Church Abstention HEARING PROCEEDINGS 04-24-2014.Fullprint (1)

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1 IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE THIRTEENTH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT IN AND FOR HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, FLORIDA2

3 ELLENBETH WACHS,

4 Plaintiff, CASE NO.: 11-CA-015545

5 vs. DIVISION:I

6 EDWARD GOLLOBITH, TRACY THOMAS, NAN OWENS, STEVE BROWN, MATT COOPER,7 GLORIA JULIUS, STEVE MILES, JAMES PATTERSON, WALLACE REINHARDT and ATHEISTS OF FLORIDA,8 INC.,

9 Defendants.

_________________________________/10

11 ATHEISTS OF FLORIDA, INC., CONSOLIDATED WITH

12 Plaintiff CASE NO.: 11-CA-015707

13 vs. DIVISION: L

14 ELLENBETH WACHS and JOHN KIEFFER,

15 Defendants.

_________________________________/16

17 JOHN W. MCKNIGHT, CONSOLIDATED WITH

18 Plaintiff, CASE NO.: 2012-CA-002073

19 vs. DIVISION:F

20 ATHEISTS OF FLORIDA, INC. and ELLENBETH WACHS,21

22 Defendants. _________________________________/23

24

25

HEARING PROCEEDINGSWACHS vs. GOLLOBITH

April 24, 2014

800.211.DEPO (3376)EsquireSolutions.com


April 24, 20141

http://www.esquiresolutions.com/http://www.esquiresolutions.com/http://www.esquiresolutions.com/http://www.esquiresolutions.com/http://www.esquiresolutions.com/


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1 TRANSCRIPT OF HEARING

PROCEEDINGS TAKEN BEFORE THE

2 HONORABLE STEVEN S. STEPHENS

3

Pages 1 - 85

4 Thursday, April 24, 2014

10:33 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.

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6 George E. Edgecomb Courthouse

800 East Twiggs Street

7 Tampa, Florida

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REPORTED BY:22 Evanie P. Stephen

Stenographic Shorthand Reporter

23 Notary Public

State of Florida at Large

24 Esquire Deposition Solutions - Tampa, Florida

813-221-2535 (800-838-2814)

25 Job No.: 142849


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1 APPEARANCES:

2 ROBERT H. BUESING, ESQUIRE Trenam Kemker3 101 East Kennedy Boulevard, #2700 Tampa, FL 336024 813-223-7474

5 On behalf of the Plaintiff

6 R. GALE PORTER, JR., ESQUIRE Porter Law Group, LLC7 4830 West Kennedy Boulevard, Suite 475 Tampa, FL 336098 813-405-3100

9 On behalf of the Defendant, Atheists of

Florida, Inc.10

11 RINKY S. PARWANI, ESQUIRE Parwani Law, P.A.12 9905 Alambra Avenue Tampa, FL 3361913 813-514-8280

14 On behalf of the Defendant, Robert Curry

15

16 ALSO PRESENT: JOHN KIEFFER, Pro Se Defendant

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19

20 I N D E X

21 PAGE

22 Proceedings 4

23 Certificate of Reporter 85

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1 Proceedings taken before Evanie P. Stephen,

2 Stenographic Shorthand Reporter and Notary Public in and

3 for the State of Florida at Large, in the above cause.

4 * * * * *

5 P R O C E E D I N G S

6 THE COURT: Well, I see you have a few things on

7 the agenda for today.

8 MR. PORTER: Primarily the motion to dismiss --

9 THE COURT: That was the thing, it was very hard

10 to find that in the docket. It's preferable when you

11 file a motion, especially in a case that has 1,000 or

12 more pleadings in it -- but you state the date that

13 it was filed so we can find it because we don't --

14 our clerk -- and no clerk in the state of Florida

15 indexes the pleadings for reasons that the rest of

16 the world doesn't understand because they all do.

17 In any case, I did find it and I'm ready to listen to

18 you about it now.

19 MR. PORTER: I apologize. It was filed --

20 THE COURT: You didn't do anything wrong. I'm

21 just --

22 MR. PORTER: It's been a long time ago.

23 THE COURT: That's what I mean --

24 MR. PORTER: It's been a while.

25 THE COURT: The notice of hearing for today just


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1 said, motion to dismiss, and there's at least six of

2 those in the file.

3 MR. PORTER: Sorry about that.

4 THE COURT: I mean, it's -- I'm pretty sure I

5 found the one that you were talking about.

6 MR. PORTER: Yeah. The one that I filed has gone

7 through and I've asserted several technical and other

8 legal arguments that gets sent to this ecclesiastical

9 extension doctrine --

10 THE COURT: Well, which one you want to talk

11 about? Go ahead and start going.

12 MR. PORTER: Well, I want to start with kind of

13 an overview of the case, okay. AOF, Atheists of

14 Florida, is a voluntary membership association. It

15 was founded in 1992. It's incorporated in Florida

16 under Chapter 617. It's a not-for-profit

17 corporation.

18 Going over the primary goals of the organization,

19 according to the bylaws that are attached to the

20 complaint, is to defend freedom of thought and

21 expression as well as the complete and absolute

22 separation of church and state as guaranteed by the

23 First Amendment to the US Constitution. Ellenbeth

24 Wachs is one of the defendants that we sued, along

25 with John Kieffer. She came into the organization in


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1 the year 2010.

2 During 2010 and 2011, she demonstrated that she

3 was a person that doesn't back down. She was brave.

4 She was tough. She was outspoken, and compared to a

5 lot of other people in the group that have been there

6 for a long time, you know, she was well-respected.

7 In the year of 2011 -- by then, John Kieffer had

8 been elected president -- Ellenbeth Wachs was vice

9 president. And the way that the organization's

10 supposed to be run is that the officer's serving at

11 the pleasure of the board. In 2011, March, they

12 decided they were going to pull a publicity stunt

13 without going to the board first and getting clear

14 approval. They went over to the school board meeting

15 over in Polk County while the minister was saying a

16 prayer.

17 John Kieffer walked up to him, sort of interrupted

18 him. Ellenbeth Wachs was taking pictures. John

19 Kieffer got arrested. Ellenbeth Wachs was very vocal

20 about it; she ends up getting arrested for practicing

21 law without a license by the Sheriff, Grady Judd and

22 his posse over there, and the board had a vote and

23 they voted that they were going to spend the money to

24 defend Ellenbeth Wachs --

25 MR. BUESING: Judge, I hate to interrupt. It's


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1 a motion to dismiss. He's way outside the pleadings

2 of our amended complaints, so I just -- I don't mind

3 him given you a background, but just so you know,

4 he's not -- he's picking on stuff that's not in the

5 pleadings.

