• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Kevin Ryan's lawsuit - Update and Court documents here

The issues are quite clear.

Ryan posted personal correspondence on office e-stationery, in a manner which might be reasonably construed as reflecting a formal view in the course of his business. I have not seen the actual note (although I'm sure that someone can provide a link) and assume that he similarly failed to mark such a distinction in the body of the text.

It was a personal view, and should have remained as such. Most employers would do the same on any controversial subject. I know that mine would if I went woo and started using my post and office paper to send letters to third parties.

Mo
 
Architect said:
The issues are quite clear.

Ryan posted personal correspondence on office e-stationery, in a manner which might be reasonably construed as reflecting a formal view in the course of his business. I have not seen the actual note (although I'm sure that someone can provide a link) and assume that he similarly failed to mark such a distinction in the body of the text.

It was a personal view, and should have remained as such. Most employers would do the same on any controversial subject. I know that mine would if I went woo and started using my post and office paper to send letters to third parties.

Mo
Click to expand...

In his email, Ryan did not make any distinction between his personal capacity and his capacity as a representative of EHL or UL. Moreover, he uses terms such as "we" and "my company" several times, and I have no difficulty seeing how it could be easily construed as having been written on behalf of UL.

As for the distribution of it, it appears that he deliberately copied it to conspiracy theorists, and he acknowledges within the body of the email that he was copying it to someone - apparently David Griffin.

According to this conspiracy site,

Ryan copied the letter to Gayle in e-mails to David Ray Griffin, author of the New Pearl Harbor, and to Catherine Austin Fitts, who is a member of the 911Truth.org board. Griffin requested and received permission to distribute Ryan's letter to other parties. The letter was published Friday (11/12) at septembereleventh.org, the site of the 9/11 Visibility Project.
Click to expand...

Text of an e-mail letter from Kevin Ryan to Frank Gayle, Nov. 11:

[NOTES: Kevin R. Ryan is Site Manager of the Environmental Health Laboratories at South Bend, Indiana (company site at www.ehl.cc). EHL is a division of Underwriters Laboratories, Inc. (company site at www.ul.com). Frank Gayle is Deputy Chief of the Metallurgy Division, Material Science and Engineering Laboratory, at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Gayle heads the "NIST and the World Trade Center" project, see wtc.nist.gov. Dr. Gayle's biography is at wtc.nist.gov/pi/wtc_profiles.asp?lastname=gayle. The following text is taken from an e-mail forward, from Ryan to David Ray Griffin. Emphases are ours. - 911Truth.org][NOTE: In this reproduction, the bolding is mine, not that of the conspiracy site - Lash]
Click to expand...



From: Kevin R Ryan/SBN/ULI
To: frank.gayle@nist.gov

Date: 11/11/2004



Dr. Gayle,

Having recently reviewed your team's report of 10/19/04, I felt the need to contact you directly.

As I'm sure you know, the company I work for certified the steel components used in the construction of the WTC buildings. In requesting information from both our CEO and Fire Protection business manager last year, I learned that they did not agree on the essential aspects of the story, except for one thing - that the samples we certified met all requirements. They suggested we all be patient and understand that UL was working with your team, and that tests would continue through this year. I'm aware of UL's attempts to help, including performing tests on models of the floor assemblies. But the results of these tests appear to indicate that the buildings should have easily withstood the thermal stress caused by pools of burning jet fuel.

There continues to be a number of "experts" making public claims about how the WTC buildings fell. One such person, Dr. Hyman Brown from the WTC construction crew, claims that the buildings collapsed due to fires at 2000F melting the steel (1). He states "What caused the building to collapse is the airplane fuel . . . burning at 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The steel in that five-floor area melts." Additionally, the newspaper that quotes him says "Just-released preliminary findings from a National Institute of Standards and Technology study of the World Trade Center collapse support Brown's theory."

We know that the steel components were certified to ASTM E119. The time temperature curves for this standard require the samples to be exposed to temperatures around 2000F for several hours. And as we all agree, the steel applied met those specifications. Additionally, I think we can all agree that even un-fireproofed steel will not melt until reaching red-hot temperatures of nearly 3000F (2). Why Dr. Brown would imply that 2000F would melt the high-grade steel used in those buildings makes no sense at all.

The results of your recently published metallurgical tests seem to clear things up (3), and support your team's August 2003 update as detailed by the Associated Press (4), in which you were ready to "rule out weak steel as a contributing factor in the collapse". The evaluation of paint deformation and spheroidization seem very straightforward, and you noted that the samples available were adequate for the investigation. Your comments suggest that the steel was probably exposed to temperatures of only about 500F (250C), which is what one might expect from a thermodynamic analysis of the situation.

