Perhaps filed under, “Too much information”.
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That’s not sexual healing, it’s sexual sickening.
The Falwells are far more entertaining than Matt Gaetz, They should have a reality TV show.
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Ok, I’ve read all of the Liberty U filing against Falwell Jr, but looked at the 10/28/2020 Falwell defamation suit against Liberty U only as far as to ascertain that there is no 2019 Employment Agreement attachment there. The case number for the 10/28/2020 suit is CL20001051-00 Lynchburg Circuit Court, if anyone with electronic access wants to see if that agreement is lurking there.
My overall reaction is somewhere between @txlawyer 's and @katscherger 's: this is weak-assed sauce. My most frequent comments were “you chumps” and “Waah! Waah! Waah!”, followed closely by “Show me the fucking employment agreement”. That they did not attach the employment agreement suggests that it is not very supportive of their case, and/or that it reinforces the very poor negotiating the board seems to have done with Falwell in 2019. Now, the employment agreement is known to both the board and to Falwell, so perhaps it is not needed at this point. But I strongly expect that if this comes before a judge, the first thing that he’ll order is “Show me the fucking employment agreement or I’ll dismiss this today for lack of merit”.
So overall my impression is that this suit is performative BS designed to appease donors and tuition payers, and their only real hope of collecting anything is the University-paid electronic devices that they claim Falwell still has.
One specific note:
graphs 117-127: You fucking idiots permitted him to use a private email service to conduct university business, and even paid for it (which implies consent). Good luck getting those emails since he almost certainly commingled personal and Liberty U business there.
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Largely agreed, except (1) discovery will get those private server emails, and (2) I actually don’t think this case is entirely meritless, just that it has major weaknesses. I have lost lawsuits where I thought the other side has major weaknesses, and I have won some where mine had same. It’s a more or less legitimate threat to Jerry Jr., which is why he should probably respond with counterclaims against Liberty U. of equal threat so they can both stand down before they actually have to start making their inevitable dirty laundry public.
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The court would probably have to appoint a trustee to determine which emails qualify as “Liberty’s Confidential Information” (their term). If there are juicy emails to Granda or Becki, I doubt the trustee would turn those over. So as a fishing expedition, it fails.
I too don’t think the case is entirely meritless, just that in the absense of an employment agreement defining his duties as President, Chancellor, or Board Member on terms favorable to their claims, or the employment agreement having an enforceable morals clause (whether or not it refers to an external Liberty U code of conduct), it is quite weak. “Your daddy was a better man than you!” (graphs 20-23) isn’t a winning argument.
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Anything that is withheld on the basis of privilege or confidentiality or whatever gets tendered to the court if there is a motion to compel. The judge decides based on the arguments and his/her review of the withheld materials.
Other than that, agreed.
I am assuming that Liberty U will demand all the thousands of emails sent and received from the account they paid for, covering a period of years. They will not enumerate which ones they want, because they cannot know of most of them. Thus my expectation of a trustee to sort them out.
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Discovery is limited to requests that are, or are reasonably aimed at, eliciting admissible evidence. So a broad “Give us all your emails!” request won’t work, but a “Give us all your emails with the pool boy!” probably would.
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One thing I failed to pick up on until just now: Liberty is demanding the return of a specific laptop identified by serial number (graph 118). If JerryJr wipes the laptop before returning it, what liability does he face? That could be a treasure trove, especially since it’s a windows laptop.
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Well it happens that I have experience with people who have erased hard drives, and the ultimate penalty for that is that the jury gets instructed that they can decide that means the eraser did it because what was erased was some really bad shit for them, legally speaking. Plus attorney fees and sanctions and such to the other side for having to litigate the erasure.
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OK, that laptop makes Liberty’s position a bit stronger than I had thought.
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Biberty Liberty U, appears to have a strong claim on the return of “confidential” information claim, but no obvious damages. If I have your confidential info and am not doing anything with it, you have not been harmed. At best, you can get a court to make me give it back and/or purge it.
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That’s not the concern. It’s what might be on that laptop. Surface Pro 3 is an older laptop. Introduced June 2014, and discontinued November 2016. Unless Lib U is in the habit of issueing executives used laptops, he’s had that laptop for a very long time, and it is really hard to completely delete things from windows systems even if you know what you’re doing.
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The only one who could ever love me
Was the pool boy of the son of a preacher man!
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Nah, it’s literally what’s on that computer (and other devices) that is the basis for the contract cause of action.
I LOVE THIS.
Tutu should be a little fluffier.
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You mean, “since Sr. was recognized by the Devil as his own.”
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If they’re asking for the return of the laptop because it (allegedly) has their confidential information on it, does the return of a wiped laptop suffice, assuming for the moment that they have other copies of all the alleged confidential information? That would address the disclosure issue as effectively as the return of an unwiped laptop, it seems. (Although I expect that the reason they want the laptop returned is to go looking for other dirt, but they can’t openly say that.)
(And of course as a sometime computer person I’m aware that there’s no way to guarantee falwell hasn’t retained a copy of the alleged confidential information without searching all of his gear and much of the internet…)
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Wiping devices after litigation has ensued, or even been threatened, is a supremely bad idea. We call that spoliation of evidence, and it means your jury is probably going to be instructed that they can assume whatever was on the wiped device was some deeply incriminatingly bad stuff. Plus, you’ll get fined for discovery abuse.
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Liberty Biberty is claiming, in part, that Jerry insisted on using a non-Liberty email address, with the implication being that they don’t have copies of all that stuff.
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The confidential information claim is bullshit. It’s the kind of garbage every former employer asserts when they want to punish a former employee with a lawsuit because the mere allegation of “confidential information” makes damn near every judge in the country turn into a useless toadstool. Who gives a shit if Jerry Jr. has a “confidential” memo or whatever somewhere in an archived email?
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