6 MR. PORTER: I'm a go to the pleadings --

7 THE COURT: Well, no. See, that's going to make

8 my job a lot harder because you know I'm confined in

9 making this decision to what's in the pleadings and

10 I'm not sure how any amount of background

11 information, no matter how interesting I might find

12 it, is going to eliminate that, though.

13 MR. PORTER: Fair enough. I'll move along.

14 THE COURT: So, I mean -- yeah, ago ahead.

15 MR. PORTER: So just to finish, okay, briefly.

16 The organization spends a lot of money. She's

17 charged with three different crimes. The amount of

18 monies is starting to worry people within the

19 organization, and, you know, at some point, there is

20 a movement within the organization to get rid of her,

21 which was successful. So let's start at the

22 allegations of the complaint itself.

23 First of all, here's the amended complaint for

24 defamation that I'm asking the Court to dismiss.

25 It's 40 pages just in allegations, and it's another


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1 THE COURT: Okay.

2 MR. PORTER: She is raising issues that she wants

3 this Court to decide, how annual meetings are

4 supposed to be noticed, who has a right to be present

5 at the annual meetings, how the chairmen should be

6 appointed, how often a luncheon should occur, how

7 luncheons should be run, how the board members should

8 be appointed, what's the best vehicle for getting the

9 atheist message out to the public, what types of

10 expenditures had to be approved by the board versus

11 this newly approved financial oversight committee,

12 you know, whether the expulsion procedure in the

13 bylaws is valid.

14 At Paragraph 96, you know, she's going on for 21

15 pages -- she gets into this allegation concerning the

16 interworkings of Atheists of Florida and argues that

17 there was a defamatory conspiracy to expel her. In

18 order to decide that, she wants the Court to look at,

19 you know, what was said during internal political

20 campaign, how the nomination process is supposed to

21 work, whether an election committee can be formed by

22 the officers alone, or instead, by the board; how

23 ballots should be sent out and how they should be

24 returned, who has the right to control ballots,

25 whether board members have the right to consult with


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1 an attorney, who has a right to be present at board

2 meetings.

3 I mean, this is 40 -- 37 out of the 40 pages of

4 this defamation count. You know, who are the

5 legitimate board members. After going through this

6 exercise of analyzing the entire, you know, sort of

7 political history of this organization, how far did

8 the presidents power extend compared to the boards

9 power, how can election be canceled. So the

10 conspiracy -- essentially, she explains that it's

11 two divergent views of how atheism should be

12 approached. You know, one is -- you know, one

13 faction she claims is her courage and personality of

14 putting herself at risk for separation of church and

15 state issues.

16 And so if you'll look at Count 1 where she's

17 realleging all 140 paragraphs, that's essentially

18 where she wants the Court to go, the entire internal

19 work and scope of the organization. If you look at

20 Count 2 --

21 THE COURT: Well, I still don't know why Count 1

22 doesn't state a cause of action on this face of the

23 complaint. It talked about everything else and about

24 all these other things that the lady's asking for,

25 and she may very well not be entitled to, but that's


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1 not the test. As you know, the test is whether the

2 words that are on that piece of paper say something

3 that could amount to some sort of cause of action

4 and --

5 MR. PORTER: Actually --

6 THE COURT: -- you haven't really addressed that

7 directly as far as -- it sounded to me like you were

8 addressing a lot of other things that she was asking

9 for, that by the nature of their intrusiveness, where

10 things that you thought I would exclude, and it may

11 or may not happen, but right now, we're talking about

12 whether that piece of paper has words on it that

13 collectively state a cause of action that's

14 recognized under the law of Florida --

15 MR. PORTER: Well, I haven't started --

16 THE COURT: -- that's a much different request.

17 MR. PORTER: I haven't started my argument yet --

18 THE COURT: I kind of was hoping you would do

19 that because that's what we're here for, so...

20 MR. PORTER: Count 2, I want the Court to

21 understand what the pleadings are --

22 THE COURT: Let me be clear on what I'm trying to

23 tell you. Don't waste any time today trying to cast

24 them as bad people or people that are asking for

25 something they're not entitled to. It's a complete


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1 waste of time in this kind of proceeding. That's all

2 I'm saying.

3 MR. PORTER: I didn't think I was, Your Honor. I

4 went through the allegations --

5 THE COURT: And I'm not saying -- please, please.

6 I'm not saying that you are, that you're doing

7 anything wrong, but we've been -- we're now a good

8 ten minutes into the argument, I haven't heard

9 anything about what you're saying the defect in Count

10 1 is or any of the other counts yet, so I'm asking

11 you to kind of focus on the stuff we're supposed to

12 focus on less than the more newsworthy aspects of

13 what's going on.

14 MR. PORTER: Okay. Count 2, I want the Court to

15 decline to exercise its jurisdiction over Count 2

16 because she's asking for a declaratory judgment --

17 and I'm reading from Count 2 -- that her expulsion

18 was wrongful, that the -- she wants the Court to

19 determine the invalidity of all the amendments to

20 the bylaws, presumably all the way back to 1992. She

21 wants the Court to establish the status of all

22 persons who purport to be the members of the board of

23 directors. She wants the Court to establish the

24 validity of a purported purchase that never happened

25 with real estate, what rights Ed Gollobith has to


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1 change locks on a PO box, what rights people on the

2 board have to meet without notice, and what rights

3 the president -- she wants the Court to declare she

4 is the president of the organization, after going

5 through and hearing how the bylaws are not valid,

6 and, then, whether any defense are authorized to

7 direct the legal position claims of Atheists of

8 Florida, which is a member-based organization,

9 subject exclusively to member control.

10 I believe that complaint should be dismissed for

11 about five different reasons. I've laid those out in

12 my motion to dismiss. Number 1, to the extent that

13 she's asking the Court to reinstate her as the

14 president, to attack the expulsion, I want to show

15 the Court Florida Statute 617.0842 which specifically

16 says, "A board of directors may remove an officer at

17 any time with or without cost." This is Chapter 617

18 that deals with --

19 THE COURT DEPUTY: Please, turn the phones off.

20 MR. PORTER: -- that deals with not-for-profit

21 corporations, the Florida legislature has essentially

22 said, we're not going to allow the types of claims

23 that she's asserting to the extent that they're

24 saying, hey, I shouldn't have been removed. The

25 reasons are irrelevant. They could kick her out


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1 because they didn't like her haircut, they can kick

2 her out for any reason with cause or without cause,

3 and so to the extent she wants the Court to reinstate

4 her, she can't do that.