However the summary of the new NIST report seems to ignore your findings, as it suggests that these low temperatures caused exposed bits of the building's steel core to "soften and buckle"(5). Additionally this summary states that the perimeter columns softened, yet your findings make clear that "most perimeter panels (157 of 160) saw no temperature above 250C". To soften steel for the purposes of forging, normally temperatures need to be above 1100C (6). However, this new summary report suggests that much lower temperatures were be able to not only soften the steel in a matter of minutes, but lead to rapid structural collapse.

This story just does not add up. If steel from those buildings did soften or melt, I'm sure we can all agree that this was certainly not due to jet fuel fires of any kind, let alone the briefly burning fires in those towers. That fact should be of great concern to all Americans. Alternatively, the contention that this steel did fail at temperatures around 250C suggests that the majority of deaths on 9/11 were due to a safety-related failure. That suggestion should be of great concern to my company.

There is no question that the events of 9/11 are the emotional driving force behind the War on Terror. And the issue of the WTC collapse is at the crux of the story of 9/11. My feeling is that your metallurgical tests are at the crux of the crux of the crux. Either you can make sense of what really happened to those buildings, and communicate this quickly, or we all face the same destruction and despair that come from global decisions based on disinformation and "chatter".

Thanks for your efforts to determine what happened on that day. You may know that there are a number of other current and former government employees that have risked a great deal to help us to know the truth. I've copied one of these people on this message as a sign of respect and support. I believe your work could also be a nucleus of fact around which the truth, and thereby global peace and justice, can grow again. Please do what you can to quickly eliminate the confusion regarding the ability of jet fuel fires to soften or melt structural steel.

1. http://www.boulderweekly.com/archive/102104/coverstory.html

2. CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, 61st edition, pg D-187

3. http://wtc.nist.gov/media/P3MechanicalandMetAnalysisofSteel.pdf

4. http://www.voicesofsept11.org/archive/911ic/082703.php

5. http://wtc.nist.gov/media/NCSTACWTCStatusFINAL101904WEB2.pdf (pg 11)

6. http://www.forging.org/FIERF/pdf/ffaaMacSleyne.pdf

Kevin Ryan
Site Manager
Environmental Health Laboratories
A Division of Underwriters Laboratories

South Bend
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
stilicho said:
That's not at all what happened. The fellow contacted one of those conspiracy sites (could have been 911letsroll) either before or simultaneously to his send button. Both the email date and the appearance of his epiphany on the internet were almost identical.

You also aren't acquainted with IT policies. Generally, you can't use the systems for personal use, but that's rarely enforced. The policy that Mr Ryan violated was using his title and the corporate name as representative or indicative of his authority. That's clearly crossing the line.

There are likely federal or state regulations that allow such prohibitions. It will be up to Mr Ryan to prove that they don't apply in his case--which is rather unlikely.
Click to expand...

Actually, being a signatory to several IT and confidentiality policies I am very aquainted with them so I would ask you not to make baseless assumptions about my knowledge of such matters. Whether they are generally stringently enforced is not at issue in this discussion.

The point is that it appears that UL did NOT have any such policy regarding personal use so Ryan could defend himself by saying he was using it in a personal capacity in accordance with company policy. In my opinion his defence regarding Corporate headings and footings being added automatically would have some credibility if it were not for the problems with the official tone of his letter. As I previously said, the tone indicates to me that he will have a problem making that defence.

In my opinion, UL have a poor IT policy and really needs to review it, if it hasn't done so already.

If Ryan cc'd it to a third party then he gets all he deserves in that respect.

Another point that struck me from the document Case 1:06-cv-01770-JDT-TAB Document 25 Filed 06/01/2007...

"UL then terminated Plaintiff's employment because his letter (1) clearly created the impression that the outrageous opinions contained therein were those of the company and (2) commented on testing performed by UL for a client, thereby harming the company’s relationship with that client."​

I'm not a lawyer but I don't understand how the degree of outrageousness comes into the argument? There is clearly politicking going on here.​
 
I'm not a lawyer but I don't understand how the degree of outrageousness comes into the argument? There is clearly politicking going on here.

Making your employer look foolish or crazy in the eyes of a client definitely goes to the issue of wrongful termination.
 
sorry, but isn't all STATES in the union of the AT-will status of employment these days? They could have fired him for having purple hair and wearing poka dotted pants to work, and he'd still have no recourse for suing
 
LashL said:
Hey, that's a GREAT new page! Very nicely done, indeed.



Hmmm... I'm thinking along the lines of Ryan being (metaphorically) ravaged and plundered in court...
Click to expand...
I'm game for a pillaging and plundering session with the waterboy :)

@ arch...builder guy, NO, rest and sleep are a waste of time :)
 
sorry, but isn't all STATES in the union of the AT-will status of employment these days?

I don't know about all states, but Indiana is, which is all that matters in this case.

