The first tally in the civil cases alleging a USA-Swimming institutional coverup of goes to the plantiffs, as a judge fined the organization $5,250, payable fully to the plantiff, for failing to fully comply with a judge’s orders to turn over documentation to the plantiffs’ attorney, Bob Allard.
The judge in the case, which is being tried in Santa Clara, has now given the organization 6 more days (backdating a 20-day period from the initial order on October 15th) to fully and properly comply with the order to provide documentation concerning sexual abuse cases to the platniffs.
USA-Swimming did turnover some 1,800 pags of files to Allard, however Allard claims that the pages were in no discernible order and that USA Swimming was too liberal in their redaction of the documents. The judge, James Kleinberg, agreed and ordered USA-Swimming to provide the documentation again, separated by case, and limiting their use of blackouts to names, addresses, telephone numbers and ID numbers.
Allard used phrases such as “entirely nonsensical” and “virtually unreadable” to describe the documents that they were provided. In six cases, defense attorneys removed parts of newspaper articles, a seemingly silly tactic. Kleinberg also ordered that USA-Swimming refrain from redacting any document which is already in the public realm, which includes newspaper articles and court documents, which are considered public record. In two cases, USA swimming laughably submitted duplicate documents that had different parts blacked out.
It is not clear why the documents were so disorganized. It’s possible that USA-Swimming is just awful at record keeping, which they may attempt to use as an excuse to limit liability by claiming that shoddy record keeping was at fault for the poor oversight exhibited over coaches. It’s also possible that it was a legal strategy to make the defense’s case more difficult.
Either way, though the fine and order were in no way a finding of guilt, it certainly did not help USA-Swimming in shedding their image of a back-room oraganization with a total lack of transparency. It also likely made them no friends in the court room, as Kleinberg could not have been pleased with what was produced.
USA Swimming attorney Jean Weil responded to the decision by saying that they produced the required documents with an interest in protecting the identities of its members, and also of those coaches who have been accused but not granted a due-process hearing.