5 I've also argued that the statute of limitations

6 for that type of claim has expired. I'll show the

7 Court Chapter 617.0607. This is, again, under the

8 not-for-corporation statute. It says, "Any

9 proceeding challenging an expulsion must be commenced

10 within one year after the effective date of the

11 expulsion." She didn't assert this claim until -- on

12 the face of the complaint, it was 2013 --

13 THE COURT: Let me interrupt you for a second

14 about that. When you're using the word "expulsion",

15 are you talking about expulsion as an officer or

16 director or expulsion as a member or what?

17 MR. PORTER: This specifically applies to

18 expulsion as a member. The previous statute dealt

19 with removal of officers.

20 THE COURT: Yeah, I got that. That's why I was

21 asking you about whether you're talking about

22 something that means the same thing or something

23 different which -- it is something different.

24 MR. PORTER: It is.

25 THE COURT: It's affecting the membership status


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1 rather than the position that's being held within the

2 organization.

3 MR. PORTER: Okay.

4 THE COURT: What's next, sir?

5 MR. PORTER: The third argument is just a basic

6 elemental argument that in order to get the

7 declaratory judgment, there's five elements we have

8 to allege according to Florida case law: bona fide,

9 actual, present, need. Declaration deals with a

10 present ascertained or ascertainable set of facts,

11 and that's important in this case because it kind of

12 coincides with the extension argument, is this

13 something the Court really should get into. She

14 hasn't alleged any of the five elements for

15 declaratory relief under Florida case law, and I've

16 cited the case in my brief. Essentially, what she

17 seems like she's asking for is the Court to say, You

18 know what, they were wrong and you were right. Sort

19 of like a name-clearing hearing.

20 And under certain circumstances in government

21 employment situations, people have a right to a

22 name-clearing hearing. I cited a case that I was

23 involved with. I ultimately lost that case, but my

24 client was not entitled to a name-clearing hearing

25 because just saying bad things about an employee,


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1 public employee, when they're terminated is not

2 enough. There's a stigma-plus test. There has to be

3 more than just a bad stigma associated with a

4 termination of somebody.

5 And, frankly, her case does not even come close

6 to -- it's like a wrongful discharge case, you know,

7 but, again, under Florida law you can -- just like

8 under not-for-profit law, you can terminate an

9 employee for any reason with or without cause. So I

10 don't think she's plead elements of action for

11 declaratory relief, and even if she had, I don't

12 think she's entitled to it. One of the -- probably

13 the fourth reason is that the governing body of a

14 private-membership organization is the final arbiter

15 of the sufficiency of causes for suspension of a

16 member. Courts cannot properly conduct a collateral

17 inquiry that questions the authority of a

18 private-membership association into the merits of the

19 organization's expulsion of a member. Now, there is

20 one statute -- that's the one that I've shown the

21 Court, 617.0607 -- that sort of blurs the

22 distinction -- well, it talks about the expulsion of

23 a member, and that's sort of a legislative reaction

24 in -- to some of the cases that I've cited here; but

25 in any event, as long as we can show that the


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1 expulsion procedure itself was fair and reasonable --

2 and that's the statute in front of the Court -- and

3 that it was carried out in good faith, then --

4 THE COURT: Yeah. I saw that one in your

5 memorandum, but how in the world is -- in the real

6 world, somebody in the position of making a decision

7 about that supposed to reconcile the two propositions

8 that you're advancing now? I'm supposed to look at

9 whether it's fair and reasonable and whether it's

10 done in good faith, and I'm not allowed to inquire

11 into what's behind it at all? I mean, those are -- I

12 understand that you're just arguing what the law says

13 and that there's a conflict -- or that the conflict's

14 not something you're making up, it's something that

15 it has -- is rooted in the law in two different

16 places, but what would be your proposition about how

17 it's actually supposed to be handled and practiced in

18 a case like this?

19 MR. PORTER: Some of the cases in the -- and

20 we're going to go directly into that issue; in other

21 words, the ecclesiastical doctrine that I'll get

22 into in a minute, it takes away the Court's

23 jurisdiction. Once the Court finds it's going to --

24 THE COURT: Y'all get out of here. I don't have

25 jurisdiction. Go.


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1 MR. PORTER: Well, that's what we're --

2 THE COURT: I don't have the authority to make a

3 decision.

4 MR. PORTER: Well, and you know, the Court

5 obviously is, you know, allowed to hear the

6 motion, and at some point, the question is: Whether

7 or not the Court should or should not exercise his

8 jurisdiction.

9 The final argument before the ecclesiastical

10 issue is, is that the expulsion procedure that I laid

11 out in the complaint talks about it, and I won't go

12 through it because the Court's, you know, presumably

13 read it, but the expelled member will be allowed 90

14 days to appeal the entire board decision. Case law,

15 when it comes to private-membership associations,

16 requires exhaustion of administrative benefits. She

17 never appealed. She doesn't allege in her complaint

18 that she appealed.

19 And so when it comes to that, all I've said, is

20 her complaint fails to state a cause of action

21 because she didn't pull in the argument that she

22 needs to make: That there was not a fair and

23 reasonable expulsion procedure, there's no formal

24 proposal by any member to expel her; you know, she

25 needs to have -- she's not properly expelled and she


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1 hasn't laid that out. She's just saying, well, it

2 was a conspiracy. All right. So now we get into the

3 issue of the ecclesiastical privilege. We are

4 arguing that this Court should abstain entirely from

5 exercising jurisdiction over her defamation claims as

6 well as her reinstatement claims because doing so

7 would require the State -- that is, this Court -- to

8 become excessively entangled in the internal affairs

9 of AOF which should be viewed as a church or

10 sectarian institution.

11 And let me just go through that with you real

12 quickly. Now, that's obviously the first point of

13 contention is whether or not AOF is covered. First

14 of all, let me show you Florida's Constitution of

15 Religious Freedom. This is Article 1, Section 3 of

16 the Florida Constitution. It says, No revenue of

17 the state or any political subdivision or agency

18 thereof shall ever be taken from the public treasury

19 directly or indirectly in aid of any church, sect, or

20 sectarian institution.

