Greetings to all, from Angharad ver' Rhuawn, on behalf of the Mandamus Petitioners and CSOS.
For some time, many people have been asking what is going on with the mandamus action. For much of that time, we have not been able to answer fully, because we were engaged in ongoing negotiations that limited both our ability to report and the wisdom of doing so. The action has passed the point where negotiations are any longer an option. Because we do believe in openness, but more because we owe many of you directly a debt of honor for your support, we feel obliged now to give a reasonably full account of what has happened. Much of this has appeared before, but never together, and much appears here for the first time.
I am sorry to report that the situation is not resolved; but at this point, it appears that resolution will lie with the Courts.
I began to write a chronology. When I realized how long it was, I decided to present a summary, with a chronology to follow, for those who would like more detail. Because the combined documents are so long, I have split them apart. This posting contains the summary. The chronology follows separately.
Throughout both documents, "petitioners" refers to the individuals bringing the action; "respondents" refers to those answering the action, that is, the Corporation itself in its formal identity, and also, separately and individually, the Directors, and the relevant Corporate Officers (most notably the Executive Director and the Registrar).
I beg your pardon for the length, and trust that those who are not interested will not be greatly discomfited.
In service to the Society, and for the Committee to Save our Society and the Mandamus Petitioners,
-- Angharad ver' Rhuawn
In March, after repeated efforts to convince the Board to comply with the By-Laws, the petitioners announced that they had begun proceedings to file a petition for a Writ of Mandamus, compelling that compliance. The writ was actually filed in late March.
Also in March, before the petition for writ was actually filed, petitioners offered a settlement to the Board, under which the Board would not have to release any salary data on employees, the membership lists would be protected, and the petitioners would waive all costs and fees. The Board would have to provide open access to the books of account, as the By-Laws required.
The Board first agreed, to the extent of taking a formal vote on a formal motion ratifying the settlement agreement -- and then reversed itself in a second vote and refused.
In April, the petitioners offered the same settlement agreement. The Board refused again.
In May, the Court found for the petitioners. The petitioners offered the same settlement yet again. The Board refused yet again. Meanwhile, the respondents ignored the court's deadline for comment on the judgement and writ, then filed such comment late, then again ignored the instruction of the court to negotiate the documents.
In June, the Board decided to appeal, and separately moved for retrial. When a representative of the petitioners met with the Chairman to try to set groundwork for negotiation, the Chairman responded only with threats.
In July, the Corporation offered compliance, but failed to deliver, and then withdrew even the offer. Later the same month, the Corporation lost its motion for retrial, and was ordered to comply. The Board also filed an appeal, but later withdrew it, on advice of counsel that they could not possibly win.
As of July 11, the Board was in violation of the compliance deadline. As of July 26, the court gave the Board one more week to comply.
Still the Board did not comply.
By the end of July, counsel for the respondents had instructed them that they could not possibly win any further action, that the respondents would be assessed fees as well as costs, and that the Board's best course of action was to find out what the petitioners' bill was and pay it.
Even then, the Board did not comply.
In late July, the petitioners made the Board a fifth settlement offer. This proposal left the issue of costs to the court, but allowed for a payment plan of up to a year, should the court find in the petitioners' favor. After a month of negotiations, in which the petitioners met every single substantial objection the Board raised, the Board rejected this proposal too. No substantive reason for this rejection has ever been given.
In September, the court ordered the Board to pay petitioners' fees. The Board still did nothing for almost two months. Then, in late October, the Board demanded the deal they had turned down five times before -- with no concessions, and no recognition that they had, in the interim, run up the petitioners' costs by an order of magnitude. Above all, the Board has never, at any point, even once, acknowledged that when the Court says it must do a thing, _it must do it_.
The Board has not complied with _one_ _single_ _order_ _of_ _the_ _court_ within the time frame set out. Not one.
The Board has not passed up _one_ _single_ opportunity to draw out this process, prolong it to the bitter end, and drive up the petitioners' costs as far as absolutely possible. Not one.
The Board has not acknowledged that it is wrong. Not once. Not after being told so by a judge in court _three separate times_.
The judgement against the SCA, Inc. is a bill. It can be paid immediately, by anyone who can pay any other bill. The money is present to pay this bill, and still to meet all current outstanding obligations, including the newsletter stipends. Three Directors have personally acknowledged this, and that the petitioners, at the moment, have better information than they do concerning the financial health of the organization.
