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Declaration of Hon. John M. Ideman
CD - 25
17 October 1994
Copyright (C) 1994 Homer Wilson Smith
Redistribution rights granted for non commercial purposes.
DECLARATION OF HON. JAMES M. IDEMAN
I, James M. Ideman, declare as follows:
1. Portions of this petition will become moot because I have
decided to recuse myself from this case. Plaintiff has recently begin
to harass my former law clerk who assisted me on this case, even though
she now lives in another city and has other legal employment. This
action, in combination with other misconduct by counsel over the years
has caused me to reassess my state of mind with respect to the propriety
of my continuing to preside over the matter. I have concluded that I
should not. I have delayed the effective date of my recusal, however,
so that I could respond on behalf of my court to the allegations in the
petition.
2. I should say at the outset that this case should soon be
concluded in the District Court and thus available for appellate review.
I am confident that such a review will reveal that the plaintiff's
claims raised in this petition are groundless. I would strongly
recommend that any definitive appellate action be deferred pending a
thorough review on appeal and that years of work not be wiped out by
granting petitioner's extraordinary writ.
3. The past 8 years have consisted mainly of a prolonged, and
ultimatly unsuccessful, attempt to persuade or compel the plaintiff to
comply with lawful discovery. These efforts have been fiercely resisted
by plantiffs. They have utilized every device that we on the District
Court have ever heard of to avoid such compliance, and some that are new
to us.
4. This noncompliance has consisted of evasions,
misrepresentations, broken promises and lies, but ultimately with
refusal. As part of this scheme to not comply, the plaintiffs have
undertaken a massive campaign of filing every conceivable motion (and
some inconceivable) to disguise the true issue in these pretrial
proceedings. Apparently viewing litigation as war, plaintiffs by this
tactic have had the effect of massively increasing the costs to the
other parties, and, for a while, to the Court. The appointment of the
Special Master 4 years ago has considerably relieved the burden to this
Court. The scope of plaintiff's efforts have to be seen to be believed.
(See, Exhibit "A", photo of clerk with filings, and Exhibit "B", copy of
clerk's docket with 82 pages and 1,757 filings.)
5. Yet, it is almost all puffery -- motions without merit or
substance. Notwithstanding this, I have carefully monitored the Special
Master's handling of these motions. I saw no need to try to improve on
the Special Master's writing if I agreed with the reasons and the
results. However, with respect to the major ruling that I have made
during these proceedings, the dismissal of the plaintiff's claims, the
following occurred:
6. The Special Master, after years of efforts to compel compliance
with discovery, purported to order a dismissal of plaintiff's claims.
Although the action was probably long overdue, the Special Master did
not have the authority to make such a dispositive order. In reviewing
his order, as I did with all of his actions, I saw what he had done and
did not approve it. I treated the Special Master's "order" as a
recommendation and gave notice to the parties that they could have a
hearing and invited briefs. Only after considering fully the briefs of
the parties did I give approval to the dismissal. It is true that I
adopted the language chosen by the Special Master, but that was because
I fully agreed with his reasoning and saw no need to write further.
7. Plaintiffs are unhappy with Judge Kolts and me for insisting
that they comply fully with discovery or forfeit their case. For this
reason they wish to have our work set aside and begin anew with another
judge who may, they hope, permit them to litigate their claims without
complying with discovery, or perhaps, to further punish the other
parties with more years of expensive litigation. This they should not
be permitted to do, especially by means of the limited review possible
on an extraordinary writ.
8. I respectfully recommend that the petitioner's claims that are
not mooted by my withdrawal from the case he denied without prejudice to
review of same upon appeal.
I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and
correct. Executed this 17th day of June, 1983 at Los Angeles,
California.
James M. Ideman
United States District Judge