21 THE COURT: Okay. That's called a No-Aid

22 Provision. That was the basis for the First

23 District's decision in the case of Holmes & Bush --

24 you probably know about that case, right?

25 MR. PORTER: I do.


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1 THE COURT: That's a landmark case so --

2 MR. PORTER: And --

3 THE COURT: -- it's probably -- yeah, I know

4 you're making a record, but you don't need to read

5 law -- you know, remedial law 0012.

6 MR. PORTER: Well, over the last century, the US

7 Supreme Court has developed this ecclesiastical

8 extension document so that when church members or

9 members of any sectarian institution have internal

10 conflicts, the courts stay out of it. They abstain.

11 And that's why they're called the extension doctrine

12 and that's what we're here asking the Court to do

13 today. We're asking the Court to decline to exercise

14 jurisdiction. One of the key points here is that

15 every party to this lawsuit was either an officer or

16 director of Atheists of Florida.

17 This is not a case, like one side in the reply

18 brief where there's a third party suing the church;

19 this is an internal dispute purely among members.

20 But one of the main issues, of course, I got to

21 answer --

22 THE COURT: I'm not sure I understand that

23 because it seems like the rest of your argument was

24 about the person being expelled as a member, and that

25 the validity of the expellation of the person as a


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1 member, which would make them, then, a third party

2 who's suing the church at this point.

3 MR. PORTER: Well, at the time the church's

4 conduct occurred, they were all members, you know.

5 THE COURT: I see.

6 MR. PORTER: So the issue is: Whether or not for

7 the purposes of this doctrine, atheism is a religion.

8 THE COURT: No, I think it's whether it's a

9 church, not just a religion. They're different,

10 right? I mean...

11 MR. PORTER: Under the First Amendment analysis,

12 the answer is no, they're not different. I want to

13 show the Court a case from the 7th Circuit, but it's

14 laid out this analysis very clearly, an analysis of

15 all the Supreme Court law. It's Kaufman versus

16 McCaughtry, 419 F. 3d 678. And it's a prisoner who,

17 he argues, that the prison officials violated his

18 constitutional rights when they refused to give him

19 permission to start a study group for atheism for

20 inmates. And so the Court has to deal with a

21 question that is, I think, correctly in front of this

22 Court -- you know, we addressed the claim under the

23 Free Exercise Clause first.

24 You know, there's a problem here. The problem

25 here was that the prison officials did not treat


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1 atheism as a religion, perhaps because Mr. Kaufman

2 insisted that it was the antithesis of religion.

3 Whether atheism is a religion for First Amendment

4 purposes is a somewhat different question, whether

5 its adherence to belief in a Supreme Being or attend

6 regular devotional services or have a sacred

7 scripture -- and so --

8 THE COURT: Yeah, let me -- let me -- I don't

9 have any quarrel with the proposition that the Court

10 hasn't got the authority to evaluate the

11 religiousness of a shared belief system.

12 MR. PORTER: Okay.

13 THE COURT: I don't have -- I mean, that that's

14 the -- if that was the case, the courts would be

15 inundated with cases about other things that are,

16 shall we at least just call them -- they call

17 themselves religions, but they're nontraditional in

18 terms of not have -- not have -- bear any resemblance

19 to, I guess, you know, the more historical religions,

20 and I understand that point. So I'm not going to try

21 to make a record for you. Feel free if you need to.

22 MR. PORTER: No, that's fine.

23 THE COURT: I want you to understand that point

24 is not -- again, not a particularly controversial --

25 and maybe they're going to argue it is, I don't know,


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1 but --

2 MR. PORTER: I --

3 THE COURT: I haven't -- these cases are always

4 more interesting about what the nonmoving party has

5 to say because you were trying to prove the negative

6 and you know how hard that is so --

7 MR. PORTER: Well, the next case --

8 THE COURT: -- so go ahead.

9 MR. PORTER: -- let me get straight to Florida

10 law that has applied the ecclesiastical extension

11 doctrine in a defamation case. And the first case I

12 want the Court to review is Goodman verses Temple

13 Shir Ami. This is a rabbi who files a claim against

14 the temple for defamation and breech of employment

15 contract and against the members of the temple's

16 board of directors for defamation. And the court

17 goes through the analysis, and this one --

18 THE COURT: Well, did they say that he stole

19 money from the temple?

20 MR. PORTER: Absolutely not.

21 THE COURT: Well...

22 MR. PORTER: And we haven't -- they haven't

23 claimed that we stole money either --

24 THE COURT: I thought they were saying that -- I

25 thought that their complaint was about some


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1 statements were made by people of the organization

2 that you represent saying that they had somehow

3 misappropriated money, and that's what I was told the

4 last five times we were here on this case.

5 MR. PORTER: That's our lawsuit against her.

6 There's two lawsuits here. I'm trying to dismiss her

7 claim against the organization for defamation.

8 THE COURT: Oh, I see. Okay. I see. I see.

9 MR. PORTER: They have not raised the

10 ecclesiastical extension doctrine in our claim for

11 her -- against her for conversion.

12 THE COURT: I'm not sure whether I didn't make

13 myself clear, but if the complaint for defamation is

14 an allegation that members of your organization had

15 made claims -- whether they're in a lawsuit or not in

16 a lawsuit -- had made claims that this lady somehow

17 stole some money, then, that is one kind of

18 defamation action. I want to know that this kind of

19 defamation action you're talking about is different

20 than that kind of defamation action.

21 MR. PORTER: This one is virtually identical.

22 THE COURT: Go ahead.

23 MR. PORTER: They committed the priest of

24 committing crimes while he was at another Chicago

25 temple, and that followed his employment; he was


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1 terminated by that temple, so he told his current --

2 somebody within the organization told the current

3 temple that he had committed a crime out there and

4 had been kicked out and that -- and those allegations

5 were repeated to the entire membership. The temple's

6 board of directors voted against renewing the

7 contract and essentially -- and I've got a couple of

8 defamation cases I want the Court to look at because

9 there is -- as you look at the cases, which I've

10 looked at them pretty hard, there is a distinction

11 between things that just deal with esoteric rights,

12 like your reputation, and then things that deal with

13 property, cash, money, conversion, theft, those types

14 of claims. Most courts do allow the conversion and

15 theft claims, but they don't allow the defamation

16 claims. This is just one court were they concluded

17 that the trial court correctly dismissed the claims

18 with the exception of the breach of contract claim.

