lawsuit page of my Web site. (I insert some newer stuff, and try to keep things in the order of when they happened in the suit. Meanwhile, some important things, as before, are missing, like a pdf copy of my second MSJ, which is huge—about 175 pages, the most of it by far being exhibits and related certifications.) Note that this is not as full a picture of the lawsuit as I could give; some documents that might be quite illustrative I can’t produce here, at least for now (for practical reasons); and other aspects of the business described can be appreciated from my book draft on the suit.
* Bauer’s second amended complaint of January 2008, which I received on about March 8, 2008 (I can’t find a pdf for the time being, so instead…): here (I wish I had a better source than this). Initially, I answered this by about March 13. There was an attempt between me and Bauer's attorney to negotiate a settlement, per the requirements connected to my option of filing a motion for summary judgment (MSJ). These attempts fell through—mainly due to Bauer/her attorney not getting back to me with their end of making a deal, within about three weeks. I filed my first MSJ by about April 21. This MSJ was granted by the court on May 13, on the mistaken assumption that the “return date”—when it was to be heard—had passed. Bauer’s attorney filed an opposition to the MSJ, which it turned out was filed by the deadline defined by the court rules. So the judge (Jamie Perri, a female, unlike what one British blog assumed) vacated the granting of the first MSJ.
* My answer to Bauer’s opposition to my first MSJ was filed by about May 20, 2008 (pdf—big file, 22 MB): look here. This answer to Bauer’s opposition reflects in its “Overview” section some measures of what her attorney was doing by mid-May 2008, which of course my book-length account of the suit, Second Thoughts, goes into in a lot more detail (see, for example, pp. 28-35).
* A pdf of a sequence of three May 2008 court orders [here is another link, in case the first one doesn't work] showing (1) the granting of my first MSJ on a mistaken assumption the return date had passed, (2) the court order vacating the first granting when the court's mistake was realized, and (3) an order reflecting denial of my first MSJ without prejudice, using Bauer's attorney's rather sloppy form of order ("without prejudice" means that I could re-file an MSJ, and Bauer's opposition is indicated, handwritten toward the bottom-left edge of the May 23 order, as having been received, not filed, which reflects the judge's having found it defective). When you consider the sequence of these orders--with my first MSJ being granted, despite its defects, on the assumption Bauer had filed no opposition; and the fact that Bauer's duly noted opposition is only reflected as having been received by the court; and the fact that my second MSJ was granted (read the judge's September 2008 decision, whose link is a few bulleted items below); and the fact that Bauer's certification--the only "evidence" of substance that her side produced to fight me--contains a clear falsehood, with all else, the bottom line is that her litigation against me was frivolous, and for her to seek a settlement as she tenaciously did in summer 2008 was, of course, legally unjustified. But in its details Bauer's summer 2008 settlement attempt was variously creepy, absurd, and sloppy, which I cover in a sketchy way in Second Thoughts. Please note: Though I neglected to censor my address and phone info on one of the orders, please do not contact me, or if you do, no answer is guaranteed.
* In the week immediately after the first MSJ hearing on May 23, 2008 (see again Second Thoughts, pp. 28-35), Bauer and her attorney formulated a set of interrogatories (which, contrary to court rules, were sent to me well beyond the timeframe in which these are supposed to be sent out after a defendant answers a complaint—specifically, R. [court rule] 4:17-2 says “rogs” must be served within 40 days of an answer, and I received mine about 82 days later). Here is a pdf of one-third of the full set of what I returned to Bauer and defense counsel as my answer to the “rogs”: the cover letter and “service list” (list of people being mailed the material), a copy of Bauer’s “rogs,” and the first part of my answer, including general objections and the start of answering specific questions. I had posted a link to this on my LinkedIn page in fall 2011. You may note that my generalized objections are unusually long and florid. These are not how general objections are usually done, by attorneys in typical answers to “rogs”; for one thing, the first set of numbered objections I give (for which I used as models the answers to “rogs” by some other defendants in the case) show a more typical form, and the sole extent, of generalized objections seen in responses to “rogs.” Further, it is also common practice to list general objections, and then to answer specific questions anyway, and a lawyer could preface each specific answer with some kind of reminder, as appropriate, that the information may later be changed, added to, or deleted. All this way of “hedging” answers is based on the fact that a key feature of the discovery phase of a lawsuit, of which “rogs” are an essential part, is to decide what information is or is not admissible at trial. Two key concepts that can shape objections are “relevant”—which means a piece of information can lead to another piece that is admissible at trial—and “material,” meaning an item of evidence matters to the outcome of a trial. “Relative” is not an appropriate term here (despite The Write Agenda’s use of the term—see this); a lot of information can be “relative”—logically related in some way—without being “relevant” or “material.”
