[A story about husband and wife attorneys in Irvine who harassed a volunteer at their son's school (and ended up in jail) can be found here: Sound familiar? Completely false allegations made in an effort to banish woman from California school.]
Update Jan. 2015:
Darren Chaker appointed himself in July 2011 to do negotiations for Stutz, Artiano Shinoff & Holtz law firm (see below). More recently, Mr. Chaker started a public relations campaign on behalf of Stutz law firm. I doubt that Stutz law firm ever wanted his help.
Darren Chaker pretends that there was a trial in which in this blogger was found to have defamed Stutz law firm. This is false.
In fact, there was no finding of fact in Stutz v. Larkins.
Instead, Judge Judith Hayes, who was found to have acted in an "exceedingly unconstitutional" manner in the case, threw out my opposition to summary adjudication because of a small error in format. She also threw out all my evidence.
Thus, her ruling of defamation did not claim to based on a weighing of the evidence. It was a decision of "law", not of "fact." Judge Hayes simply announced that there was "no opposition" to Stutz' motion for summary adjudication, and granted the motion.
This past week Darren Chaker has written to people on my street to report that I "was found to have made defamatory statements about an upstanding law firm who represents schools" and then he went on to name Stutz Artiano Shinoff & Holtz.
I became acquainted with Stutz law firm several years ago after I was harassed at my workplace in Chula Vista Elementary School District. I refused to go back to work until there was an investigation. The district refused to investigate, and wrote me many letters demanding that I return to work. The district has concealed the results of its "investigation" to this day. The district fired me a year later, immediately after I filed suit against the district, claiming that I had been "insubordinate" by refusing to return to work.
Update 2013: David Loy's pal Darren Chaker Sentenced to Federal Prison for Bankruptcy Fraud
See new posts re David Loy and earlier posts under his former name of David Blair-Loy.
ORIGINAL POST:
The following story was first posted Feb. 13, 2012 :
The
ACLU claims that it does not give legal advice regarding cases it
refuses, but it turns out that this is false. The ACLU refused my free speech case,
but at the same time, I was given very specific legal advice by San Diego ACLU attorney David Loy
(formerly Blair-Loy) regarding the defamation case against me by Stutz
law firm.
In 2010 Mr. Loy wrote to me in an email that I must remove
every mention of the names of a group of San Diego attorneys from my website;
he has never modified his position, even when I won in the Court of Appeal on August 5, 2011.
Why was Mr. Loy so determined to make sure that
I obeyed the obviously unconstitutional order of Judge Judith Hayes?
I'm a third-grade teacher, and I knew the injunction was
unconstitutional. Clearly, Mr. Loy knew perfectly well that he was
insisting that I obey an unconstitutional order. I did not follow Mr.
Loy's legal advice; I would rather go to jail than obey that order.
(And, in fact, the law firm asked Judge Hayes to put me in jail, but
she declined.)
Instead, I appealed to the California Court of Appeal
without the ACLU's help.
The law firm attorney argued
before the Court of Appeal that my appeal should be dismissed because I
disobeyed the trial court's order. Attorney Shawn Martin
argued on my behalf that no Appeals Court had ever dismissed a case
because an appellant disobeyed the very order that was being appealed.
The
Court of Appeal asked the Plaintiff if he knew of any case law to back up
his argument that since the injunction was a sanction, it therefore was
not constrained by the Constitution. He said he had not been able to
find any such case law, but he added, "I tried, believe me, I tried!"
On August 5, 2011 the California Court of Appeal in San Diego ruled that Judge Hayes' (and Mr. Loy's) demand was "exceedingly unconstitutional."
As
I walked out of the Court of Appeal after oral arguments, I was
approached by Darren Chaker, who has a website sporting a photo of
himself posing with a smiling David Blair-Loy. Mr. Chaker advised me to
take down my website in exchange for the law firm's agreement to not
to make me pay attorney's fees. (Note to Mr. Chaker: the law does not
allow attorney's fees in defamation cases.) I told Mr. Chaker that I
would rather go to jail. He said, "I'm just advising you to do this
because they are so nasty." Then Mr. Chaker went over to two members of the Plaintiff's law firm, and walked out of the courtroom chatting with them!
So
the question remains, why on earth would David Blair-Loy try to silence
someone who criticized public school attorneys? Was he serving his own
agenda, or the agenda of the board of the San Diego ACLU? Perhaps
both. Loy's goal seems to be to maintain a reputation as "highly civil"
with his fellow attorneys in San Diego, particularly those who are tasked by local schools with the job of limiting free
speech.
But the ACLU board supported Mr. Loy's
actions.
Why?
Were they trying to please big donors?
I talked to
board president David Higgins about this, but he claimed that he
understood nothing about the law. I explained it to him carefully, but
he continued to insist that he understood none of it. Why is such an
individual in the position of board president of the San Diego ACLU? My
guess is that he was chosen because he's willing to rubber-stamp every
decision that David Loy makes, no matter how hostile it may be to civil
rights. I conclude that Mr. Higgins does not really care about the
constitution. I suspect he has a personal agenda that is limited to his
own interests.
Here is the email sent to me by Mr. Loy:
from dblairloy@aclusandiego.org
to Maura Larkins
date Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 9:18 PM
...However,
the law does not allow anyone - a government official or a private
person - to disobey a court order because they believe it is illegal.
Under the law, the proper course is to seek appellate review of an
order, and/or a stay of the order, rather
than to disobey it. The rule of law in our system depends on compliance
with court orders until or unless they are stayed or reversed...
David
In
fact, Mr. Loy gave bad legal advice.
The truth is that once I filed my
appeal, the mandatory aspects of the injunction were automatically
stayed, and I was not required to take down my web pages about Stutz. I
think Mr. Loy knew this. What was your motive for giving me legal
advice, Mr. Loy?
Following is the 2010-2011 ACLU board in San Diego, each member of which tacitly or actively supported Mr. Loy's actions:
William J. Aceves
Candace M. Carroll--Sullivan Hill Lewin Rez & Engel
Paula Doss, J.D.--Director of Human Resources for Equal Opportunity at UCSD
Ruben Garcia
David R. Higgins, Ph.D.
Gregory G. "Greg" Rose
Hon. James Stiven--California Western University
Stephen Whitburn
Mary Cruz
Mark Adams
Pat Boyce
Linda Cory Allen
Michele Fahley
Deborah Fritsch
Kevin "KJ" Greene
Dwight K. Lomayesva
Mark Niblack
Susan Pollock
Yvonne Sanchez
Here is the 2011-2012 ACLU board in San Diego, some of whom are new and were not involved in Mr. Loy's actions:
Mark Adams
Nasser Barghouti (NEW)
Elizabeth Camarena (new)
Candace Carroll
Jeff Chinn (new)
Paula Doss
Michele Fahley
Ruben Garcia
Kevin "KJ" Greene
David Higgins, Board President
Jonathan Lin (new)
Dwight Lomayesva
Jim McElroy (new)
Mark Niblack
Susan Pollock
Greg Rose
Hon. James Stiven
Joanna Tan (AIG!!!) (new)
Stephen Whitburn
Paul Wong SDSU(new)
Andy Zlotnik (new)
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