Gerry Armstrong--Ideman Declaration 06-21-1993

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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 begun 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

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 ultimately unsuccessful, attempt to persuade or

compel the plaintiff to comply with lawful discovery. These

efforts have been fiercely resisted by plaintiffs. 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 81

pages and 1, 737 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 writings

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 be

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, 1993 at Los

Angeles, California.

[signed]
James M. Ideman
United States District Judge

Exhibit [A]

This document in .pdf format.

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