Without revealing any of the other defendants’ specific answers in discovery demands made to them, I would note that, in general, and as was shown in responses to “rogs” and requests for “documents and things,” it can be said that a very common and conscientiously followed strategy of defendants in this case—nearly all others than myself represented by counsel—was to remind that Bauer’s (and I would add her attorney’s) discovery demands in numerous ways broke the bounds of court rules, confidentiality considerations, and so on.
There is also something to be said about the confusion about some may have about the concept of “discovery” in litigation, that it is equivalent to the convention of meeting public demands for information that are submitted in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA; on the federal level) or, in New Jersey, the Open Public Records Act (“OPRA”). Discovery in litigation are not the same as these; both of these address government business, while litigation, particularly directed toward private individuals, does not include the same kind of provision for anyone to demand public exposure of information. More is to be said of this, when I can, in the future.
* My answer to Bauer’s opposition to my second MSJ, [her opposition brief is shown in a pdf at my blog entry "Pentimento pause 2," both her opposition and my answer having been filed August 2008]. [Update 4/24/13, 4/25/13 : See blog entry of April 24, 2013, headed "Pentimento pause 2" for a pdf of my MSJ's answer to Bauer's opposition, as well as related links and comments. My answer to the opposition is uploaded April 25; see notes at "Pentimento pause 2..." on this file, which has peculiarities.]
* [Update to this paragraph done 4/25/13.] A brief for my second MSJ, filed June 2008 (Word version) is included in here. A pdf is viewable at my April 24, 2013, blog entry headed "Pentimento pause 2...." My plan for this had started before I had received Bauer’s “rogs,” and since I felt my argument was solid, and my first MSJ had been initially granted, I stayed with the plan for the second MSJ—which was eventually granted, after delays largely instigated by Bauer. It is important to realize that, as a matter of how lawsuits normally are conducted and as I think can be understood by the layman, if none of the contentions or implications of Bauer’s “rogs” were addressed in my MSJ, and my MSJ was granted even with Bauer’s timely chance to object, then her lawsuit against me to that extent was frivolous. In other words, for her to ask some of what she did in the “rogs” was irrelevant, and/or harassing, and/or an invasion of privacy; and more generally, this use of a key feature of a lawsuit was terribly a misuse of the legal system. Hence my characterization of the lawsuit as “abusive litigation,” which can be considered a key concept by which to understand this case, and a potential “key word” by which to search for my unfinished book Second Thoughts, for those so inclined.
* Transcript with judge’s decision on my MSJ, September 2008 (pdf).
* Web document with some broader history of the business in the case (Word): some of what's here.
* A Word document with a much fuller timeline (than the immediately preceding) of business in the case, especially its busiest phase in 2008 through (arguably) early 2009 (I have not updated this online document since August 2009): look here.
3. Sequelae to this mess in 2011
The recent developments regarding The Write Agenda (see my January 19 blog entry) can be considered especially outrageous. I should note that while I have submitted a detailed complaint about this “front” to a law enforcement authority, I have gotten no acknowledgement from the authority as of January 25, 2011; and any perceivable results of my complaint (such as can be accessed on the Internet) are hard to be sure about.
