All of the court documents below are as obtained from PACER (Public Access to Court
Electronic Records) and the U.S. Party/Case Index. They are in PDF format.
PACER is an electronic public access service that allows users to obtain case and docket
information from Federal Appellate, District and Bankruptcy courts, and from the U.S.
Party/Case Index. With a PACER account, one can purchase access to these documents at
http://pacer.psc.uscourts.gov. Having duly paid for the documents below, it is open to me
to reproduce them here for others.
November 2006
The initial Complaint was filed on behalf of the Plaintiff Kevin Ryan ("Ryan") by Mick G.
Harrison, Rudolph William Savich, and Kara L. Reagan, all of whom signed the complaint as
counsel of record, against the Defendant Underwriters Laboratories ("UL") in the Circuit
Court of Monroe County, Indiana on November 16, 2006. In this venue, it was docketed as
case number 53C010611PL02300.
December 2006
Note: The original complaint appears as "Exhibit A" because the complaint was initially filed
in the Circuit Court of Monroe County, as noted above, and UL brought a successful motion
to have it transferred to the appropriate venue. Thus, it was appended as an Exhibit to
another document (an Order of Removal) when it was removed from Monroe County and
filed in the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Indiana (Indianapolis) on December
13, 2006 and docketed as Case 1:06-cv-01770.
My comments: Overview of Ryan Complaint
January 2007
UL Motion to Dismiss Ryan Complaint
UL Brief in Support of its Motion to Dismiss
My comments: Overview of UL's Motion to Dismiss
February 2007
Ryan Response to UL Motion to Dismiss
My comments: Overview of Ryan's Response to UL's Motion to Dismiss
UL Reply in Support of UL Motion to Dismiss
My comments: Overview of UL's Reply to Ryan's Response
April 2007
A scheduling order was entered on April 5, 2007, setting an initial pretrial conference for
May 3, 2007.
May 2007
An initial pretrial conference was held on May 3, 2007 in this matter. Among other things
dealt with at the pretrial, the judge invited the parties to file supplemental briefs on UL's
Motion to Dismiss, in light of a recent Indiana Supreme Court decision (Meyers v. Meyers) on
the issue of public policy exceptions to the common law at-will employment doctine, which
had been decided subsequent to the filing ofthe initial briefs on UL's Motion to Dismiss. This
gave rise to the next two documents below.
UL Supplemental Brief in Support of UL Motion to Dismiss
Ryan Supplemental Brief in Opposition to UL Motion to Dismiss
My comments: Meyers v. Meyers
On May 14, 2007, Ryan purported to file an Amended Complaint and a Motion to
Amend/Correct that Amended Complaint, but had not followed proper procedure in doing
so. This seems to have twigged someone at the courthouse to report to the Judge that the
lawyer who was doing the filing (Mick Harrison) had never sought the necessary judicial
authority to act for Ryan in this case in Indiana, was not licensed to practice in Indiana, and
had inappropriately used codes obtained from a prior case in which he had been authorized
to act on a case in Indiana, and had potentially misled the Court by leading it to believe that
he was, in fact, licensed to practice in Indiana.
So, the Judge, of his own volition, investigated and issued an Order to Show Cause, requiring
Mr. Harrison to show cause why he had failed to comply with the Court's rules and why a
disciplinary proceeding should not be initiated as a result.
My comments: This is very, very sloppy on Mr. Harrison's part. Quite inexcusable for an
experienced trial lawyer, especially one who had previously been authorized to act in the
same out of state court on another matter, and who, therefore, knew the proper procedure
that he was required to follow. Note: I impute no malicious intent to Mr. Harrison; indeed, I
cannot see how it could possibly be of benefit to him to contravene the rules in this fashion;
rather, I am just surprised at his sloppiness.
Harrison subsequently brought a motion to appear pro hac vice, drafted a lengthy
Response to The Order to Show Cause , did a minor mea culpa, and the Court
authorized him to act pro hac vice on the Ryan matter.
