Bobby N. Harmon, CPCU, ARM
Louisville, Kentucky 40229-1655
August 10, 2004
VIA facsimile only @ (808) 529-7177
Mr. Steven Guttman, Esq.
Kessner Duca Umebayashi Bain & Matsunaga
220 South King Street, 19th Floor
Honolulu, HI 96813
RE: Notice of Claim - Steven Guttman, Esq., Kessner Duca Umebayashi Bain & Matsunaga
Ref. Mary Lou Woo, Trustee v. Bobby N. Harmon
Dear Mr. Guttman:
This responds, in part, to your letter dated August 9, 2004, addressed to James B. Farris, Senior Case Manager, American Arbitration Association, in which you write:
“... In addition to the violations contained on Mr. Harmon’s website, he has also resumed his practice of sending copies of letters to a myriad of individuals, most of whom were not involved in the negotiations or execution of the confidential Settlement Agreement. Enclosed for your reference are copies of Mr. Harmon’s letters to me dated August 4 and 5, 2004, his letter of August 6, 2004 to Matt Tsukazaki, Esq., and his August 9, 2004 letter to the Honolulu law firm of Marr Hipp Jones & Pepper.
“Mr. Harmon’s letters of August 4 and 9 are labeled ‘Notice of Claim’. I have stated in previous communications that Mr. Harmon’s continuing claim allegations against me and others involved in the settlement negotiations have no bearing on the merits of this arbitration, the Arbitrator, or the Settlement Agreement. Based upon my statements, perhaps Mr. Harmon thinks he is operating within a sanction-free zone. However, it should be clear to anyone reading his August 4 and 9 letters and visiting his www.the-catbird-seat.net website that Mr. Harmon is attempting to re-ignite his campaign against the Trustee and The Kamehameha Schools, its Trustees, counsel, employees, and other affiliates in direct violation of the Interim Orders.
“In light of Mr. Harmon’s actions as outlined above, which are in direct and blatant violation of the Interim Orders of June 16 and June 28, 2004, the Trustee requests that the Arbitrator sanction Mr. Harmon in amounts consistent with the assessments set forth in the June 28 Interim Order.”
Mr. Guttman, as I stated to you in my letter of August 5, 2004:
“Since my letter to you dated August 4th has nothing to do with the Arbitration proceedings, I am uncertain as to why Mr. Farris is asking for your comments. In fact, if you have submitted, or intend to submit, this claim to your professional liability insurance company, I’m certain that they will instruct you NOT to correspond DIRECTLY TO ME, or to provide ANY information regarding this claim to ANY THIRD PARTY – including the American Arbitration Association.”
“If you accept the suggestion in my August 4th letter that we attempt to negotiate a global settlement for the outstanding claims against ALL parties, then all communications should, of course, become CONFIDENTIAL at that point, and restricted to the negotiating parties.”
Mr. Guttman, since both you and I agree that my claim allegations against you and others involved in the settlement negotiations have no bearing on the merits of this arbitration, the Arbitrator, or the Settlement Agreement, I do not understand why you continue to insist upon trying to combine what are clearly two separate matters. Even the Arbitrator, Judith Neustader, repeatedly stated during our conferences and hearings that my claims of fraud and other wrongful acts were NOT at issue in this arbitration.
In answer to your allegation that I am attempting to re-ignite my campaign against the Trustee and The Kamehameha Schools, its Trustees, counsel, employees, and other affiliates in direct violation of the Interim Orders, I must soundly disagree with your allegations. My “Claim Notices” to various entities are just that: WRITTEN NOTICES OF CLAIMS. It is improper and misleading for you to label these Claims Notices as part of my “letter-writing campaign” that was at issue in the arbitration, and then request that the Arbitrator impose financial sanctions against me for “blatant violation of the Interim Orders of June 16 and June 28, 2004".
I would also point out that, to my knowledge, you are NOT AUTHORIZED to act as an attorney on behalf of KAMEHAMEHA SCHOOLS; TORKILDSON KATZ; MARR HIPP JONES & PEPPER or any other entity against whom I am making these claims - including TRUSTEE MARY LOU WOO. I do plan to object to the Court, at the time of your Final Accounting, if the Trustee requests any payments be made to you in connection with ANY of these claims against her, your firm, or any other entity involved in these claims matters. These fees and costs must rightly be borne by the INSURANCE COMPANIES for Ms. Woo and other entities, or by her and you personally – not by the Bankruptcy Estate. To do otherwise, clearly would be a breach of Trustee Woo’s fiduciary duties.