19 He said he had a contract and they owed him money

20 that will allow him to sue for money, but in order

21 for the trial court to have resolved these disputes,

22 it would've had to immerse itself in religious

23 doctrines and concepts and determine whether the

24 religious disagreements were a valid basis for the

25 termination of his services.


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1 The allegedly defamatorial [sic] court occurred

2 as part of this religious dispute and would require

3 the trial court to lay their effect on the board

4 members as compared to the effects of the other

5 considerations which clearly are religious

6 disagreements. I think the Court, in this case, can

7 substitute the word "religious" because it's

8 atheism -- for just internal. And let me explain --

9 THE COURT: You see --

10 MR. PORTER: -- how I believe this case applies

11 in this particular essence, but go ahead.

12 THE COURT: No, no, no. Thank you for your

13 permission, but finish your argument, please.

14 MR. PORTER: I'm sorry. The application of the

15 principle falls to what I'm talking about to this

16 particular case in order to know whether or not there

17 was a privilege to publish the expulsion of Ellenbeth

18 Wachs to the membership and to post it on the

19 website -- which by the way was taken down a month

20 later -- she essentially demanded it in her suit --

21 the Court is going to have to inquire into whether or

22 not the members of our organization have a right to

23 know of the reasons for her expulsion. You know,

24 that's going to --

25 THE COURT: Say that again, I'm sorry.


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1 MR. PORTER: The Court, in order to answer the

2 question, whether or not we have a privilege to tell

3 our members why she was expelled, which is what

4 this did, the Court's going to have to inquire into

5 our bylaws, our policies, our procedures in order to

6 know. You've got to answer that question: Did they

7 have a right to know. That's one of the key

8 privileges at law is that, you know, an internal

9 organizational dispute where members have a need to

10 know the information or right to know the

11 information.

12 THE COURT: The website you're talking about is

13 password-protected, only members can get to it, or is

14 it publicly available?

15 MR. PORTER: It is publicly available and

16 people from the atheist community do sign on to

17 occasionally -- it was actually a website that was

18 started up after she left and took our website, but

19 in any event, another issue, whether or not she and

20 John Kieffer had a right to issue this check for

21 $18,000, which is what kind of precipitated this

22 whole thing. And it depends on whether they, in

23 their claim is that, Hey, you guys said we could have

24 all the funds that had been donated to our legal

25 defense. Our position is, hey, those funds were long


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1 gone. You never had a right to do it. But the

2 Court, having to decide that issue, is going to have

3 to look at whether or not the board is required under

4 the bylaws to approve the decision to turn over funds

5 that are raised in our behalf as a nonprofit

6 organization.

7 The court's going to have to look at the

8 financial oversight committee and determine, you

9 know, was it required. Did they have to get approval

10 in this case. What happened during that financial

11 oversight committee meeting. You know, is it true or

12 false. Essentially, the Court is going to have to

13 take sides with some faction of the organization, one

14 or the other; and decide based on the rules and

15 bylaws whether they were right or not.

16 THE COURT: But in what sense would that be based

17 on some sort of evaluation of something that we would

18 have historically called a religious doctrine in all

19 the other contexts of this case? I mean, your

20 point -- the whole religious exemption is to avoid --

21 ironically enough, is to make sure that we enforce

22 the separation of church and state, by avoiding

23 having judicial people who are secular officials who

24 make decisions solely on the basis of the law -- and

25 the facts at least -- they're supposed to avoid them,


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1 having to make decisions about matters of religion,

2 which there is no way of proving one way or the other

3 because those are things that people believe. And

4 people willingly believe, in some cases, without

5 having necessarily, any empirical support for that

6 proposition. I mean, my point is, if somebody did or

7 didn't steal money and that their reputation was or

8 wasn't harmed by that, that's the kind of thing the

9 courts have traditionally done, and it doesn't

10 require any sort of trip to any theological

11 doctrine.

12 MR. PORTER: How's the Court going to know

13 whether she misappropriated money? And by the way,

14 nobody has ever --

15 THE COURT: Because that's a secular concept.

16 MR. PORTER: -- nobody has ever used the term

17 "theft" or "steal" in any of the writings that she

18 sues upon. There was an allegation of

19 misappropriation of organizational funds that is,

20 directly from the bylaws, the basis for expulsion.

21 Let me show the Court another case because it goes a

22 lot broader. See, the court, I think -- and I had a

23 feeling this was going to be a sticking point, you

24 know, does it --

25 THE COURT: Did you think, really?


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1 MR. PORTER: -- religious beliefs -- well, it's

2 hard to swallow because you're dealing with atheism

3 which is the antithesis of religion whereas all these

4 cases are written in religious terms. But if you

5 look closely you'll find that the cases talking

6 about internally --

7 THE COURT: Well, what I'm asking you to do is to

8 recognize that there's a reason for that because the

9 full fundamental underlying reason for all of those

10 cases and for the church extension doctrine is

11 because church doctrines are based on things that

12 cannot be reconciled in the way that the law courts

13 traditionally reconcile things.

14 MR. PORTER: That may be the reason --

15 THE COURT: Because it requires you to make some

16 sort of statement about faith and reasonableness of

17 somebody's faith one way or the other, which clearly

18 we're not allowed to do, and I'm certainly not going

19 to do it.

20 MR. PORTER: That may be the reason behind the

21 rule, Your Honor, but the rule itself says that

22 therefore the court cannot go in and interpret their

23 bylaws, interpret their articles of incorporation,

24 interpret their termination procedures, their

25 expulsion procedures, and in -- so the rule of law


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1 emanates from that reasoning, but the rule of law is

2 the one I'm asking the Court to follow, which is, you

3 can't go in and have to go through -- back to 1992

4 and reconstruct her view of the way the organization

5 should've been governed and give her her result. I

6 want to show you another case and I'll try to stop

7 and let Mr. Buesing talk. This is another Florida

8 case where a former church member sought declaratory

9 relief and damages for slander. The case is Kond

10 versus Mudryk. It's a 2000 case, 769 So. 2d 1073.

11 And their claim for declaratory relief -- they

12 want the Court to do exactly what Ellenbeth Wachs is

13 doing here. She wants to know her rights as to the

14 expulsion of the church member, the appointing or

15 designation of a pastor, the holding of elections,

16 and the performance of an audit. Okay. These are

17 the things that she wants this Court to go back and

18 rule on the way it was done internally, was not

19 according to the way it should've been done

20 internally.

21 So I've kind of laid out what they did. Also,

22 she's suing for money damages for slander and here's

23 the part about this case that I think is significant.

