Case 2:14-cv JCM-CWH Document 7 Filed 03/25/14 Page 1 of 8

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1 Case :-cv-00-jcm-cwh Document Filed 0// Page of 0 0 Ryan A. Hamilton NEVADA BAR NO. HAMILTON LAW S. Durango Dr., Ste. C Las Vegas, NV (0) - (0) - ryan@hamiltonlawlasvegas.com Attorney for the plaintiffs, David, Stacy, and Jack Welch UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEVADA DAVID WELCH, a Texas Citizen; STACY WELCH, a Texas Citizen; and JACK WELCH, a Texas Citizen, vs. Plaintiffs, NARCONON FRESH START d/b/a RAINBOW CANYON RETREAT, a California Corporation; and DOES -00, ROE Corporations I X, inclusive, Defendants. Case No. :-cv-00-jcm-cwh PLAINTIFFS MOTION FOR CERTAIN RESPONSES TO THE COMPLAINT TO BE DEEMED ADMITTED AND TO REQUIRE DEFENDANT TO FULFILL ITS OBLIGATIONS UNDER FED. R. CIV. P. (b)() Nearly seven weeks after being served with process, Defendant answered Plaintiffs Complaint by pleading that it lacked knowledge in response to basic allegations about Defendant s own drug rehabilitation program information that is necessarily within Defendant s control. Where Defendant did not disclaim knowledge, Defendant merely provided blanket denials in violation of Fed. R. Civ. P. (b)() s requirement that [a] denial must fairly respond to the

2 Case :-cv-00-jcm-cwh Document Filed 0// Page of 0 0 substance of the allegation. Such an Answer does not advance the litigation in any meaningful way and makes answering a Complaint a pointless exercise. To remedy the deficiencies of Defendant s Answer, Plaintiffs respectfully move the Court for an Order deeming paragraphs,,,, 0,,, 0,,,,, and of Plaintiffs Complaint as admitted. These paragraphs contain basic factual allegations about Defendant and its drug treatment program to which Defendant improperly claims it lacks knowledge or information to form a belief as to the truth of the allegations. Plaintiffs further respectfully move the Court for an Order requiring Defendant to re-plead its blanket denials in its Answer so that they comply with the requirements of Fed. R. Civ. P. (b)(). MEMORANDUM OF POINTS AND AUTHORITIES INTRODUCTION This case involves Defendant s drug treatment program which Defendant fraudulently induced Plaintiff Jack Welch to enter. Once inside the program, Defendant attempted to treat Jack with nothing more than Scientology and exposed him to very dangerous situations that ultimately caused him serious injuries. Plaintiffs filed the Complaint in this case on January, 0. Plaintiffs served Defendant s registered agent with process on January, 0. (Doc. ). At the request of Defendant s in-house counsel, on February 0, 0, Plaintiffs agreed to extend Defendant s deadline to respond to the Complaint until March, 0. See Exhibit A. On March, 0, Plaintiffs again agreed to extend Defendant s deadline to respond to the Complaint until March, 0, and Defendant filed its Answer on March, 0. Id.; (Doc. ). APPLICABLE LAW With respect to responding to allegations in a Complaint, Fed. R. Civ. P. (b) provides the responding party s obligations:

3 Case :-cv-00-jcm-cwh Document Filed 0// Page of 0 0 (b) Defenses; Admissions and Denials. () In General. In responding to a pleading, a party must: (A) state in short and plain terms its defenses to each claim asserted against it; and (B) admit or deny the allegations asserted against it by an opposing party. () Denials--Responding to the Substance. A denial must fairly respond to the substance of the allegation. () General and Specific Denials. A party that intends in good faith to deny all the allegations of a pleading--including the jurisdictional grounds--may do so by a general denial. A party that does not intend to deny all the allegations must either specifically deny designated allegations or generally deny all except those specifically admitted. () Denying Part of an Allegation. A party that intends in good faith to deny only part of an allegation must admit the part that is true and deny the rest. () Lacking Knowledge or Information. A party that lacks knowledge or information sufficient to form a belief about the truth of an allegation must so state, and the statement has the effect of a denial. () Effect of Failing to Deny. An allegation--other than one relating to the amount of damages--is admitted if a responsive pleading is required and the allegation is not denied. If a responsive pleading is not required, an allegation is considered denied or avoided. Fed. R. Civ. P.. Rule unquestionably requires a party and a lawyer to make a reasonable inquiry before denying factual contentions on an asserted belief or lack of information. Bank of Am., N.A. v. Malibu Canyon Investors, LLC, :0-CV-00-KJD, 0 WL (D. Nev. Jan., 0). Further, in the Ninth Circuit, an answer asserting want of knowledge sufficient to form a belief as to the truth of facts alleged in a complaint does not serve as a denial if the assertion of ignorance is obviously sham. In such circumstances the facts alleged in the complaint stand admitted. Harvey Aluminum (Inc.) v. N.L.R.B., F.d, (th Cir. ). ANALYSIS Defendant s Answer is deficient under Fed. R. Civ. P. (b) for several reasons. Defendant pleads that it lacks knowledge or information sufficient to form a belief about the truth of numerous factual allegations that are uniquely and necessarily within Defendant s knowledge. In