They could have fired him for having purple hair and wearing poka dotted pants to work, and he'd still have no recourse for suing

There are a few public-policy exceptions, such as being fired for refusal to perform an illegal act, retaliatory firing against a whistleblower, or certain forms of discriminatory firing. Some of these are codified in Indiana and Federal law; a very few others have been created by court decisions.

Ryan is claiming that he falls under a couple of public-policy exceptions--as the UL briefs show, he's all wet, so to speak. :v: :v:
 
William Rea said:
"UL then terminated Plaintiff's employment because his letter (1) clearly created the impression that the outrageous opinions contained therein were those of the company and (2) commented on testing performed by UL for a client, thereby harming the company’s relationship with that client."


I'm not a lawyer but I don't understand how the degree of outrageousness comes into the argument? There is clearly politicking going on here.​
Click to expand...
I agree with you William. I think that the case ought to have merely used the word "opinions" instead of the qualified expression "outrageous opinions".

Lawyers make mistakes, sometimes.

The fact is, Ryan expressed personal opinions in a form that might have been construed as his employers'. He never made it clear that they weren't the same.

Wouldn't you have fired him for doing that?
 
Arus808 said:
sorry, but isn't all STATES in the union of the AT-will status of employment these days? They could have fired him for having purple hair and wearing poka dotted pants to work, and he'd still have no recourse for suing
Click to expand...

I don't think that ALL states adhere to the at will doctrine, but Indiana does.

I started writing a brief analysis of a recent Indiana case a couple of weeks ago, and then got sidetracked by real life and never posted it. But since this is on topic, I'll post the draft now.

Now that I have had time to read the Meyers v. Meyers case, upon which the court in the Ryan matter sought supplemental briefs from the parties on UL’s Motion to Dismiss, I can certainly see why UL is pleased to have the Meyers decision to rely upon in its pending Motion to Dismiss.

I thought I would set out a short synopsis and analysis of the case in order to illustrate its relevance to the Ryan matter.

In Meyers, the plaintiff sought damages for failure to pay overtime under the Indiana Code, recovery of money for taxes withheld from the plaintiff's payroll checks but not deposited with the IRS, and damages for his wrongful dismissal in retaliation for his complaint about the employer’s failure to pay overtime and deposit withheld taxes.

The defendants successfully moved to dismiss the retaliatory discharge count for failure to state a claim.

The plaintiff tried to argue – as Ryan is trying to argue – that an at will employee may maintain a cause of action for a retaliatory discharge if the employee had been terminated from his employment for exercising a statutory right or refusing to violate a statutory duty.

However, Indiana generally follows the employment at will doctrine, which permits both the employer and the employee to terminate the employment at any time for a “good reason, bad reason, or no reason at all.” According to the decision in Meyers, only on rare occasions have Indiana courts recognized narrow exceptions to this doctrine.

The Meyers court reiterated that which had been stated in Indiana courts many times in the past: that the "employment at will doctrine has steadfastly been recognized and enforced as the public policy of this state" and that "[r]evision or rejection of the doctrine is better left to the legislature."

The plaintiff in Meyers sought to rely upon the 1973 decision in Frampton v. Cent. Indiana Gas Co. because at one point, the Frampton opinion commented that "when an employee is discharged solely for exercising a statutorily conferred right, an exception to the general rule must be recognized."

However, the Meyers court said that the decisions during the intervening thirty years have made it plain that this language is intended to recognize quite a limited exception, and most courts have refused to extend Frampton. Other than the Frampton exception, which is grounded on express statutory language, the Indiana appellate cases permitting retaliatory discharge actions have generally involved plaintiffs allegedly terminated in retaliation for refusing to commit an illegal act, or for fulfilling a statutory duty.

(For example, a truck driver was permitted to pursue a retaliatory discharge claim against his employer who fired him when he refused to haul a load that exceeded the amount allowed on Illinois roads, an illegal act for which the employee could have been held personally liable; an employee was permitted to pursue a retaliatory discharge claim where he alleged he was fired for refusing to file fraudulent tax return; and an employee was permitted to pursue a retaliatory discharge claim where she alleged she was fired for complying with a summons for jury duty.) None of these situations are analogous to Ryan’s situation.)

It looks as though Indiana is not keen on watering down its employment at will doctrine. The Meyers decision mentions some additional cases of relevance the Ryan case, including one in which employment was terminated because the employee complained about the employer's products and alleged improper activities by supervisors, and one in which employment was terminated for truthful reporting of a supervisor's improper activities. Given the at will employment doctrine in Indiana, the courts in those cases found that the plaintiffs could not succeed.

It appears to me that Ryan’s case is not even as strong as the latter two above, which failed.

{Note: As I said above, I started writing this a couple of weeks ago - when UL filed its supplementary brief regarding the Meyers v. Meyers case, as the parties were invited to do by the judge - and before the recent additional documents were filed, so I will stop there for now. The purpose in posting this was just to set out my understanding of the current state of the law in Indiana regarding the at will employment doctrine. I'll post more later on the other points, and on the recent filings, by way of the summary of the saga to date that I am working on.}
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
Additional documents filed.

