UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON
AT TACOMA
CHERYL LINDSEY SEELHOFF,
a married woman,
Plaintiff, Tacoma, Washington
vs.
PAT and SUE WELCH,
husband and wife,
Defendants.
Docket No. C97-5383FDB
Tacoma, Washington
August 31, 1998
Trial
Volume 1
TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS
BEFORE THE HONORABLE FRANKLIN D. BURGESS
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE, and a Jury.
APPEARANCES:
For the Plaintiff:
BARBARA J. DUFFY
GWENDOLYN PAYTON KLEIN
Lane Powell Spears Lubersky
1420 Fifth Avenue, Suite 4100
Seattle, Washington 98101-2338
For the Defendants:
RUDY R. LACHENMEIER
LORI DeDOBBELAERE
Lachenmeier, Enloe & Rall
9600 S.W. Capitol Highway
Portland, Oregon 97219
Court Reporter: Teri Hendrix
Union Station Courthouse, Room 3100
1717 Pacific Avenue
Tacoma, Washington 98402
(253) 593-6545
Proceedings recorded by mechanical stenography, transcript
produced by Reporter on computer.
Excerpt from transcripts Volume 4 September 3, 1998 Pages 684-920
How to use these documents.
A complete copy of the transcript are availble on an independent web site.
http://members.aol.com/Hsingcase/index.html
(Link provide by permission)
Documents can be ordered by writing to:
US District Court
Western District of Washington
P.O. Box 1935
Tacoma, Washington 98401
7051 Okay. Well, let's go back to that then. On the second page
2 of Exhibit No. 150.
3 A. Um-hum.
4 Q. -- and I think -- well, I take it, it was your intention in
5 publishing Big Happy Family to address issues of pregnancy,
6 birth, child training the old fashioned way, and marriage for
7 life. Is that a fair statement?
8 A. Yes, among other things.
9 Q. Okay. And the other things might be money saving tips,
10 recipes, and how-tos; is that right?
11 A. Yes, but not limited to those things.
12 Q. Understand. Understand. Okay. Then let's take a look at
13 the index of sorts. One of the topics that you covered in
14 particular issue, the first issue of Big Happy Family, was birth
15 and babies. Do you see that?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. Okay. And that was a topic you intended to address in Big
18 Happy Family; correct?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. You also addressed money management; is that correct?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. And then there is a section on recipes. Do you see that?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Let's take a look at the area on -- on the third page of
25 Exhibit No. 150, which starts with the bold statement, "What's
7061 coming?" Do you see that?
2 And in bold type, you see the statement, "What's coming"; is
3 that right?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. And under that -- let me read that to you. It says, "We are
6 actively seeking a midwife, a herbal expert, and one or more
7 grandpas and grandmas to become regular columnists." Do you see
8 that?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. So your intention in Big Happy Family was to address issues
11 that might involve midwifery. Is that a fair statement?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. And you wanted some grandparents' perspectives for purposes
14 of the magazine; is that right?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. Okay. Let's take another look at, let's see -- under, "What
17 Make This Magazine Different," also in bold print. Do you see
18 that?
19 A. Um-hum, yes.
20 Is that a yes? Take a look at the fourth paragraph, it
21 states with, "Our position." Do you see that?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. Okay. I'll read that. It says, "Our position is pro-baby,
24 pro-child, pro-marriage for life, pro-home. That includes home
25 birth, home business, home schooling, and home health care,
7071 among other things!"
2 First of all, have I read that right?
3 A. You left out an "and" in the first sentence, since you
4 asked.
5 Q. I don't know that I did, but I'm glad you caught that.
6 Other than that amendment; is that read correctly?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. And I take it these were the sorts of issues that you were
9 attempting to address in the magazine, Big Happy Family. Is
10 that right?
11 A. Yes, among the other things, as I said.
12 Q. And from time to time, did subscribers write in with
13 letters?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Okay. And from time to time, did subscribers or readers
16 send letters that were then published in Big Happy Family?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. Okay. In fact, let's take a look at that third page of
19 Exhibit No. 150, which I think you've pointed out was the second
20 page of the actual issue.
21 You had mentioned, in that first issue of Big Happy Family,
22 some things that the readers can do to participate in Big Happy
23 Family, and specifically I'm looking at sort of that middle
24 column there. Do you see that?
25 A. Yes.
7081 Q. And in that column, you've sort of identified some of the
2 things you were hopeful that the readers might do to participate
3 in Big Happy Family. Is that a fair statement?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. In Big Happy Family, how do you go about selling
6 advertisements?
7 A. I have a database of potential advertisers that I've
8 compiled over the years from a wide variety of sources. And I
9 go through and click off those who I think might be interested
10 and send them a media kit and a cover letter. People also
11 request our advertising rates from time to time, and we send out
12 a media kit.
13 Q. And is it fair to say although Big Happy Family might
14 address aspects of home schooling, it's not specifically
15 dedicated to that issue like Practical Homeschooling is? Is
16 that right?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. Mrs. Pride, the court reporter has put in front of you what
19 she's marked as Exhibit No. 151 to your deposition.