4 Case :-cv-00-jcm-cwh Document Filed 0// Page of addition, Defendant provides blanket denials to no less than twenty-nine of the paragraphs in Plaintiffs Complaint. First, Narconon pleads lack of knowledge in response to basic allegations in the Complaint about what the Narconon treatment program consists of and how the program operates: 0 [P]atients in the Narconon program study eight books written by L. Ron Hubbard. Patients spend hours most days performing Training Routines contained within the books. Narconon and the Church of Scientology refer to the books as technology or study technology. (Doc., ). The books or technology use numerous Training Routines (TRs) as teaching tools. TRs are drills or exercises routinely used in Scientology. Narconon students and Scientology practitioners perform these TRs in pairs known as twins. Narconon staff members supervise the twins to ensure the TRs are conducted properly. Id. at. In TR of Book of the Narconon program, titled Intention Without Reservation, a student and a coach sit in chairs facing another chair. The chair the student and coach are facing has an ashtray on the seat. The coach is then, according to the book, supposed to instruct the student as follows: First, locate the space which includes himself and the ashtray but not more than that much. Second, have him locate the object in that space. Third, have him [the student] command the object [the ashtray] in the loudest possible voice he can muster. This is called shouting. Id. at. 0 To determine whether or not these allegations in Plaintiffs Complaint are true, Defendant needed only to consult the written materials for the Narconon program that the Complaint cited. Nevertheless, Defendant claimed to lack the knowledge or information sufficient to form a belief as to truth of these allegations. (Doc., ). The same holds true for paragraphs,, and of the Complaint. In these paragraphs Plaintiffs allege what specific parts of the Narconon course materials contain. In paragraph, for

5 Case :-cv-00-jcm-cwh Document Filed 0// Page of example, Plaintiffs allege that Book of the Narconon course materials teaches about the Eight Dynamics of Existence. To determine the veracity of these allegations, Defendant again needed only consult the Narconon course materials. But again, Defendant claimed to lack the requisite knowledge to admit or deny these allegations. (Doc., ). Second, Defendant pleads that it lacks knowledge to answer basic allegations about Narconon that could have been gathered with a call to the client, or by merely viewing Narconon s website: 0 L. Ron Hubbard is prominently displayed in large type on the front of each book. But in every picture showing the books or study technology on the Rainbow Canyon Retreat website the author s name is unable to seen. (Doc., ). The Narconon program has students create clay sculptures to demonstrate their understanding of the Eight Dynamics of Existence. Id. at 0. Narconon teaches that misunderstood words are the root of all confusion when studying a subject. Id. at. There are no medical personnel overseeing Narconon students undergoing the sauna program. Id. at. Third, Defendant did not even respond to Plaintiffs allegation in paragraph of the 0 Complaint: Narconon misrepresented the title of the L. Ron Hubbard book that inspired its creation. The actual title of the book is Scientology: The Fundamentals of Thought, The Basic Book of Theory and Practice of Scientology for Beginners. Under Fed. R. Civ. P. (b)(), where a responsive pleading is required and an allegation is not denied, the allegation is admitted. Here, there is no question that Defendant was required to respond to the allegations of paragraph. These allegations go to the very heart of this case: That the Narconon treatment program was founded on, and provides nothing more than, Scientology. By failing to respond to these allegations, Defendants have admitted them.

6 Case :-cv-00-jcm-cwh Document Filed 0// Page of 0 0 Finally, Defendant simply gave a blanket denial to twenty-nine of Plaintiffs allegations in the Complaint. (Doc., ). This is improper as Fed. R. Civ. P. (b)() requires that [a] denial must fairly respond to the substance of the allegation. The Ninth Circuit s decision in Harvey Aluminum (Inc.) v. N.L.R.B., F.d, (th Cir. ), is directly on point here. In Harvey Aluminum, the National Labor Relations Board brought a complaint for unfair labor practices alleging that two employers were maintaining surveillance of union activities of employees and that the two employers were commonly owned and controlled, and possessed a common labor policy. Id. In answering the complaint, the employers pled that they did not have sufficient information or knowledge to form a belief as to the truth of the allegations. The Ninth Circuit held that these facts were necessarily within the knowledge of the employer s managing officers and that the averment of ignorance was clearly frivolous and the allegations were deemed admitted. Id.; accord Bank of Am., N.A. v. Malibu Canyon Investors, LLC, :0-CV-00-KJD, 0 WL (D. Nev. Jan., 0)(granting, in part, Bank s motion to deem admitted as information necessarily within Defendant s personal knowledge allegations in complaint relating to whether loan documents were executed and authentic where Defendant plead it lacked knowledge). Here, Defendant necessarily has information about itself, what its own treatment program consists of, how the program was founded, and how it operates. As in Harvey Aluminum, Defendant s assertions of ignorance are a sham. Consequently, Defendant s sham assertions of lack of knowledge should be deemed admitted.

7 Case :-cv-00-jcm-cwh Document Filed 0// Page of WHEREFORE, Plaintiffs pray for the following relief:. That paragraphs,,,, 0,,, 0,,,,, and of Plaintiffs Complaint be deemed admitted;. That the Court issue an Order requiring Defendant to fulfill its obligations under Fed. R. Civ. P. (b)();. For all other just and proper relief. DATED this th of March, 0. 0 Respectfully submitted, By:_/s/Ryan A. Hamilton RYAN A. HAMILTON, ESQ. Attorney for Plaintiffs 0

8 Case :-cv-00-jcm-cwh Document Filed 0// Page of 0 CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE I certify that I am an employee of Hamilton Law, LLC, and that on the th day of March, 0, I caused a copy of the foregoing Plaintiffs Motion for Certain Responses to the Complaint to Be Deemed Admitted and to Require Defendant to Fulfill Its Obligations under Fed. R. Civ. P. (b)() to be served via the CM/ECF electronic system to all parties on the service list: S. Brent Vogel Alayne M. Opie LEWIS BRISBOIS BISGAARD & SMITH, LLP S. Rainbow Boulevard, Ste. 00 Las Vegas, Nevada /s/ryan A. Hamilton 0