You may not use burdensome costs of discovery to silence a critic
Many institutions / individuals tend to settle out of the court in fear of burdensome costs of discovery / e-discovery. A lawyer in Virginia, Clifford Shoemaker, tried to use that technique to silence a critic of his by serving her with a subpoena to produce a shockingly broad collection of information, including her bank statements, tax returns, communications with religious organizations, and personal correspondence with other bloggers.
A federal magistrate judge in New Hampshire not only quashed the subpoena but also sanctioned Clifford Shoemaker for abusing the legal process by issuing such a subpoena to Kathleen Seidel:
Mr. Shoemaker made no attempt to avoid imposing an undue burden or expense on Ms. Seidel. To the contrary, I find that he sought to burden her by requiring production of every scrap of paper related to autism, her web site, her tax returns, and her communications with the government. He improperly imposes a requirement to create documents, e.g., a list of “names of persons helping, paying or facilitating . . . these endeavors.” The documentation sought is exhaustive. . . .
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Thank you. This is helpful information vis a vis my pro bono interest in a civil rights
and land piracy case in New Mexico. Access to justice makes it very interesting that
info re autism is cited in the discovery list. In the New Mexico case, the disability used
to pursue civil rights violations and land piracy is severe dyslexia. If you have any comment relevant to this perspective, I would welcome your email.
Edie Frederick
Tuesday 08th 2008f July 2008 07:34:45 PM at 7:34 pm
Billing the Adversary
http://www.neurodiversity.com/weblog/article/165
Numerous decisions issued over the twenty year history of the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) document the extent to which the limits on attorney compensation have been tested by practitioners seeking remuneration from its taxpayer-financed coffers. The following review summarizes decisions involving the recently-sanctioned VICP specialist Clifford Shoemaker, Esq. — a central instigator of the campaign to convince the public of the speculative, scientifically unsupported hypothesis that a significant number of cases of autism result from vaccine injury, co-founder of the Institute for Chronic Illnesses, and a founding member its Institutional Review Board, which sponsors and provides ethical oversight of medical research and experimentation on autistic children and adolescents conducted by his long-time colleague Dr. Mark Geier.
Inspecting the Outstretched Palm
http://neurodiversity.com/weblog/article/166/
The potential for procedural and billing improprieties by Vaccine Injury Compensation Program petitioners’ attorneys — especially those representing numerous clients with similar, speculative claims — is made painfully evident in Special Master Denise Vowell’s recent fee and cost decision in Carrington v. HHS, Case 99-495V (Fed.Cl.Spec.Mstr., June 18, 2008) (unpublished), posted to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims website three days ago.
Liz Ditz
Sunday 13th 2008f July 2008 04:20:46 AM at 4:20 am
[...] – bookmarked by 4 members originally found by chadonline on 2008-11-05 You may not use burdensome costs of discovery to silence a critic http://doctrina.wordpress.com/2008/07/06/you-may-not-use-discovery-to-silence-a-critic/ – [...]
Bookmarks about Discovery
Friday 12th 2008f December 2008 07:46:06 AM at 7:46 am