June 2007
After several filings for leave to withdraw wrongly filed documents, and leave to file in
accordance with the rules, Ryan eventually got it right and the court granted his motion to
file his First Amended Complaint on June 4, 2007.
Ryan Motion for Leave to File First Amended Complaint
My comments: Overview of First Amended Complaint
UL Motion to Dismiss First Amended Complaint
UL Brief in Support of Motion to Dismiss Ryan First Amended Complaint
My comments: Not surprisingly, there is some necessary overlap/repetition in UL's new
brief (as compared to the initial brief in respect of the initial motion to dismiss the initial
complaint) but there are also some excellent additions and unique updates that make this
latest brief very interesting reading, indeed.
June 5, 2007:
After filing his Supplemental Response to UL's Motion to Dismiss on May 11, 2007 (following
the pretrial in which the judge invited supplemental briefs regarding the Meyers v. Meyers
case, Ryan filed Motion to File a Corrected Supplemental Response to UL's Motion to
Dismiss. This motion was granted on June 5, 2007.
Corrected Supplemental Brief on UL Motion to Dismiss
UL Instanter Response to Ryan Corrected Supplemental Brief
My comments: In my view, Ryan's arguments completely miss the mark, as he is attempting
to argue the applicability of a prior precedent that was explicitly curtailed in the Meyers v.
Meyers decision (not to mention invoking a dissenting opinion in another case in an attempt
to re-interpret Meyers). It shows a poor grasp of the law on behalf of Ryan's lawyers, and it
demonstrates that they were not really paying attention when they filed their first
supplemental brief because, in essence, what they are saying in their corrected supplemental
brief is that they just didn't put their minds to it the first time around and they thought up
some further arguments after the deadline had passed.
In contrast, UL's instanter response is well written, well argued, and on the money once
again as far as the legal issues go.
August 2007
Judgment - Reasons for Dismissal of Ryan First Amended Complaint
My comments: Dismissal of First Amended Complaint
As noted in the Reasons for Dismissal above, Ryan had 15 days to amend the portion of his
Complaint that was dismissed without prejudice for that period of time. Ryan missed the
deadline, and made a motion to extend time for filing his Second Amended Complaint, but
filed that motion after the deadline as well.
Interestingly, one of the reasons given by Ryan for the late filing is that two of his three
lawyers would not sign on to the Second Amended Complaint. Only Mr. Harrison was willing
to put his name to the proposed Second Amended Complaint.
Ryan Motion to Extend Time for Filing Second Amended Complaint
Ryan Proposed Second Amended Complaint
Judgment - Reasons for Dismissal of Complaint in its Entirety With Prejudice
September 2007
Ryan Motion to Amend and Alter Judgment Dismissing Ryan Complaint
Ryan Brief in Support of Motion to Amend and Alter
Ryan Affidavit in Support of Motion to Amend and Alter
Exhibit A to Ryan Affidavit: Termination Letter from UL
Exhibit B to Ryan Affidavit: Ryan Letter to NIST
Exhibit C to Ryan Affidavit: Email Excerpts
Note: the two pages of Exhibit C are out of order but that is how they were filed with the
court. To make any sense of them, you have to read the second page first and the first page
last. Even then, they are obviously incomplete and do not provide appropriate context, thus
their evidentiary value is virtually nil.
My comments: Overview of Ryan Motion to Amend or Alter
UL Opposition to Ryan Motion to Amend and Alter
October 2007
Judgment - Reasons for Denying Ryan Motion and Granting UL Motion
My comments: I am not at all surprised that the court denied Ryan's motion and granted
UL's. In my view, it was irresponsible of Ryan's lawyer not to put in any reply to UL's
Opposition since it was clear that Ryan's motion materials failed to even address the legal test
that he had to meet. I wonder if this indicates that Ryan has thrown in the towel or whether
he hopes to have better luck on appeal. It appears that he has 30 days in which to appeal.
Tick tock, tick tock.
December 2007
There has been no notice of appeal filed with the court, so it appears that Ryan has given up
on his "wrongful termination" claim. This is not surprising, given that his pleadings were
appalling, his arguments specious, and his lawyers' handling of the case rather poor.