24 The church authorities in such tribunals as they may

25 set up for themselves are supreme in all spiritual


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1 matters and may arbitrarily expel from membership any

2 individual with or without cause.

3 THE COURT: Well, are you arguing that the

4 decisions that were made were spiritual matters

5 within the scope of that authority or not?

6 MR. PORTER: They were matters of an internal

7 tribunal that was set up within Atheists of Florida

8 to make a decision as to whether or not people can or

9 cannot be expelled from their own membership.

10 THE COURT: Well, that's -- of every charity --

11 well, that's what I'm saying. You're citing the case

12 and telling me it's binding authority on the Court

13 that uses the word "spiritual matters," and I'm

14 asking you if you're -- if that's -- if your claim is

15 to include this organization within one that has a

16 right of -- certainly, a well-defined privilege for

17 spiritual matters, and that's the one I'm having

18 trouble with because there are plenty of charities

19 out there, for example, that advocate specific

20 propositions that are not religious propositions

21 and some -- many that advocate propositions that are

22 inconsistent with almost any religious dogma that I

23 can think of right now. I don't know that much about

24 that stuff, but those things, they're all subject to

25 the same kind of regulation that every other secular


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1 company is -- or every other secular nonprofit

2 organization is subject to, and you're telling me

3 that this one gets a special status because it is

4 dedicated to separation of church and state and to

5 freedom of thought, and it's hard to see how that --

6 unless there was some sort of question internally

7 that you were telling me that I would have to look

8 into about whether or not, you know, X acts

9 constituted freedom of thought, or Z act constituted

10 separation of church and state, I don't understand

11 how your organization becomes separated from all the

12 other organizations when they're advocating a

13 position which is -- you know, certainly it's one

14 that is well focused on matters that are entirely

15 secular. I mean, it's very well focused on matters

16 that are -- pointedly focused on matters that are

17 entirely secular.

18 MR. PORTER: It sounds like one of the questions

19 is, whether you have to treat AOF as -- the same as

20 you would treat a church for First Amendment analysis

21 purposes.

22 THE COURT: Well, I realize that's your

23 proposition --

24 MR. PORTER: Yes.

25 THE COURT: -- but I'm inviting you to look into


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1 the underlying guts of where that proposition comes

2 from and speak to it if you choose to at this

3 point --

4 MR. PORTER: Well --

5 THE COURT: -- because what -- we all know --

6 let's be clear, we know what's going on now, and that

7 is, y'all might care what I say for today, but

8 ultimately the decision that I have to make on these

9 points is not really my decision. My decision only

10 affects what happens for the rest of the making of

11 the record in this case so that the decisions

12 actually get made at levels way above my pay grade --

13 maybe even way, way above my pay grade -- so I'm

14 trying to make sure I do the best job I can of making

15 an argument -- or making a record so that both of

16 your arguments -- I'm going to be asking questions

17 too -- both of your arguments are fully fleshed out

18 on the record and that whatever decision you get, I

19 know the party who doesn't like the decision, when

20 the right time to appeal that issue comes, will have

21 that issue reviewed by the higher courts; and I

22 expect that to happen. I'm glad that they're there

23 to do that for me because this is -- the issue here

24 raised is one that deserves an answer from a higher

25 level of the court system than a circuit court and so


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1 I know that's going to happen, all right? But it is

2 important to give -- for me to make sure that the

3 record is as fully fleshed out as possible by asking

4 questions that probe the propositions that you're

5 making. Of course, you haven't seen what's going to

6 happen when the other gentleman starts his argument

7 so --

8 MR. PORTER: Let me clarify it for the record.

9 THE COURT: Go right ahead, sir.

10 MR. PORTER: By the great weight of authority,

11 the civil courts will not interfere in church

12 government or discipline. That's reading from the

13 case law. Now, again, everybody has a hard time

14 calling atheism --

15 THE COURT: It's not that. It's that you're

16 asking me to extend a deference that the government

17 has shown to religion to something that says that it

18 doesn't have any connection with it.

19 MR. PORTER: Okay.

20 THE COURT: And, I mean, if you have a case from

21 anywhere that actually makes the one thing that

22 you're asking me to make, you would've shown it to me

23 already. I know you would've. You're very

24 well-versed in the field. And the point is that

25 this is -- we can't pretend it's not some extension.


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1 It may be a logical extension -- and that's your

2 argument -- may be a logical extension of the

3 doctrine and it may be something that the Court ends

4 up doing, but we're not going to pretend like it's a

5 Florida law conclusion already, are we?

6 MR. PORTER: Your Honor, I am asking the Court to

7 assume, Step 1, that this organization, Atheists of

8 Florida, is a First Amendment organization. It

9 deserves the exact same protection as any other

10 church, whether it's a Roman Catholic Church, or

11 Hindus, or any other organization in the world;

12 that's what the US Supreme Court says the court is

13 required to do.

14 THE COURT: Well, see, that's were you make a

15 statement that I have to ask you: Where does that

16 come from? I would fully acknowledge that with

17 regard to the First Amendment, anybody who forms an

18 association has the right to form an association,

19 like the case where they didn't let the guy in prison

20 do that, a blatant violation of his right to form an

21 association, which is a secular First Amendment

22 right. They have the right to free speech, they have

23 a right to free interchange of ideas, they have all

24 kinds of secular First Amendment rights that can be

25 intertwined in some of these things. I've never seen


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1 anybody who had a case that extended rights that are

2 specific to religions, to groups that weren't validly

3 religious, and if that's -- if you want me to do that

4 today, then, I'm going to listen to your argument.

5 I'll make a decision at the end, like I said, I know

6 it's not going to be the last word so my job mostly

7 is just to make a record so that the people who do

8 have the authority to make these decisions, don't

9 have to send it back and say, Make a better record,

10 so -- but, anyway, you are -- it is an extension,

11 right?

12 There's no case in the US Supreme Court that says

13 you have to treat groups that avow that they don't

14 have any religious belief and that they think that

15 nobody else should have religious belief and they

16 want to spread that idea, there's no case saying

17 that they are entitled to be treated under these

18 religious doctrines that were created for churches

19 that have these big hierarchies and there are a bunch

20 of costumes --

21 MR. PORTER: Yes, there is.

22 THE COURT: -- and stuff like that so...

23 MR. PORTER: I mean, that's the 7th Circuit case

24 I just read to the Court.

25 THE COURT: Yeah, it doesn't say that.


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1 MR. PORTER: The case said --

2 THE COURT: That clearly says that they can't

3 stop the guy from forming an association of other

4 people who do the same thing.