20 A. Um-hum.
21 Q. I'll tell you that these are documents that were produced to
22 us by your counsel. I want to ask you a few questions about it.
23 But I'll just tell you, they look to me to be communications
24 between you and Cheryl Lindsey -- E-mail communication of some
25 sort. Look through it, and I'll ask you if you would agree with
7091 that.
2 A. Okay. Yes.
3 Q. I noticed on the first page of Exhibit No. 151, there is
4 some handwriting. Do you see that?
5 A. It -- Yes, I do see that.
6 Q. Is that your handwriting?
7 A. Yeah, I think so.
8 Q. Can you read that for me?
9 A. "Correspondence with Cheryl re her picking up Help
10 subscribers."
11 Q. Is it fair to say that these E-mails -- and take a moment to
12 read through them -- represent a conversation or exchange -- an
13 exchange between you and Cheryl regarding her essentially
14 picking up your subscriber base for Help for Growing Families
15 magazine?
16 A. That's part of what they're about, yes.
17 Q. Okay. And had you offered to pay Cheryl Lindsey 50 cents
18 per issue, if she would satisfy your subscriber obligations that
19 you had existing at the time for Help for Growing Families? Is
20 that a fair summary?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. In February of 1994, were you considering discontinuing the
23 publication of your newsletter Help?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. Why is it that you were considering discontinuing the
7101 publication of your newsletter Help for Growing Families?
2 A. I had several reasons. My main reason for doing it in the
3 first place was more of a mission or ministry. I started it
4 because I was receiving so many letters from readers of my books
5 and writing these long individual responses to hundreds and
6 thousands of people didn't seem a profitable use of my time, if
7 I could write the same response and thousands of people could
8 read it at once.
9 Also a lot of people who wrote to me had interesting
10 information or stories that I thought other people would benefit
11 from. And once I started it, I kept getting so many letters
12 telling me it was their lifeline, it was a breath of fresh air,
13 it was a thing that kept them going, that I felt it was really
14 needed.
15 Then people started writing to me after a while expressing
16 similar sentiments about Gentle Spirit; that they felt it was
17 helpful. And since my main concern was that the subscribers
18 received help, meaning assistance, the existence of Gentle
19 Spirit, at the time which no problems had emerged, was a factor.
20 The other reason was, my son was on the verge of death. We
21 had to cut back on our publishing schedule for Practical
22 Homeschooling because of it. And I was trying to simplify our
23 lives so that we would be able to take care of him.
24 Q. Do you -- in your mind, was Gentle Spirit similar to -- to
25 Help for Growing Families?
7111 A. What do you mean by "similar"?
2 Q. Well, let's start with the content.
3 A. We covered some of the same topics. She had many topics
4 that she dealt with in depth that I didn't deal with at all or
5 only superficially or vice versa.
6 Q. And what -
7 A. The tone was very different.
8 Q. How was the tone different?
9 A. My magazine is more objective and intellectual, anti-expert
10 at the time. I was -- when I first started it, I was very much
11 pushing the idea that we should all be independent and not
12 depend so much on experts to tell us everything. I had no
13 particular emphasis on homesteading or farming or so forth,
14 where Cheryl had very extensive gardening and all that sort
15 thing section.
16 Her tone was highly personal and emotional. You know, her
17 magazine was -- was very much about her as a person, whereas I
18 tried to pretty much keep myself and myself as a personality out
19 of my magazine so that people would be dealing more with issues
20 as they stood.
21 Q. Okay. At some point you approached Cheryl with a proposal,
22 whereby she -- you would pay her 50 cents per subscriber and she
23 would satisfy your subscription obligations; is that right?
24 A. No, you phrased that very poorly.
25 Q. Well, thank you, Mrs. Pride. Why don't you tell me about
7121 the proposal that you made Cheryl Lindsey with respect to the -
2 to the subscribers of Gentle Spirit -- or with respect to the
3 subscribers of your magazine Help for Growing Families?
4 A. First of all, it wasn't 50 cents per subscriber. It was 50
5 percent owed to each issue owed to each subscriber.
6 Q. Excuse me. Okay. And what else -- what was the proposal
7 that you made to Mrs. Lindsey?
8 A. Okay. Basically that I would pay her to cover what I
9 thought would be her printing and postage cost to send that many
10 issues of her magazine to these people, who then would -- she
11 would be able to solicit to continue on as her own subscribers,
12 you know, hopefully converting a number of them over to become
13 Gentle Spirit subscribers.
14 And as I said, that's where I thought she would get her
15 profit from it. That if -- if she, in essence, had my
16 subscribers mailing list and a chance to give them, at no cost
17 to her, a number of the issues of the magazine, then she
18 could -- if they liked it, it would be an opportunity, at no
19 cost to her, to get some additional subscribers.
20 Q. Okay.
21 A. And the worst that could happen is -- if nobody liked it --
22 is she'd be even.
23 Q. And with this arrangement, you were hopeful of satisfying
24 your subscribers, the subscribers of Help for Growing Families,
25 so that they wouldn't come to you and seek refunds; is that a