This is a Review of conditions of participation of Ramtha School of Enlightenment hereinafter called RSE
by a Washington lawyer.

PARAGRAPH 1: Appears to be legal.
That is a very common practice for institutions to in essence copyright their techniques and information.
It would be pretty difficult to challenge.
It has some weak points that would be harder to defend. For example, there is no time limit set for this limitation (which the law requires). We don’t know if it lasts one day or a hundred years. That being the case, it is a paragraph that is ripe for challenge, or to avoid being responsible for violations of the paragraph.

PARAGRAPH 2 is real unique.
It appears to be consistent with copyright restrictions and proprietary interest.
Of course we have a problem here for anybody who wants to enforce this.
You agree not to disseminate anything you BELIEVE you received in a dream, vision or any other source. That provision becomes so speculative and undefined that I don’t believe it is enforceable.

PARAGRAPH 3:
Appears to be consistent with standard limitations on what people can do at a particular place of business. The Court does not like forfeitures without probable cause and because we do have some language in this document that is speculative and undefined, I would recommend inserting language allowing ejection and forfeiture after being notified of the violation and penalty.

PARAGRAPH 4:
This is an interesting paragraph, and I can see where a lawyer reviewed this and interjected some restrictions. As a matter of law, an employer or landlord or anyone asking someone on their property cannot ask a person to give up all rights of litigation. In this case, looking at the last sentence, “in any case for all the activities at the School or any School sponsored event, you hereby release JZK Inc. and its employees and Agents of all liability for damages and injuries you incur while participating at such events except for JZK, Inc’s gross negligence.” That is a minimum. Our tobacco companies found that the level of responsibility is not just gross negligence but if the activity is inherently dangerous. (Verbal additions: This paragraph is asking people to waive something when they don’t know what they’re waiving. You can’t legally put a person in a situation where they can’t control their own personal interests. She cannot excuse herself from negligence in an inherently dangerous activity. A person cannot waive in advance for gross negligence.)

PARAGRAPH 5: This is a real stickler.
While on its face it appears to be impersonal, I don’t think you can require a student to agree to a blanket release of images or pictures that would place them in an embarrassing circumstance, or violative of some privacy issues. I think for normal activity it probably would be serviceable and would preclude someone bringing a law suit for a perceived violation of privacy rights. At the same time, if the person is portrayed in something extremely silly or embarrassing or humiliating circumstance,
I don’t think this release will protect the School.

PARAGRAPH 6:
I don’t think this is consistent with the rights a private organization is entitled to. When they talk about discriminatory acts for reasons of nationality, set, religion, etc, I don’t even know if they would want to exclude anyone who paid money.

PARAGRAPH 7: This is an interesting one.
“These conditions will remain in effect for the life of JZ Knight plus 21 years”. The question is how long these rules are going to be in place, and we were talking abut that in Paragraph 1 and 2.
These are standard laws. There is a law against a perpetuity, and what that refers to is “life plus 21 years”. I don’t know if this thing is enforceable, primarily because the people who attend the JZ Knight School won’t necessarily continue when she goes to the great courtroom in the sky. So that’s when the 21 years start. The rule against perpetuity arises when they give the property to someone for a period of their lifetime. This is the grantor creating this 21 years. The verbiage about damages and compensation, I suspect, is enforceable because it is about proprietary rights.

(Verbal additions: This Agreement is “smoke and mirrors” – clearly a control device. If a person is a believer in Ramtha, it works; if a person is not a believer, it doesn’t work.)

The RSE conditions of participation document can be viewed here

http://pub43.bravenet.com/forum/3633497066/show/615734

This review is from Pat Nave a Retired Contracts attorney, Port of Los Angeles.

Overall,

The clauses in the RSE agreement do not prevent former members from revealing information they have learned from RSE.

There are some general principles that apply to agreements such as these.

First,
Agreements will be interpreted against the party who wrote them. In this case, any ambiguities will be resolved against RSE. Any reasonable interpretation in favor of the individual will be adopted by a court.

Second,
A second principle is that a court will look at the “four corners” of an agreement to determine the intent of the clause. My specific comments on this aspect are included below.

Third,
Certain public policy issues will help a court interpret this contract in favor of an individual who signed it, including unwarranted infringement of freedom of speech, the right of association [with the church], reasonable use of the information and techniques, and the right to seek counsel from a pastor or other health care provider.

I have a couple of specific comments inserted below. I think these are the two germane paragraphs from the RSE agreement:

1. The information and techniques taught here are for your knowledge only. You are licensed to use this information and techniques for your personal use only.

Revealing the information and techniques as part of seeking help from a support group meets this term.

You are not authorized to teach or otherwise disseminate through speeches, books, articles, media interviews, or other forms of mass or group distribution (collectively, to "Teach or Disseminate") any information that you learn or teach at the School.

By its terms, the plain meaning of this clause has to do with mass distribution of the teachings. This clause would not be held to apply to revealing the information or techniques as part of a therapy or recovery program.

By signing these Conditions of Participation you agree not to, directly or indirectly, Teach or Disseminate to others the information and/or techniques that you teach or learn here without the prior written consent of the School, nor shall you assist or facilitate other persons in their dea1ing or dissemination of these matters to others without the prior written consent of the School.

2. The materials provided to you at the School have been copyrighted. You are not authorized to copy, reproduce, prepare adaptations, publicly distribute, publicly perform, or publicly display any of those materials without the prior written consent of the School. All School events are routinely recorded on audiotapes and archived under the registered trademark RAMTHA DIALOGUES®. RAMTHA DIALOGUES® serves as a historica1 record of the teachings of Ramtha. Portions of those recorded teachings have also been reproduced in various print and other media with the express permission of JZ Knight and a1so form a part of the historical record. By signing these Conditions of Participation. you agree that you will not attribute to Ramtha any statement that is not part of that record. You further agree not to Teach or Disseminate anything you BELIEVE you received from Ramtha in a dream, a vision or discipline, or any other source.

The gist of this clause and the prior one are aimed at commercial exploitation of copyrighted material. I do not believe a court would apply it to revealing the information as part of a recovery program.

The RSE agreement has been interpreted in Washington. See

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=wa&vol=223619&invol=o01

In general, the opinion shows how the court will put the burden on RSE to prove anything, even of a commercial nature.

Lastly,
I want to comment that it seems unlikely to me that RSE would want to sue someone seeking help from a church or support group.

I think a court would be very skeptical about such a suit.

***************************************

Thank you Russ and Pat...

David

Thanks David. Useful information.

Christel,
It would be helpful to read what JZ's attorney, Mr. Kaukl, told the State Attorney General regarding the purpose of the confidentiality agreement.

This is Mr. Kaul's response.

(2) Requirement that students execute a confidentiality agreement.

The confidentiality agreement merely requests that students acknowledge that certain materials provided them are protected by copyright and registered trademarks. Like any other person possessing valuable intellectual property rights, Ms. Knight is entitled to protect those rights. Far from being a Questionable practice, this is a norm that permeates all industries that deal in intellectual property.

Mr. Kaukl only addresses the copyright and trademark component of the agreement. He has not commented upon the rest of the document. Perhaps it is because it is only this component that is most easily enforcable.

"The confidentiality agreement MERELY REQUESTS..."

These are the words of JZ's own attorney.

It appears from the response of the lawyers above that most of the Conditions of Participation are not very readily enforceable.

Mr. Kaukl is rather creative with his ideas. Perhaps he wrote the document in the first place?

this is a test. I wanted to see if there is a problem with posting on all threads or just some.

JB - just go back to the other thread and go to the second page by clicking on the next button - its all there