5 MR. PORTER: The case itself says that for the

6 First Amendment purposes, that is, whether or not

7 the State can interfere with that religion or whether

8 in deciding internal disputes or not, that atheism is

9 the equivalent of a church. That's what that case

10 says: Atheism is a religion for First Amendment

11 purposes. The right we're talking about is the right

12 for the State not to interfere with their internal

13 governments, their internal discipline. That's what

14 the Florida courts have said. The two cases I've

15 given you -- they were defamation cases, both these

16 cases I've given you -- have said the defamation case

17 is not going to be decided by this Court because we

18 are not going to exercise jurisdiction; dismissed.

19 Two empirical cases that I think the Court has a

20 right to follow.

21 I think in this case, because there's no Second

22 DCA case, the Court has to decide between the Fourth

23 DCA, the case I've just showed the Court, which was a

24 Third DCA case, which if the Court follows those, we

25 win. And there's another case which Mr. Buesing is


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1 going to talk about from the First DCA, in which case

2 we would lose.

3 THE COURT: Well, let's give him --

4 MR. PORTER: Sure.

5 THE COURT: -- the floor now because it's not

6 your fault, I know I've asked you a lot of questions,

7 but we used 45 minutes of the allocated hour and I do

8 have an 11:00 docket and --

9 MR. PORTER: Understood.

10 THE COURT: -- so let's...

11 MR. BUESING: Your Honor, all I can say is, any

12 time the Atheists of Florida, Inc. seeks protection

13 of the ecclesiastical privilege, that should send a

14 message to the Court that they really are not proud

15 of the way they conducted themselves.

16 THE COURT: Now, now. That's not -- is that in

17 any way relevant to my decision on the motion to

18 dismiss the case?

19 MR. BUESING: Well, it's an --

20 THE COURT: No, no, no --

21 MR. BUESING: -- it's a silly argument.

22 THE COURT: I'm sorry that I used up a fair chunk

23 of your time that normally would be allocated to you

24 for -- but please understand that now that we're

25 here, we don't have time for you to just try to -- I


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1 intellectually interesting, but the least legally

2 relevant.

3 MR. BUESING: All right.

4 THE COURT: You -- he's saying that you don't

5 state the case for defamation. What are the elements

6 of defamation, and where do they occur in your

7 complaint?

8 MR. BUESING: He doesn't say I don't state the

9 case.

10 THE COURT: That's what he was trying to say as I

11 stopped him to ask him if he was going to say that,

12 but I...

13 MR. BUESING: He never did.

14 THE COURT: Well, how about you do what you have

15 to do and tell me what the elements are and where

16 they're listed in your -- and where they're stated in

17 your complaint.

18 MR. PORTER: Your Honor --

19 THE COURT: No, no, no.

20 MR. PORTER: -- may I stipulate?

21 THE COURT: Oh, to that one?

22 MR. PORTER: To that one.

23 THE COURT: Well, you're not asking to dismiss

24 that.

25 MR. PORTER: No, I'm not. I'm asking to


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1 dismiss --

2 THE COURT: Well, you're asking dismiss it on a

3 different place, on the --

4 MR. PORTER: It's declaratory judgment that she

5 didn't --

6 THE COURT: Where are the declaratory judgment

7 provisions of your complaint supported by allegations

8 of your complaint? That's all this proceeding's

9 supposed to be about. Obviously, everybody -- and we

10 never get a crowd like this unless people are

11 expecting something much more than a simple ruling by

12 a -- you know, just trying to do our job here and

13 make a ruling based on what the papers say; it

14 doesn't have any judgmental overtone to it

15 whatsoever --

16 MR. BUESING: Right. Declaratory judgment

17 statue, Your Honor, is very familiar with 86.021.

18 It's very broad. It's any person claiming to be

19 interested or who may be in doubt as to his or her

20 rights under an article, memorandum, or instrument in

21 writing, the Court is open to that.

22 THE COURT: Is that these articles of

23 incorporation you're talking about?

24 MR. BUESING: And the bylaws, both -- the

25 supposed bylaws -- counsel mentioned that we raise an


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1 issue about whether they were properly adopted. The

2 declaratory judgment act is to be liberally

3 construed. I cite case law, he did not object to

4 that or counter it. It's intended -- the declaratory

5 judgment act is intended to relieve litigants of the

6 common-law rule that a declaration of rights cannot

7 be adjudicated unless a right has been violated, and

8 to render practical help in ending controversies.

9 And, boy, can this case use practical help ending the

10 controversy which has not reached the stage where

11 other relief is immediately available, therefore, it

12 should be liberally construed.

13 That's the Florida Supreme Court case I cited,

14 1993.

15 THE COURT: But see -- I know and you know and

16 all counsel here know the procedural requisites for

17 a declaratory judgment action --

18 MR. BUESING: Right.

19 THE COURT: But you have to tell me what the

20 issues are that you're in doubt about and why they're

21 not already part of some of the other issues in the

22 case. That's pretty much what the declaratory

23 question is about.

24 MR. BUESING: Well --

25 THE COURT: It's a procedural point. What issues


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1 is your client in doubt about? What are you trying

2 to get a resolution of, specifically? What -- he's

3 saying that the ones you're trying to get a

4 resolution of are ones that I don't have the

5 authority to do under church extension doctrine, or

6 that are, for other legal reasons, not really issues

7 that you have any business being in doubt about at

8 this point. That's what his contention is.

9 MR. BUESING: Well, we're setting aside church

10 extension for the moment. I'll get back to that --

11 THE COURT: That will be better. And go ahead.

12 MR. BUESING: But as to what people have doubt

13 about, I cited a series of cases --

14 THE COURT: See, if you don't tell me first, and

15 you just start given me cases, I don't have any idea

16 what you're trying -- what proposition you're trying

17 to --

18 MR. BUESING: People who need the court's

19 interpretation --

20 THE COURT: No, I already know that, but what do

21 you need the interpretation of is what I'm asking

22 you. And if you can't tell me --

23 MR. BUESING: The articles of incorporation and

24 the bylaws.

25 THE COURT: What rights are you asserting under


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1 the articles of incorporation and the bylaws that

2 you're asking me to interpret or determine? If those

3 are things that the law says you're not allowed to

4 ask me about, that's what the gentleman's argument

5 basically was --

6 MR. BUESING: Okay.

7 THE COURT: -- and I need to evaluate that

8 argument by knowing what you think you are allowed to

9 ask me about -- that you're asking me about.

