THE LAWSUIT CASE HAS BEEN UNIMPOUNDED Options

[Observer]

Very interesting Steffan. There are probably not too many folks who would know the activity in the courtroom down to the minute. I guess it is safe to assume you were there....

Since you are so close to Danny that you even attend his court appearances, maybe you could remind him that since he personally is a co-plaintiff in the copyright/slander suit and "someone" is allegedly paying for his legal expenses, he will need to claim that as taxable income on his personal income tax return... But then again, I'm sure one of his 6 lawyers has already advised him of that...

The above is not quite so clear-cut. Let me suggest the follwoing:

1) Corporate officers may be named defendents/plaintiff's in legal actions. To the extent that their participation in such actions is related to the proper business of the corporation, the corporation may pay their legal expenses and they will not have to declare such as income on their personal tax returns.

While there are exceptions to the above, I strongly suspect that such applies to Danny Shelton in regard to the present lawsuit against Gailon and Bob Pickle.

Folks, this is basic to corporate life. Our society knows that without such protections business could not function in the manner that it needs to function. No one would ever fill a corporate leadership role if doing so would subject them to that level of personal liability.

I an a corporate officer in a local (non-religious) non-profit. An action has been filed that may lead to a lawsuit in which I am one of the named defendants. Our legal counsel has informed us that any such legal expenses and judgements will be paid by the corporation.

2) Legal expenses which are not related to proper business as a corporate officer are likely to be held to be income to the party which must be included on their income tax return.

Perhaps the legal expenses related to the division of the marital property is one such?

Yes, there are exceptions. One exception is that of a gift. However, as I have stated before, to not be included, those gifts much be qualified gifts, and they should not be gifts from a so-called "related party."

This post has been edited by Observer: Jun 24 2007, 03:18 PM

[Observer]

Just a thought:

We now know that lawyers submit motions to the court that they expect to lose. After all it is just proceedure.

In the Plaintiff's complaint that set this lawsuit into motion a number of charges are made against Gailon and Bob Pickle. May we assume that the Plainatiffs expect to lose some of those? If so, which ones?

I would like to know which ones the Plaintiffs expect to lose.

[runner4him]

Just a thought:

We now know that lawyers submit motions to the court that they expect to lose. After all it is just proceedure.

In the Plaintiff's complaint that set this lawsuit into motion a number of charges are made against Gailon and Bob Pickle. May we assume that the Plainatiffs expect to lose some of those? If so, which ones?

I would like to know which ones the Plaintiffs expect to lose.

Good question. Also don't judges get annoyed with wasting the court's time?

[LaurenceD]

Just a thought:

We now know that lawyers submit motions to the court that they expect to lose. After all it is just proceedure.

In the Plaintiff's complaint that set this lawsuit into motion a number of charges are made against Gailon and Bob Pickle. May we assume that the Plainatiffs expect to lose some of those? If so, which ones?

I would like to know which ones the Plaintiffs expect to lose.

Right. That's why I said tell us in advance so we can be 110% more impressed, otherwise I have no choice but to look at this procedure as a form of harassment...and the Judge is likely to see it that way too as the game strategies unfold.

[Snoopy]

The above is not quite so clear-cut. Let me suggest the follwoing:

1) Corporate officers may be named defendents/plaintiff's in legal actions. To the extent that their participation in such actions is related to the proper business of the corporation, the corporation may pay their legal expenses and they will not have to declare such as income on their personal tax returns.

While there are exceptions to the above, I stroingly suspect that such applies to Danny Shelton in regard to the present lawsuit against Gailon and Bob Pickle.

Folks, this is basic to corporate life. Our society knows that without such protections business could not function in the manner that it needs to function. No one would ever fill a corporate leadership role if doing so would subject them to that level of personal liability.

I an a corporate officer in a local (non-religious) non-profit. An action has been filed that may lead to a lawsuit in which I am one of the named defendants. Our legal counsel has informed us that any such legal expenses and judgements will be paid by the corporation.

2) Legal expenses which are not related to proper business as a corporate officer are likely to be held to be income to the party which must be included on their income tax return.

Perhaps the legal expenses related to the division of the marital property is one such?

Yes, there are exceptions. One exception is that of a gift. However, as I have stated before, to not be included, those gifts much be qualified gifts, and they should not be gifts from a so-called "related party."

Agreed. However, after seeing several interesting documents associated with the litigation I suspect the IRS will have a great time trying to separate DS personal life from the "proper business of the corporation" as the two have become inexplicably intertwined. I would not be surprised if one of our anonymous guests is reading here on the government's behalf with an eye toward that very thing.

I'd be willing to bet that in your current case you and other co-defendants have maintained a clear distinction between your personal lives and your fiduciary roles in the corporation.

