Privacy right trumps tort court orders, says
Kremers
By GEOFF DAVIDIAN
© 2002 MilwaukeePress.Net
MILWAUKEE, Wis. (Aug. 28, 2002) --
Kathy A. Stover, a 46-year-old native of Topeka who is licensed to
practice law in Kansas and Missouri, received at least a temporary reprieve
from a Milwaukee judge Tuesday in a contemptuous battle with a
musician over the contents of her computer.
Stover was jailed from April to July for contempt
of court after refusing to obey an injunction ordering her to allow musician
Michael Jahnz and his attorney to browse through her computer and destroy any
files referring to Jahnz or the rock band REO Speedwagon, with whom she had a
professional relationship.
The court ordered Stover to pay Jahnz and his
wife $650,000 in
damages, but that wasn't enough for Jahnz's lawyer, Edward Hannan, who on
Tuesday asked Circuit Judge Jeffrey Kremers to consider criminal contempt
as well as remedial monetary sanctions against Stover.
Hannan asked the judge to order the sheriff to
enter Stover's lakeside apartment and seize her computers, monitors, mice,
keyboards, mouse pads and floppy drives and deliver them to his client.
"What we're doing is protecting the
system," Hannan argued. "My client comes to this court as a taxpaying
citizen of Milwaukee County who got a remedy and the remedy was refused.
We have contempt here that is willful."
But Kremers said the right to privacy trumps
the injunctive remedy.
"If the court issues an injunction, it has the
authority to enforce it," the judge said. "But there may be some tort
orders that are more egregious to enforce than the wrong they are trying to
remedy. There must be a point at which we weigh the right to privacy against
the court's order."
However, Kremers ordered Stover to pay Hannan’s
legal fees for two appearances on the contempt issue but denied Hannan’s
request that Stover pay by a specific date.
Stover moved to Wisconsin in 1998 to work for the
city but was fired a year later. That was just the beginning of her bad
luck here.
In addition to the Jahnz suit, Stover is suing
REO Speedwagon in an unrelated case that goes to trial next month. Her former
attorney is suing her for fees. Meanwhile, while she was jailed for 105
days in the Milwaukee County House of Correction for contempt, the medical staff
misdiagnosed a skin ailment and treated skin cancer with Band-Aids and
hydrocortisone cream.