{"id":1448,"date":"2022-09-07T22:14:25","date_gmt":"2022-09-07T22:14:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jwchildabuse.org\/xqllht\/document\/47-0-order-re-scope-of-jurisdictional-discovery-november-30th-2020\/"},"modified":"2022-09-18T20:35:02","modified_gmt":"2022-09-18T20:35:02","slug":"47-0-order-re-scope-of-jurisdictional-discovery-november-30th-2020","status":"publish","type":"dlp_document","link":"https:\/\/jwchildabuse.org\/xqllht\/document\/47-0-order-re-scope-of-jurisdictional-discovery-november-30th-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"47-0 Order Re: Scope of Jurisdictional Discovery"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>November 30th, 2020<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Judge Watters concludes that further discovery into the relationship between Watch Tower Pennsylvania and Watchtower New York is warranted, based upon evidence provided by the Plaintiff.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Before the Court is Defendant Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, Inc.&#8217;s (&#8220;WTPA&#8221;) argument, presented in the party&#8217;s preliminary pretrial statement, that this Court should restrict the scope of Plaintiffs&#8217; jurisdictional discovery. (Doc. 38 at 9). WTPA asserts that Plaintiffs should be prevented from conducting a &#8220;fishing expedition&#8221; by seeking discovery related to the parent-subsidiary relationship between WTPA and Defendant Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc. (&#8220;WTNY&#8221;) when WTPA has already presented evidence allegedly demonstrating that WTNY is not the alter ego of WTPA. For the following reasons, <strong>the Court finds WTP A&#8217;s argument unpersuasive and shall allow Plaintiffs to seek discovery related to the corporate relationship between WTP A and WTNY<\/strong>.&#8221;<br \/>\nfrom the years 1973 to 1992.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Court is persuaded that Plaintiffs have presented sufficient evidence demonstrating WTP A may have played a more significant role in directing the administrative work of WTNY and Jehovah&#8217;s Witnesses generally in the 1970s through the 1990s. The Jehovah&#8217;s Witnesses&#8217; Branch Organization manual, published by WTPA in 1977, goes so far as to state: &#8220;The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania is the parent corporate agency of Jehovah&#8217;s Witnesses. It works with subsidiary legal agencies such as the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York &#8230;. &#8221; (Doc. 44-1 at 1-4). Mr. Brumley&#8217;s affidavit does nothing to contradict these documents. Instead. Mr. Brumley&#8217;s affidavit describes the corporate structure of WTP A in almost exclusively present tense terms. ( e.g. &#8220;WTP A is not the direct or indirect parent or subsidiary of any other corporation involved in this action &#8230; WTPA has its own assets, liabilities, offices, board of directors, and officers, separate from every other entity used by Jehovah&#8217;s Witnesses.&#8221; (Doc.14-1 at 2)). The affidavit says nothing of WTPA&#8217;s past corporate structure or relationship with other subsidiaries such as WTNY. The Court finds that questions remain regarding this past corporate relationship which require a more satisfactory factual showing to resolve. Discovery regarding WTPA&#8217;s corporate relationship with WTNY from 1973 to 1992 is therefore appropriate.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Order on Scope of Discovery<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1239,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"doc_categories":[75],"doc_tags":[76],"doc_author":[],"file_type":[14],"class_list":["post-1448","dlp_document","type-dlp_document","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","doc_categories-caecaert-v-watchtower","doc_tags-caekaert-v-watchtower","file_type-pdf"],"download_url":"https:\/\/jwchildabuse.org\/xqllht\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/47-0-Order-Re-Scope-of-Jurisdictional-Discovery-November-30th-2020.pdf","file_size":"437 KB","filename":"47-0-Order-Re-Scope-of-Jurisdictional-Discovery-November-30th-2020.pdf","download_count":"","version_history":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwchildabuse.org\/xqllht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/dlp_document\/1448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwchildabuse.org\/xqllht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/dlp_document"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwchildabuse.org\/xqllht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/dlp_document"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwchildabuse.org\/xqllht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwchildabuse.org\/xqllht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1448"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwchildabuse.org\/xqllht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwchildabuse.org\/xqllht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"doc_categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwchildabuse.org\/xqllht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/doc_categories?post=1448"},{"taxonomy":"doc_tags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwchildabuse.org\/xqllht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/doc_tags?post=1448"},{"taxonomy":"doc_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwchildabuse.org\/xqllht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/doc_author?post=1448"},{"taxonomy":"file_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwchildabuse.org\/xqllht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/file_type?post=1448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}