I'm interested to know if you would you think the same protection applies to TS or GM?

This post has been edited by Snoopy: Jun 24 2007, 09:48 AM

[mikell]

And furthermore, Your Honor, please disregard the fact that the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists (who for some reason have concluded that we are a supporting ministy of their denomination) have, heretofore, allowed us free access to hold rallies in their churches in order to raise funds from Seventh-day Adventists to run our non-denominational and totally independent - no strings attached ministry, although we can't understand why they would continue to shower us with money at these rallies but extrapolate that it is probably because of this same unhealthy fixation they, for no reason that we can understand, seem to have upon us.

I love what you wrote here and hate what you wrote here!!!

[Ralph]

I wll say again: I am dumbfounded by the tone of the judges ruling against impoundment. In my opinion, it essentially cut the legs off,s so to speak, of the plaintiff's arguement.

It is interesting to compare (word for word) the CONCLUSION: in Attachment #1 "Final Draft Deft Opposition to Plaintiffs Motion Impound" with Attachment #2 Proposed Order Denying Permanent Impoundment"
A question: Why is this named, "Proposed Order..."?

[YogusBearus]

Agreed. However, after seeing several interesting documents associated with the litigation I suspect the IRS will have a great time trying to separate DS personal life from the "proper business of the corporation" as the two have become inexplicably intertwined. I would not be surprised if one of our anonymous guests is reading here on the government's behalf with an eye toward that very thing.

I'd be willing to bet that in your current case you and other co-defendants have maintained a clear distinction between your personal lives and your fiduciary roles in the corporation.

I'm interested to know if you would you think the same protection applies to TS or GM?

BINGO!
Snoopy, please PM me as soon as possible. I really need some help filling out IRS Form 211, Application for Reward for Original Information. I'm willing to share the reward if we can be first in line.

-bear

[runner4him]

BINGO!
Snoopy, please PM me as soon as possible. I really need some help filling out IRS Form 211, Application for Reward for Original Information. I'm willing to share the reward if we can be first in line.

-bear

Forgot about the reward!!! Heard the form is easy to fill out.

[Pickle]

The lawsuit needs to be considered independently of everything else, since only those things submitted to the court will be considered. So, if you look at the lawsuit, by itself, it says:

"Although many of 3ABN's employees and volunteers, including Plaintiff Shelton, are members of the Seventh-Day Adventist faith, 3ABN is a non-denominational Christian ministry which is not owned by, affiliated with, or financed by any specific church, denomination, or organization."

The following is what that above statement says to me in my own opinionated paraphrase:

"Despite the fact that we have Adventist employees here, we are not affiliated or controlled by their "specific" denomination. We're non-denominational and totally independent - no strings attached whatsoever to those Adventists.

Failing to recognize this fact, and through no fault of our own, those Seventh-day Adventists have developed an unhealthy interest in our totally independent, non-denominational ministry and seem to have a fixation upon us for no reason that we can understand, Your Honor. Where the Adventists got 3ABN's name and address we do not know." .

My two cents.

Pete,

A friend wrote and told me that he noticed that the suit said, "10. Although many of 3ABN's employees and volunteers, including Plaintiff Shelton, are members of the Seventh-Day Adventist faith, ..." and "38. Upon information and belief, Gailon Joy and Robert Pickle are members of the Seventh Day Adventist Church ...." So while Danny is a member of the faith, Gailon and I are members of the church.

Why the difference?

[Panama_Pete]

Pete,

A friend wrote and told me that he noticed that the suit said, "10. Although many of 3ABN's employees and volunteers, including Plaintiff Shelton, are members of the Seventh-Day Adventist faith, ..." and "38. Upon information and belief, Gailon Joy and Robert Pickle are members of the Seventh Day Adventist Church ...." So while Danny is a member of the faith, Gailon and I are members of the church.

Why the difference?

My guess is that their document was the product of group think. Several different people probably added parts here and there over a period of time.

[watchbird]

Yes, WB, I did read your other thread. I understand what you are saying and you are, undoubtedly, correct for all of the reasons you stated. As one who has watched 3abn for several years, perhaps I assumed from some of the programming that I watched that they were at least purporting to represent the Seventh-day Adventist beliefs so it did come as a surprise to me when I read the non-denominational disclaimer in the lawsuit (even thought I actually do have a computer). I guess my undoing was in not reading what they had publically proclaimed on their website.

I do appreciate your perspective as well as the information you have provided on the history of the 1997 GC/3abn agreement and the maneuvering 3abn has done to distance themselves ever since. And yet, I believe there are going to be a quite a few semi-intelligent folks like me who are going to be just as surprised when they read the lawsuit.