By way of update, I wasn't able to finish summarizing the saga to date over the weekend, and then today I found that several additional documents have been filed with the court since Friday, so there is more to add and more to summarize. In addition, there is another document that was, apparently, filed on May 11 but which did not show up on the docket form when I updated back then.

I will be out of town on Tuesday and Wednesday so, realistically, I won't likely get to this to until the end of the week. Thus, I thought that I would at least provide a list of the additional documents and a very, very brief outline of what they are.

1) The May 11, 2007 document that did not appear previously is Ryan's Supplementary Brief in opposition to UL's Motion to Dismiss relating to the Meyers v. Meyers decision.

The documents dated June 3, 2007 (yes, Sunday) are:

2) Ryan's Motion to Withdraw his previously filed First Amended Complaint - because it was "inadvertently and incorrectly" submitted in a manner that breached proper procedure since Ryan has not yet obtained leave of the court to amend his complaint.

3) Ryan's corrected Motion for Leave to file his First Amended Complaint, with attached proposed First Amended Complaint. (But these documents contain nothing new of substance - Ryan's lawyers are just cleaning up their procedural errors)

3) Ryan's Motion for Leave to file a "Corrected Supplemental Response" in opposition to UL's Motion to Dismiss, relating to the Meyers v. Meyers decision. (That is, he seeks to file a "corrected" version of what he filed on May 11, 2007 as set out in #1 above.) In this document, Ryan's lawyers say that although they had read the Meyers decision and other relevant cases carefully before submitting their May 11 Supplemental Response, they have since re-read the cases and want to expand upon their previous brief.

3) Ryan's proposed "Corrected Supplemental Response" relating to #2 above.

4) Ryan's Preliminary Exhibit List. (But they messed this up, too. Ryan's lawyers purported to file his Exhibit List but the document that was actually attached and entered was a different document.)

5) Ryan's Motion to Withdraw the document noted in #4 above because it was the wrong document.

6) Ryan's "Corrected Preliminary Exhibit List" re: numbers 4 and 5 above.

7) Ryan's Preliminary Witness List.

Needless to say, the witness list and exhibit list make rather interesting reading. ;)
 
William Rea said:
Another point that struck me from the document Case 1:06-cv-01770-JDT-TAB Document 25 Filed 06/01/2007...

"UL then terminated Plaintiff's employment because his letter (1) clearly created the impression that the outrageous opinions contained therein were those of the company and (2) commented on testing performed by UL for a client, thereby harming the company’s relationship with that client."​
Click to expand...

​

You highlighted the wrong part. Here's a version of that paragraph that highlights the relevant part:

"UL then terminated Plaintiff's employment because his letter (1) clearly created the impression that the outrageous opinions contained therein were those of the company and (2) commented on testing performed by UL for a client, thereby harming the company’s relationship with that client."
 
Triterope said:

​

You highlighted the wrong part. Here's a version of that paragraph that highlights the relevant part:

"UL then terminated Plaintiff's employment because his letter (1) clearly created the impression that the outrageous opinions contained therein were those of the company and (2) commented on testing performed by UL for a client, thereby harming the company’s relationship with that client."
Click to expand...

Indeed, you have captured the relevant portions of that paragraph which William Rea missed and/or ignored. Needless to say, that will be the subject of argument if and when the matter ever makes it to trial.

Since my update from last week, there have been several more documents filed - up to #39 now - although many of them are boring, redundant and of little to no interest to most people. Still, I've been trying to make time to get through them all in order to present a proper summary of events, without boring everyone with the redundant and non-essential documents, but it's been a busy week IRL.

Hopefully, the flurry of filings is over for the time being and I'll be able to find the time to summarize all of the happenings in detail soon. As it stands, despite the flurry of recent activity, Ryan's case still looks shaky and at risk of being turfed on the motion to dismiss. The threshold to meet for tossing a claim on a motion to dismiss is pretty high, but boy, if I was in Ryan's shoes, I wouldn't be feeling particularly confident at the moment despite that high threshold that the defendant has to meet.

I will try to complete the summary this week and post it here (and hope that the parties do not file any further documents in interim, for crying out loud ;) )
 
William Rea said:
3. If he can demonstrate beyond doubt that he was using the e-mail in a personal capacity then UL must have fired him for his personal opinions which I understand is a limitation on his right to free speech as a private individual.
Click to expand...

The Bill of Rights outlines rights and protections citizens have against their government, nothing else. It is intended to limit the powers of the Federal Government.

Private companies and individual citizens are not bound by the Bill of Rights. In other words, an individual cannot infringe your First Amendment right, only the government can.

-Gumboot
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom