Cottonwood in Civil Contempt for filing public documents in FCC proceeding

[James Love <love@cptech.org>]

Rick Dahlgren from Cottonwood communications has been having a lot of
legal problems with US West, including a current dispute where Rick's
firm has been hit with a civil contempt citation for filing public
documents from a federal court case in a public FCC proceeding.  As I
understand matters, the documents in question were once covered by a non
disclosure agreement in a federal antitrust suit, but were subsequently
entered into the court's public record, "without restriction." 
Nonetheless, Rick and his firm have been told that even though the
documents are now public, he cannot legally distribute them, even in a
public FCC proceeding, since he has promised to keep them confidential.  

I asked Rick if he could put the court decisions about the comptempt
proceeding on the web and he has at:

http://www.cottonwood.com/legal.html

The following is a quote from Judge Magistrate Kathleen Jaudzemas's
recommendation to hold Rick Dahlgren and Cottonwood in contempt:


<----------begin excerpt --------------------------->

The protective order in question was intended to facilitate discovery by
forbidding the parties to use confidential information in other
proceedings absent consent or permission by the court. I emphasize that
plaintiffs would not have been given access to the information in
question but for the entry of the protective order. This court is
unaware of any contention that U S West somehow acted in bath faith in
designating its confidential information. The court is also unaware of
any motion or other effort made by the plaintiff corporations or the
Dahlgrens to amend the terms of the protective order. The protective
order certainly allows the plaintiffs' corporate officers to review the
portions of the court file that were not sealed. Members of the general
public may also review the court file if they have any interest in doing
so. The average member of the general public, however, probably does not
have the desire or incentive to peruse thousands of pages of court files
for secret documents. In contrast, plaintiffs knew of the existence and
location of U S West's confidential documents, had recently lost their
lawsuit against U S West, and apparently wished to place U S West in bad
light before the FCC (Footnote 3).

Evaluating plaintiffs' actions in light of the terms of the protective
order, I find that Cottonwood, through its agent Richard Dahlgren,
violated the court's order by intentionally delivering U S West's
confidential documents to the FCC.

<-------------end excerpt --------------------------->

Cottonwood, a small business, has been ordered to pay US West's legal
fees in this case.  

 jamie

-- 
James Love, Consumer Project on Technology
P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036
202.387.8030; f 202.234.5176
http://www.cptech.org, mailto:love@cptech.org