...... ...... I perceive that my irony was a little too well cloaked...... Remember the line from "the fool's prayer".... "They could not see the mocking smile beneath the painted grin he wore." ?

I'm also reminded of the lines by Douglas Adams in the first of the Hitchhiker of the Galaxy series.... the scene in which the bulldozer arrives to knock down his house to make room for a new bypass and to his expressions of utter surprise and shock is told that he has no right to be surprised... the notice of their intent had been duly filed with city hall and had been on display for a month... and if he didn't know about it that was his fault for not keeping himself informed on civic affairs. It's been awhile since I read it, but I seem to recall that he finally did find the notice.... at the back of a broom closet in the basement.... or somewhere like that. But back to the topic at hand.....


Yes.... they had this publicly displayed on their website.... on a back page that one had to be curious enough to go looking for... and who among the fans of 3abn, who saw them on TV every day, would be curious enough to take a look at a page called "About Us"?

BTW....the early announcements... that they were a supporting ministry of the SDA church.... appeared on the front page. As soon as the "new" statement appeared, it was tucked away on the "About Us" page.

So who... regardless of where they stood on the "intelligence scale"..... would have thought to go looking at their About Us page to find out how they identified themselves? Answer... no one other than first time visitors to the site who had stumbled upon it by accident and wondered who these folk represented, that's who.

Meanwhile.... from Television screens in Adventist homes, the message blared... that they were the ones who were most representative of what the Seventh-day Adventist church should be... and at various times in various ways the message that they were more representative of SDAism than the "church" itself was .... was given in different degrees of intensity... from subliminal to strident to nearly overt attacks... but always definitely an "SDA" message.... enough so that their carriers received complaints about the attacks that they made on other denominations and their beliefs.

And newsletters rolled off the presses and out to any whose name was on their mailing list.... and donations poured in so as to build that mailing list.... and rallies were held .... around the country and around the world.... always in Adventist venues.... with Danny even taking the pulpit in Adventist pulpits (something that is a no-no to any who are not authorized by the SDA church).... And to top it all off, there was this signed agreement with the SDA church signed by the three top officials of the World Church in which they pledged the church's support for 3abn expansion and programming all around the world, in every Division.... which was pulled out by the salesmen or advance scouts for 3abn whenever they met with any resistance from any Conference entity.

And this was all that anyone saw for the first decade of their existence.... then came their entry into the wonderful world of web pages.... and for the first four years their web page carried a statement on the front page, proclaiming that they were a supporting ministry of the Seventh-day Adventist church.

Then came the year 2001....

Since then we have been without excuse for not reading the publicly posted announcement that "3ABN is not owned, operated or funded by any church, denomination or organization", so we should not be "surprised" by this statement in the recent lawsuit.

And the bulldozers arrive on the appointed day.......


btw... for those among us who are not Adams' fans.... the bulldozers were temporarily halted by the hero laying down in the mud in front of the lead one. And as it turned out, "temporarily" was all that was needed, for before they began their actual demolition, the intersteller bulldozers arrived to wipe out planet earth... to make way for a new intersteller bypass..... not that the house was spared, you understand, but that the whole of England went with it... as did the rest of the earth... but that is too much to comprehend... so just think in terms of England.... it will make it easier on your imagination-station circuitry.....

There's probably no moral in the above... I just put it in in case someone was curious as to what happened in the book.....


..................................

[PeacefulBe]

That I missed the irony and forgot "The Fool's Prayer" further cements my standing in the semi-intelligent corner. Although, perhaps it was simply the increased altitude as I vacationed last week. Sigh...

Note to self: Start checking the broom closets.

[LadyTenor]

I find this to be a very brazen statement considering 3abn owes its existence to the Adventist church as well as most of its support….and now to distant itself from the church ought to be a wakeup call to Amazing Facts and any financial contributor.

I guess this is just more legal maneuvering. But to make statements like we preach a non-denominational message is a lie.

Yes, it is probably legal maneuvering, and yes, it is more than probably a lie.

That's what I mean, all that convenient switchin' form one thing to another......On TV we are a ministry, when you want to kick your wife to the curb without paying her fair share of the ministry you started together, then you are a buisness and she is just an employee. On TV be unadulterated SDA, preaching the pure, undiluted 3 Angel's Message. In court, you are non-denominational.......See how that work?

Yes, Heathen Aunt, that is EXACTLY how it works!

One lawyer described Pro Se this way, "He who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client."
Even if it is in concert with Defendant Pickle's counsel, it is worth remembering that two
experienced lawyers will be representing the Plaintiffs.

And the rest of the cliche', as I was taught it in law school, says, "...and an idiot for a lawyer."

I substituted the word 'idiot' for the three letter word starting with "a", just to keep it clean.