Either Mr. Tatro or Mr. Riviezzo, on his own, can cause this bill to be paid in a matter of under sixty seconds. The other four Directors can force them to do so within about a day.
But they believe that they are above the law. They also believe that they have a right to what the court has already told them, very clearly, is the petitioners' money.
They also believe that they are immune, despite being personally named as respondents in the judgment for costs.
Our Directors clearly believe that they are above all judgement except their own.
In one regard, this bill is _not_ like other bills. If the Court finds that the respondents can pay but refuse, it can attach all the financial and physical assets of the Corporation. If the Court takes notice of the failure to comply by finding the Corporation and the Directors in contempt, it can assess fines against the Corporation _substantially_ higher than the amount of the judgement -- fines that probably _would_ bankrupt the Corporation.
Every Director knows this.
This is not the first action Mr. Tatro has taken in this matter that has endangered the Corporation. It is also not the first action he has taken for which, mundanely, if they can prove you have done it, they put you in jail. He has made public threats of financial reprisal -- illegal in cases under judicial action; he has made public statements of refusal to comply -- contempt of court; and he has made public threats of physical armed violence with intent to maim or kill -- mundane assault. His actions throughout have been more suited to a jail yard than a Board room.
Rather than admit that he has been beaten -- the only argument against compliance that Mr. Tatro has yet adduced, publicly or privately -- Mr. Tatro is playing chicken with the Corporation's continued existence. Rather than actually do anything about Mr. Tatro's continued misfeasance and malfeasance, the other Directors are playing chicken right alongside him.
Having lost in their previous bout of chicken with the courts, the Board is now trying to demand that the petitioners turn aside and drive their _own_ vehicle into a wall, solely to prevent the Board from suffering the natural consequences of their contumacy.
Can anyone in the SCA explain why the mandamus petitioners, who are already out of pocket $19,000 _real dollars_ of their _real_ money on lawyers' fees and court costs alone, should let the Corporation get away with this? If someone had almost $20,000 of your money, and you knew they had it, and you knew that all you had to do to get it was ask the Court to attach their accounts -- and if, meanwhile, you faced bills for mortgage, and for utilities, and for food, that _you_ couldn't pay, because they had _your_ money -- what would _you_ do?
Would _you_ make an unsecured loan to an organization that first proved itself unable either to manage its expenses or balance its checkbook, and _then_ removed _all_ oversight from the person who wrote the checks?
I submit that _no_ Director would. But this isn't their money -- and so the moral issues just seem not to be there for them -- as the moral issue of preserving the Corporation's finances was not there in August and early September, when, _after_ their counsel advised them that they would lose on fees, they let their Chairman scuttle an offer that included interest-free deferred payment, because accepting it would involve admitting that they had lost.
Let me put this concretely: the petitioners were willing to risk that money -- but in several cases, that meant risking our _homes_. Especially because we have thousands of dollars of expenses that are _not_ covered by the order, it will literally come to that, unless we take legal steps to collect this money. We were willing to take that chance, and pay, _if we were wrong_. We are _not_ willing to give up our homes because the Board will not admit that _it_ was wrong.
This is not just a matter of our point of view versus the Board's. There is a third party here that has examined the issue and reached a decision, with no possible source of bias based on SCAdian politics. It is strongly against the policy of the California court system to assess costs in this matter. The Court did so, because it has judged that the petitioners acted in the public interest, to bring about a necessary correction of wrongdoing: it was for that reason, under the Private Attorney General statute, that the Court granted costs and fees. We aren't guessing about this conclusion on the part of the Court: it is explicit in the statement of the Judgement. The State of California thinks we did the right and necessary thing. So do we.
We put it to the Society: is this level of disregard among the Directors for the organization's continued existence acceptable? Is this level of illegal behavior among the Directors acceptable?
Do you think that the SCA, Inc should operate on the principle of "Make the Biggest Threat, and Damn the Consequences"? Do you think it is _morally_ acceptable to ignore the order of the court? Do you think it is morally acceptable to try to bankrupt SCAdians for pursuing their rights, and then refuse to accept the consequences? Should we let them succeed?
Do you think that Directors who instigate such behaviors should be tolerated?
What about Officers and Directors who stand by and watch, and do nothing?
Do you think that an organization that acts this way deserves to live?
We do not know. We do know that we are past negotiating. This lies now in the hands of the Court.