lawsuit

THE GAMES PEOPLE (LAWYERS) PLAY – A REAL EYE OPENER

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In theory, trials are supposed to be fact-finding missions. In reality, it often turns into word games and manipulation of the rules to obscure the truth. It shouldn’t be a shocker – Original Sin leading to disordered passions and all that – but it’s still a slap in the face the first time you deal with it.

I found out the other day about a process called “Requests for Admission.” Those are statements meant to stipulate facts in a case so the trial doesn’t get bogged down trying to prove that 2+2=4. The questions are phrased to elicit a straight yes/no answer.

Of course, the devil is in the details. And given the nature of the modern practice of law, those details come complete with pitchfork and a distinct smell of sulfur and rotten eggs.

The stench comes from the wording of the questions, changing the language to make the statement false-to-fact in subtle ways that are easy to miss, designed to trap the plaintiff and confuse the issue.

A series of four questions that were asked by a defendant in a COVID shot mandate case is a perfect illustration.

See if you can spot the distortions:

  1. Admit that you requested a religious accommodation to ****’s Covid-19 vaccine policy because of your belief that the vaccine uses fetal cell lines.
  2. Admit that the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine does not contain fetal cell lines.
  3. Admit that the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine does not contain fetal cell lines.
  4. Admit that the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine does not contain fetal cell lines.

It all starts with the first sentence. The religious objection was because the COVID shots relied on tests using the fetal cell line from a baby aborted in the Netherlands, utilizing that literally unholy substance to justify putting the injections on the market. This distortion of the request with carefully crafted wording designed to create confusion by masking that deception with a verbal shell game instead of openly making the effort to uncover the truth is something that violates the very spirit of the law.

Do the listed shots contain fetal cell lines? Well, the drug companies have refused to reveal the ingredients in their concoctions, which leaves the question open to debate. For all we know, they used a ham sandwich in the formula.

Why is there such suspicion of the legal system? Hey, I have no idea what could have caused that.

All this makes me want to use strong soap to scrub off the moral contamination of the system.

P.S. A reminder that I’m in the legal fight of a lifetime. Please contribute to the Dave Platta Legal Fund at GiveSendGo.  Any amount will help and it will help keep alive the battle for the very soul of America versus this corporate tyranny.

I HAVE TO KEEP FIGHTING, BUT I ALSO NEED YOUR HELP

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The amount of support I’ve gotten from the public has been humbling. Nearly every day, people tell me they’re on my side, give me pep talks, and encourage me to keep fighting. Thank you everyone for all those kind words.

Anyone who has been fired unjustly knows how devastating it is – emotionally, physically, and especially, financially. When it happens, your only recourse is through the legal system, which turns the stress volume up to 11.

That’s where I’ve been for the past two and a half years.

Of course when it gets legal, the real stressor becomes the financial end, because going through the courts is incredibly costly.

And when you get in the legal big leagues, being on the right side of the law only makes it harder. DELAY-DELAY-DELAY raises the costs and raises the stakes, as the tactic becomes to bankrupt you before you can even get your day in court. If you need a refresher on what my religious discrimination suit is about, an explanation and a look at the evidence is posted on my blog.

But now things are ramping up and I need material support. The ugly truth is that I’m up against a multi-billion dollar corporation that can crush me using court costs and court procedure to completely wipe out me and my family financially.

I have to keep fighting, but do be able to do it I need your help. Please contribute to the Dave Platta Legal Fund at GiveSendGo.  Any amount will help and it will help keep the battle going. Every single penny will go to the legal bills. To those who have already contributed financially, mere words cannot express my gratitude. I hate to keep asking for contributions, but this is where we are.

We’ve seen the rich and powerful, the politically well-connected violate the law with impunity and run roughshod over people who are just trying to put food on the table and support their families. Their greed for wealth and their lust for power has no limit, and the stark reality is that you and your family may be the next ones victimized.

It has to stop, and with your help, and with the Grace of God, we can turn the tide on all this.

Please share this message on Facebook, Twitter, and every other social media platform you use! Again, thank you, and may the Good Lord bless you.

THE NEXT LEGAL STEP

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It probably seems like I’ve been MIA from the website for the past few days. I’ve had to concentrate on the next step of my religious discrimination lawsuit versus Gray – discovery.

This is the least glamorous but the most important part of the process. Discovery is basically doing your homework, gathering evidence that could be used for the trial, or used as background for developing legal arguments.

It’s as exciting as it sounds. But life gets more exciting if you don’t do it right – exciting in all the wrong ways.

Four days of drudgery completed. Now we wait for the other guys to return the favor and do the reveal of all the things we’ve asked for, which should happen tomorrow.

It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

IT’S A MARATHON, NOT A SPRINT

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My lawsuit against Gray TV has been in the court system now for over a year, and the pace of progress has been nothing short of glacial. For someone with no patience who spent his entire professional life in fifth gear – Go! Go! Go! – it’s been particularly painful.