-edited-

With no offense meant towards beartrap, isn't there a rule on this forum against deleting posts or editing them in this fashion? I was told not to do so when I wanted to delete a particular post in another forum because it would ruin the flow of the thread and make it harder to follow, especially if someone had already responded to it......

Just asking, because I have seen it done frequently of late by many different members of the forum...

Meanwhile, some little orphan goes to bed hungry while money is lavished on a team a lawyers.

Take it easy, Pete...sometimes a team of lawyers is necessary (but I will not comment on whether the DS litigation is such an occasion or not).

Since you are so close to Danny that you even attend his court appearances, maybe you could remind him that since he personally is a co-plaintiff in the copyright/slander suit and "someone" is allegedly paying for his legal expenses, he will need to claim that as taxable income on his personal income tax return... But then again, I'm sure one of his 6 lawyers has already advised him of that...

Take it easy, Snoop! Court proceedings are public unless sealed for particular reasons (for example, child abuse and neglect cases are almost always sealed). There is no law prohibiting all of BSDA to flying to wherever this case is being litigated (I thought I read that it is in MA?) and sitting and observing every proceeding. Of course, if there is a court order sealing the case, then that will not be allowed. But courts only do that in limited situations.

Of course, unlike Law and Order, most court proceedings are very BORING...take it from me...I've observed many a court proceeding and the first time I did, I almost fell asleep! None of those theatrics you see Jack McCoy engaging in on Law and Order are allowed in real life courtrooms! You can get sanctioned for raising your voice too much if you are in front of a judge that does not like it!!!

The plaintiff asked the court to impound on a number of issues. One of the issues was that there was no 4th Ammendment, Freedom of the Press right in regard to Mr. Joy being a member of the press.

We expected that the court would rule that there was a 4th ammendemtn Freedom of the Press right, and that is what the court did.

Freedom of the press is protected by the FIRST Amendment, not the Fourth. I suspect this was just a slip of the tongue (or the mistroke of the keyboard ).

The above is not quite so clear-cut. Let me suggest the follwoing:

1) Corporate officers may be named defendents/plaintiff's in legal actions. To the extent that their participation in such actions is related to the proper business of the corporation, the corporation may pay their legal expenses and they will not have to declare such as income on their personal tax returns.

While there are exceptions to the above, I strongly suspect that such applies to Danny Shelton in regard to the present lawsuit against Gailon and Bob Pickle.

Folks, this is basic to corporate life. Our society knows that without such protections business could not function in the manner that it needs to function. No one would ever fill a corporate leadership role if doing so would subject them to that level of personal liability.

This is true, but the lawsuit does not name Danny Shelton as an officer of 3ABN...the caption I read by whomever posted it on this site (don't remember who) states that it is Danny Shelton, INDIVIDUALLY. Correct me if I am wrong.

When someone is named individually, it means that person individually, and NOT in the role as a corporate officer. And even one's status as a corporate officer or an individual can be disputed and be a point of litigation within the litigation of a corporate matter.

Just a thought:

We now know that lawyers submit motions to the court that they expect to lose. After all it is just proceedure.

Yes, they can, but they have to have a GOOD FAITH BASIS for doing so...otherwise it is frivilous and the court can impose sanctions. It is one thing to try to win a motion that does not look good for a party because the attorney is doing is best; it is another thing entirely to file motions for the sake of filing them. That is unethical and can get attorneys into trouble, especially if it is something an attorney is known for doing on a regular basis.

Good question. Also don't judges get annoyed with wasting the court's time?

Yes, trust me, they do.....when I interned for a judge once, she would roll her eyes after some proceedings and tell me the attorneys were wasting the court's time......

[LaurenceD]

One thing I found intriguing about the lawsuit is 3ABN's claim in it that it is a non-denominational organization not affiliated with any church, denomination, or organization, and that it preaches a non-denominational message.

Are we to take this as an announcement from 3ABN that it is severing its ties from the GC, which it has had since 1997, that it is severing its ties with ASI, and that it is abandoning its preaching of the three angels' messages? Or is this an attempt to convince the court that concerned Seventh-day Adventists have no basis for asking questions?

Pickle, while working this morning, I remembered that Thrusday night live broadcast when DS and the group got together to announce enough was enough and that it had come to the point where something had to be done with folks on the internet who were trying to destroy the ministry. They ridiculed one party (Joy) who they termed an "embezzler" and the other party (AT) they ridiculed saying they were not even part of the church organization. This was to say these folks are not even credible so don't pay any attention to them.

But now guess who's not any part of the church organization. See how it works however you need it to work? Is it the other face? I suppose we shouldn't pay any attention since they're not part of the church organization.