MORE........
Judge awards $98,000 in ISRA funds to
handgun control group
Monday,
March 24, 2003
By The
Leader-Chicago Bureau
SPRINGFIELD --
Illinois State Rifle Association members may have to come up with $98,013.20
to pay legal expenses of the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence for
what the ISRA called “an overly cute joke.”
Federal
Judge James Zagel, formerly with Governor Jim Thompson’s administration, ruled
the state affiliate of the National Rifle Association and certain individuals
had to pay almost $100,000 in legal fees in a copywrite infringement suit
filed by the handgun control group.
Defendants
held responsible in the case are the Illinois State Rifle Association, Second
Vice President and lobbyist Todd Vandermyde, and Peter and Medina Flanagan.
Peter Flanagan was the volunteer that managed the ISRA web site.
Illinois
State Rifle Association President Richard Pearson could not be reached for
comment.
Lobbyist
and Second Vice-President of the ISRA Todd Vandermyde said, “There’s not much
to comment on at this time. The judge said what he said and we’ll go from
there.”
According
to Thomas Mannard, executive director of the Illinois Council Against Handgun
Violence, the suit arose after the Council Against Handgun Violence let its
registration with the Secretary of State’s office lapse last May 1st.
“After May
1st, the name basically became available for anyone to take,” Mannard told
Illinois Leader.
“We got
wind in late May that Todd Vandermyde with the NRA had filed incorporation
papers in the name of the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence,” he
continued. “There was a press release that had gone out under our name saying
we were supporting (state) preemption (of local gun control laws), concealed
carry and that stuff.
“Over the
next course of the next two weeks, there were a couple of different press
releases that went out under the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence
that basically discussed issues that in our organization we would have been on
the opposite side,” Mannard explained.
“And, so
we knew that in terms of the corporate status we had to take steps to address
that,” he explained, “but that as an organization that had used this name for
twenty years that to be using the name Illinois Council Against Handgun
Violence in any type of public way was probably a violation of trademark law.”
The gun
control group filed suit in Federal court the first week of last June,
“basically stating that they were in violation of Federal trademark law,”
Mannard said.
“Right
after the suit was filed, we named Todd and a couple of other names. They
immediately said they would dis-incorporate and let us have our name back,”
Mannard continued. “The caveat was that the defendants wanted us to pay their
legal fees.”
Unwilling
to pay the ISRA’s legal fees, the gun control group forced a December bench
trial before Zagel. “We were trying to establish that Mr. Pearson and others
knew what was going on.
“Closing
arguments were Dec. 30th,” Mannard continued. “The issue of getting the name
back we knew was more or less a done deal. The reason we went to trail was to
establish culpability with the SRA and Pearson.”
Zagel
noted that the ISRA is “an organization whose views and positions are, to put
it mildly, adverse to those adopted by” the organization suing ISRA.
“It is
also clear that defendants engaged in wrongful activity,” the judge continued.
“While I
am generally reluctant to award such a high sum of attorneys’ fees,” he wrote,
“I am bound by Seventh Circuit precedent, which requires that I award
attorneys’ fees in a case such as this in which damages are low (or, rather,
non-existent).” He noted that “this large sanction” would fulfill the purpose
of deterrence against a not-for-profit organization.
“I find
that the bulk of the fault lies with Mr. Vandermyde and Peter Flanagan, who
manages the ISRA website and who issues bulletins and other ISRA
communications through the ISRA’s ‘Alert Service,’” Zagel wrote. “Relative to
the actions of Mr. Vandermyde and Mr. Flanagan, the involvement of Richard
Pearson, President of ISRA, is quite small and mostly devoted to reacting to
the storm of protest…”
Zagel then
asks, “Did they betray the trust of the ISRA?”
The Judge
points out that “ISRA rules require that officers like Mr. Vandermyde have to
clear with the ISRA Board any activity that might be deemed to conflict with
the interests of the ISRA.
One reason
to suppose that Mr. Vandermyde did not betray the ISRA is that he did present
his plan to the Board and they allowed him to proceed,” Zagel continued. “The
Board said yes and Mr. Vandermyde’s actions received enough of its approval to
render the ISRA responsible, at least in part, for his conduct.”
Later in
the decision, Zagel concludes, “Mr. Flanagan’s actions were committed under
the direction of Mr. Vandermyde.”
“I guess
this is what happens when you treat gun rights like a game,” was the reaction
of John Birch, head of Concealed Carry.com.
The ISRA will
hold its 2003 Annual Meeting on Saturday, April 12, 2003 at the Holiday Inn,
Bloomington/Normal.
JOHN: Won't that be an interesting
meeting?