The actual lawsuit was filed in court in January of 2023 after 15 months of research and preparation. There have been revisions along with way as new evidence and discoveries came to light, and it’s still obviously a work in progress.

The process itself is maddening to the layman. The level of attention that has to be paid to detail is excruciating. In one sense, it’s obvious that it has to be that way – it’s about words and the meanings of those words. Being exacting is part of the deal.

On the other hand, the process itself is anything but user-friendly. The justice system is supposed to be a descriptive term – the application of the laws in a just fashion – but the way those laws and precedents are applied can make it feel like a Just-Us system, as in George Carlin’s famed proclamation, “It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it.”

A good visual picture of this concept is from the movie Animal House, when the welding torch is fired up to chop up the fancy sports car that was lent to Flounder, as the fraternity president piously tells him “You (messed) up. You trusted us.”

Process is important, but it’s not an end in itself, and that’s seemingly been forgotten. That’s being charitable, because if that principle hasn’t been forgotten and it just being ignored, that means Process has been weaponized against the people and Justice has been served in another fashion – as a gourmet dinner for a select few of the most privileged.

That’s downright Biblical. Keep in mind that the Sanhedrin were supposed to be the guardians of the Faith and of Worship, but that institution devolved into a group that concentrated on the letter of the law, not the spirit. That invariably leads to making the law loophole-friendly, enabling the powerful to do whatever they desire and damn the consequences to everyone else.

And that’s the attitude that led to Flipping the Tables in the Temple, and to the resultant public display of power by the Roman authorities that has had Eternal Repercussions.

The legal process rolls on. We will see what the future brings.

CALL IT A REBOOT

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I got the ball rolling on this website a little over a year ago in an effort to keep everyone informed about the progress of my lawsuit against Gray TV. Frankly, the pace of the legal system has been downright glacial and as a person without a whole lot of patience, the entire experience to date has been emotionally draining.

It’s time for “Extreme Website Makeover.”

This is going to turn into a more traditional blog. I’ll keep everyone updated on the progress of the lawsuit and the frustrations and craziness of a layman dealing with that foreign country known as the legal system.

I’ll also opine on the sports topics of the day, both nationally and locally, plus get into a little bit of what’s going on in my life on a personal level.

Toss in some nostalgia with videos from Back in the Day, and it should be a little more fun hanging out here.

Thaaaaaaat’s a look at blogging! (Sorry, couldn’t resist)

BACK ON COLUMBUS TV – KINDA/SORTA

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No, you’re not imagining things. That really is me popping up on Fox 54 in Columbus talking about high school football. The whole situation is, as those personal status reports say on social media, complicated.

When I was hired by Tires First a year and a half ago, there was an understanding that if Mark and Wes decided to revive their dormant TV and radio ad campaigns, I would be the face/voice of the store. I started doing radio spots a few months ago, and there was a good response.

WXTX Sales came along and proposed that I do a three-minute weekly high school football preview that would air during Fox 54 newscasts. Mark liked the idea, and co-sponsored the reports along with Glynn Smith Chevy/GMC from Opelika. I also did a 30-second commercial for Tires First as well as promo spots for the reports.

WXTX isn’t a Gray TV station. Fox 54 is owned by American Spirit Media, a company based out of Charlotte that owns or operates stations in six TV markets. American Spirit supplies a general manager and sales staff, while Gray supplies the rest through what’s known as a shared services agreement (SSA).

That’s where it gets complicated. My lawsuit against Gray TV makes producing the reports a little more interesting. WTVM is providing video they shot from football games for the report, but we’re recording at an area production studio since I’m not allowed in WTVM’s building for obvious reasons.

The response has been great. There’s buzz around town about me appearing on TV in Columbus again, and that’s really gratifying. A lot of folks come into the store and tell me how great it is to see me on TV again doing sports stuff. It’s nice to be remembered, and it’s fun to get back in front of the camera.

I suspect it makes the folks at Gray TV a little uncomfortable, especially considering the viewer response, but that’s not my concern. I’m just trying to do a good job and promote the store properly. If it makes Gray ponder about what they did to me and to so many others, all the better.

I have plenty going on media-wise. I’m still doing play-by-play for Pacelli football webcasts, DJ Jones and I will co-host a fundraiser for the Anne Elizabeth Shepherd Home on Thursday night, and I’ll be talking about high school football with Richard Holdridge on his podcast next week.

PROFESSIONAL MALPRACTICE

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In times of crisis and uncertainty, what is the one thing we need and deserve from our leaders and our television stations?

INFORMATION.

More precisely, ACCURATE information.

Gray TV’s bread-and-butter is their local news operations, which are for the most part the top rated sources in each market. The most basic tenet of journalism is to confirm stories, no matter the source, and to get both sides of issues that are in the public interest.

And that’s what makes the handling of the COVID panic by the broadcast industry as a whole nothing short of professional malpractice.

Gray TV then compounded this industry-wide failure by implementing an illegal and unconscionable COVID injection mandate, which is what spawned my lawsuit.