But suffice it to say here that, when I found unusual things going on online regarding me in October 2011, as I noted in the previous entry, I felt that (1) (as I believe is the case) with Bauer a principal behind The Write Agenda, and (2) (whether she is associated with “TWA” or not) with her seeing the concerted response to “TWA” via the Writer Beware blog in early October, then (3) if she was starting to hound me via causing something to happen with Google Books sites on books of mine, this echoed the 2008 inroad from her on my life in this way:
If she was having a hard time making headway against her raft of enemies by late 2007, then maybe she felt (as an alternative course of action) that she could win some points over me, as a “weak individual”—like a bully kicking the dog if he lost a contest with his more appropriate enemies earlier—by including me in the snares of the lawsuit. And what were her objectives with me then? As may seem more logical, if not fully defensible on court-rules or ethical grounds, she appeared to act on the idea that she could pump me for information about the alleged conspiracy among the larger raft of enemies and, probably more crucially to her, try to control me as a source of evidence.
As we know, this didn’t quite work in 2008. She underestimated how I would fight for my rights (and I certainly couldn’t expect what I would need to do, to do so).
Then in late 2011, after The Write Agenda was covered by Writer Beware, if she felt she could kick the little dog again (perhaps assuming, again, I was “part of the nefarious conspiracy” behind the Writer Beware entry), she miscalculated again. I was not part of the conspiracy, and she had no right to harass me. This is to say nothing of how I was perfectly within my rights to feel “Not again! I have no further business with you! Don’t come after me again!”—and want to ignore her as being “past business” and yet in a sense not being able to.
And as in 2008, in fall 2011, along with directly addressing the more efficient incursions on me of The Write Agenda, it seemed I had the more diffuse, harder-to-address “factor X” of some people at large not being sure if I was in Bauer’s (or The Write Agenda’s) court or not (it would take too long to explain the grounds for my belief of this in fall 2011). The 2008 situation was an especially bad instance of this confusion on where I stood regarding Bauer; in short, it was in a way a very complex and subtle matter, but ultimately it would prove very annoying to me, when whatever “twerps” who might have thought I was Bauer’s minion in the 2008 proceedings didn’t realize what a tsunami of disservice I was being subjected to, isolated in terms of self-defense and having to fight her manic incursions pretty much on my own and with extremely tight money, and how I was inspired to fight Bauer all the harder as the year went on, and would in a sense be her enemy from then on. In 2011, after the 2008 “consecration” of my alienation from Bauer, I wanted to be efficient and succinct in proportion to how irrelevant her impingement on me again was (through The Write Agenda). But for a while, all I could really do about this was gravitate (too slowly for my own taste, but as was likely within practical constraints) toward making something like the statement you see in my January 19 blog entry. [This paragraph is subject to possible correction on further reflection and review of facts.]
So, in the fall, I gathered my evidence, made conclusions and hypotheses where it seemed appropriate, and came up with a complaint I felt was fair under the circumstances, and submitted it by about December 19. It was better than doing nothing, I felt.
Not to seem to strike a maudlin point, with my mother’s cancer in fall 2011 (she survived, by the way), and with my own career problems, a revisiting of Bauer’s machinations via “TWA” was, at best, less than gracious (though she could hardly know about my mother’s cancer). Perhaps the more generally applicable lesson—in view of the understandable fact that people don’t always know what you are privately suffering in your own life when they intrude on you—is that, as seems the last lesson some workers in the media learn, IF PEOPLE WOULD (GENERALLY) MIND THEIR OWN BUSINESS, PROBLEMS LIKE THE WRITE AGENDA’S INTRUSIONS ON ME (and whoever else was unjustly intruded on by it) WOULDN’T HAPPEN.
Why it seemed a prudent move to air all this mess now will seem more justified when I move on to brief info on book manuscripts of mine that are listed within Google Books.