10 MR. BUESING: Right. Some of the cases I've

11 cited and I won't take the time on, go directly to

12 expulsion from membership; that the court does a

13 declaratory judgment to determine whether a process

14 for expulsion for membership complied with the

15 articles and the bylaws. That's --

16 THE COURT: All right. I understand. Then, I'm

17 going to write down on my notes, No. 1 is you're

18 asking me to determine whether the expulsion from

19 membership was legally valid or not valid?

20 MR. BUESING: Correct.

21 THE COURT: Okay. See, now I'm getting

22 somewhere. I deal in concrete stuff, all right?

23 MR. BUESING: Okay.

24 THE COURT: But go ahead. What else do you want

25 to tell me? Let's make a list first of what you're


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1 telling me about so that I can have some idea of

2 exactly what it is that you're seeking under the

3 declaratory judgment action. I've read the papers

4 from both of you, and you're arguing at a very

5 intellectually abstract level, both of you, okay.

6 And I don't have the luxury of being able to do that

7 because I have to write orders that people can

8 understand and live by in the real world, so let's

9 make a list of the other things now that you're

10 saying are included within the declaratory judgment

11 action that you're asking for so that I'll be able to

12 know exactly what they are --


14 THE COURT: -- okay?

15 MR. BUESING: Okay. And by the way, for the

16 record, I'm reading from Paragraph 166 where I list

17 the --

18 THE COURT: So I appreciate that.

19 MR. BUESING: But the first one was her expulsion

20 from membership and board membership, two different

21 things, and AOF was wrongful because she was not

22 provided with a fair hearing purporting with the

23 articles of incorporation, whatever the applicable

24 bylaws are -- which is an open issue, Your Honor --

25 due process was a result of bad faith. There's a


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1 statue that I cited, which is 617.0607, which

2 requires a fair hearing, and she didn't get a fair

3 hearing. She was -- it was -- they did not allow her

4 to say anything; so that's the first one. Second

5 one, there is a dispute among the parties as to

6 whether these amendments to the bylaws have any

7 validity. The amendments to the bylaws are to be

8 adopted by the membership, and one of their

9 amendments was -- they rewrote it and said, Oh, well,

10 the board can do it; but the membership never did it.

11 THE COURT: So if you're challenging the change

12 to the bylaws, you still -- that's just one of the

13 links in the chain. The next one has to be how that

14 affects the person that you're representing here, and

15 what interest of hers that you're alleging is

16 affected by that change to the bylaws. Because you

17 can't just -- I can't go sue, you know, General

18 Motors because I think they changed the bylaws in a

19 way that I don't approve of.


21 THE COURT: I'm not a stockholder in the company,

22 I don't have any personal interest that's been

23 affected by anything like that.

24 MR. BUESING: Okay. Well, the answer to your

25 question, Your Honor, and the reason we're all here,


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1 is that there is a statute under Florida law which

2 says that the court can determine that actions taken

3 by the corporation are ultra vires, meaning beyond

4 their authority, beyond their power.

5 THE COURT: They can only do that in a case where

6 the case in controversy doctrine is satisfied, and

7 that is, that there's an actual dispute about

8 something that matters. That this lady has a right

9 to raise, and if you don't -- if you're not going to

10 tell me what it is, then, fine; we'll go on to the

11 next thing; but it's better at this point -- again,

12 I'm trying to make sure the record is nice and clear

13 for the reviewing court that we all know is going to

14 be looking at this, so I need you to identify

15 specifically what it is that -- in this change in the

16 bylaws that affected your client in a material way,

17 because he's trying to say that they're -- that you

18 don't have any legal basis for making that

19 allegation. So I understand that you're concerned

20 about the change in the bylaws, but I don't know what

21 relation it has specifically to your client. What

22 change in the bylaws are you talking about, and what

23 did it do to this lady?

24 That's -- and where is that in the complaint?

25 That's what I need to know at this point.


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1 MR. BUESING: Well, it's all over the complaint

2 because what's alleged is that a series of changes

3 were made to the bylaws over time, that the process

4 that they attempted to implement against my client --

5 she's not just an outside observer, she was

6 affected directly by this -- was not supportable by

7 the bylaws, therefore it was ultra vires actions.

8 Therefore, under the Word of Light Ministry, Inc.,

9 case -- which by the way, includes a church where the

10 judge ruled that the appellate court said, We get to

11 look at the articles of incorporation, we get to see

12 if there're valid bylaws, we get to see if the

13 members properly voted, we get to make the

14 decision -- and out of that, the trial judge was

15 asked -- it was sent back to the trial judge to

16 determine what actions the corporation took were

17 ultra vires and therefore not enforceable.

18 THE COURT: Let me have that one and I'll take a

19 look at it --

20 MR. BUESING: That case --

21 THE COURT: -- sort of understand that's how the

22 law works anyway when circumstances are the usual

23 circumstances, but you still have to be able, at some

24 point or another, to say exactly what changes in the

25 bylaws you're complaining about and what effect it


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1 had on the individual who's doing the complaining.

2 Are you saying that while the lady was vice president

3 of this organization, they changed the bylaws in a

4 way that authorized them to eject her or something

5 like that, is that what you're trying to say? I

6 don't understand, at this point, what the change in

7 the bylaws relates to, and that's a question that

8 anybody who's going to be reviewing this proceeding

9 is going to want to know also. And that's why I'm

10 kind of waiting to get a -- you know, get you to

11 address it specifically and...

12 MR. BUESING: Well, Judge, our position is the

13 bylaws are screwed up from day one. From day one,

14 1992, when the corporation was formed --

15 THE COURT: See, if that's what it's going to be,

16 then that's what it's going to be, but that's not

17 going to answer the question that I just asked you.

18 If you're not going to answer that question, let's be

19 clear that it's just not going to happen.

20 MR. BUESING: Well, no. It's my intention to

21 answer every question Your Honor raises, believe me.

22 THE COURT: If you're -- I thought so too. If

23 you're going to tell me about something wrong with

24 the bylaws going back to 1992, before this lady

25 joined the organization, before she obtained any sort


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1 of status as an officer or member of the

2 corporation -- now, I'm almost regretting telling

3 your opponent to stop when he started telling me

Church Abstention HEARING PROCEEDINGS 04-24-2014.Fullprint (1)

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Transcript of Church Abstention HEARING PROCEEDINGS 04-24-2014.Fullprint (1)