This complete failure to do due diligence is one of the counts in the lawsuit, labeled quite appropriately, “Negligence.”

The initial reporting, citing government sources straight-up without casting a critical eye in the early stages of the COVID drama can be excused. The official version of things predicted great doom and had most everyone on the run. But as time passed, and when conditions on the ground didn’t match the proclamations coming from those official sources, Gray stations did virtually no digging on the COVID story, no double checking of claims made by the government, no coverage of doctors that disputed assertions made by the CDC and other “official medical experts.”

Medical professionals who carried long track records of success, both in patient care and in the research labs argued that all was not what it seemed, but their evidence and testimony was ignored. The presence of those red flags that indicated that the official narrative could be 180 degrees from reality demanded that those statements now in question be re-examined – but in a huge disservice to the American people, the vetting never happened.

Gray takes great pride (justifiably so, in my opinion) in their special Investigative unit led by Lee Zurik. But they never turned Zurik and his crew loose on the claims made by either vaccine proponents or critics, and never examined claims about antivirals such as Ivermectin or Hydroxychloroquine despite the obvious high public interest and importance of proving or disproving claims.

It takes guts to do investigative journalism when one of the groups you need to investigate is one of your top advertisers. There’s a well-known video on YouTube that illustrates the problem.

It takes moral courage to bite the hand that feeds you. Of course, moral courage has been in short supply in the corporate world.

But it extended way beyond what could be termed professional malpractice. Instead of being the watchdog envisioned by the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment, Gray TV as a corporation jumped on the bandwagon and mandated untested an untested and unproven experimental medical procedure on their own employees, a procedure morally objectionable due to the use of aborted fetal tissue as a key factor in its development. Gray took it one step further, blowing off any questions about the moral ramifications or employee safety issues as unworthy of their time or attention.

Talk about high-handed treatment of the people that make your company successful! The arrogance is absolutely breathtaking.

Dozens of corporations made the same demands, bludgeoning employees with a threat of economic devastation to blackmail them into taking part in this experiment against their will. There have been virtually no repercussions for this wholesale violation of Constitutional and basic human rights, at least so far. But their day of reckoning is coming.

I’m one of the tens of thousands of victims of this incredibly breathtaking corporate arrogance. My lawsuit, along with a handful of others, is an attempt to fix THAT.

This legal action has gotten to be incredibly expensive. That’s not a surprise when you consider what the stakes are for Gray and the rest of Corporate America that participated in this mandate insanity.

I’m asking for help in what has become an existential battle. You can be part of the fight. Go to https://www.givesendgo.com/daveplattalegalfund/donate . Please donate whatever you can to help. A win here would move the needle for everyone.

GETTING BACK IN THE GAME

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It’s time to get back in the game.

I’ve been on a hiatus from social media for the past four or five months out of necessity. The stress I’ve been under since my professional world blew up 22 months ago has been all-consuming, and it started to overwhelm me and my family. I had to step away to clear my head.

There were some awesome things happening, too. The birth of my granddaughter was certainly a source of great joy. There are also some professional media things in the works right now. We’ll see how they play out in the near future.

As for the lawsuit, things have been in somewhat of a holding pattern. There have been behind the scenes moves made that are arcane and boring, but nonetheless crucial in the grindingly slow legal process.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll delve deeper into the things that make the lawsuit so crucial to what’s going on in this country and our culture, and why bringing to account the people who disregarded basic human rights is so important for the future of our country and our cherished freedoms.

And I’m going to be doing something that I’m incredibly uncomfortable with each and every time I post, and that’s asking for financial help with the lawsuit. Taking legal action is expensive, and when you’re taking on the Powers That Be, it becomes insanely expensive.

This lawsuit is a battle versus a multi-billion dollar corporation in an area of unsettled law, with other even bigger corporations holding a vested interest in seeing our efforts fail, a literal David-versus-Goliath battle. I would call it an uphill battle, except that it understates the gravity of things. The hill we’re scaling is a mountain. Anything you can give would be greatly appreciated. Please donate at https://www.givesendgo.com/daveplattalegalfund/donate .

A SIGN FROM ABOVE

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The legal process moves at a snail’s pace, which makes it excruciating for someone who’s used to meeting a dozen hard deadlines every day. It’s one of those “the process is the punishment” deals for someone who’s high-energy.

Every morning when I’m doing the Rosary I ask for patience, but I also ask the Lord for a sign that I’m doing the right thing. Today I got one of those signs.

I was working out at the gym (shoulder day for anyone who’s interested) when someone came up to me and thanked me for holding my ground on the corporate mandate. Turns out he was going through the same thing and was going to stand firm as well. He told me my example was his sign that he was doing the right thing. Thankfully, his corporation did the right thing and accepted his religious accommodation request.

His story gave me energy for the rest of my workout. What I did back in September 2021 gave others affirmation and helped steel their resolve. Thank you to all the others that also stood firm.

Now we take the fight to the courts of law. We will prevail.

Ecce venio ut facerem voluntatem tuam, Domine.