With regard to your complaint that I have resumed my “practice of sending copies of letters to a myriad of individuals, most of whom were not involved in the negotiations or execution of the confidential Settlement Agreement,” I repeat my position that these are CLAIMS LETTERS which allege various NEW wrongful acts against various parties. These claims were NOT AT ISSUE in the arbitration proceedings; therefore, there is no requirement that these individuals be involved in the negotiations or execution of the confidential Settlement Agreement for me to send copies of my correspondence to them.
I also question your use of the word, “resumed,” in connection with my sending of copies of these letters to various individuals. As I have told you repeatedly, I also consider it MY RIGHT, and MY DUTY, to report my knowledge of any illegal activities to the proper regulatory or law enforcement authorities. I have consistently followed this practice from the time BEFORE I WAS TERMINATED from my positions at Kamehameha Schools and P&C Insurance Company, to the PRESENT TIME. There is NO AGREEMENT that I have ever signed in which I have waived these rights to report suspected illegal activities to the proper authorities. This has been, and still is, the reason for copying my letters to the Hawaii and California Insurance Commissioners; the Attorney Generals’ Offices of Hawaii, California and New York; the IRS; the Hawaii State Tax Collector; the FBI; the SEC; The Pension & Welfare Benefits Administration (PWBA), etc. Frankly, I find it somewhat incredible that you have the blatant audacity to tell the Arbitrator that I must stop reporting these criminal activities to the authorities – and to ASSESS SUBSTANTIAL FINANCIAL PENALTIES AGAINST ME IF I CONTINUE TO DO SO.
I find it even more incredible that you are asking your hand-picked Arbitrator to MAKE ME PAY YOUR FEES AND COSTS FOR HAVING TO RESPOND TO MY CLAIMS AGAINST YOU AND TRUSTEE MARY LOU WOO! TRULY UNBELIEVABLE!
If you will review my earlier Claims Letters to various entities, you will note that I have always requested that my claim be submitted to their respective insurance companies for response, and stated that I would provide additional details to their insurance company’s authorized Claims Adjuster. This is clearly a legitimate process, and did not violate any terms of any agreements that I had signed. It was only AFTER I did not receive a legitimate response to any of my Claims Letters – with the sole exception of my claims against Bradley Tamm, Esq. and Gregory Dunn, Esq. – that I found it necessary to write follow-up letters in an attempt to get a response to my claims. In order to stifle these legitimate efforts, you then resorted to falsely characterizing these letters as “harassment” and as “violating the Settlement Agreement.” When I still refused to be intimidated by your threats, you ultimately resorted to filing the Complaint demanding this Arbitration.
I still do not wish to reveal specific details regarding my claims directly to you – especially regarding the claims against those entities such as, Torkildson Katz, Jeffrey Sia, Louanne Kam and Marr Hipp, on whose behalf you certainly cannot speak. However, since you are forcing this issue with the AAA, I will provide some general comments regarding one common allegation that I am making against the majority of these parties – that of RACKETEERING.
The following is copied from the Internet:
A Pattern of Racketeering Activity
Title 18, Chapter 96 of the U. S. Code, commonly known as the RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) statute, provides as follows:
It shall be unlawful for any person employed by or associated with any enterprise engaged in, or the activities of which affect, interstate or foreign commerce, to conduct or participate, directly or indirectly, in the conduct of such enterprise's affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity . . .
The code defines a "pattern of racketeering activity" as at least two acts of racketeering activity, one of which occurred after the effective date of this chapter (October 15, 1970) and the last of which occurred within ten years (excluding any period of imprisonment) after the commission of a prior act of racketeering activity;
The statute's definition of "racketeering activity" includes "any act or threat involving murder, kidnapping, gambling, arson, robbery, bribery, extortion, dealing in obscene matter, . . . which is chargeable under State law and punishable by imprisonment for more than one year . . ."
An "enterprise" is defined to include "any individual, partnership, corporation, association, or other legal entity, and any union or group of individuals associated in fact although not a legal entity; . . ."
< END OF QUOTATION >
Although I am not an attorney, my reading of these definitions lead me to believe that my claims would meet these conditions of “extortion”; “enterprise” and a “pattern of racketeering activity”. However, whether or not you agree with my interpretation is not material to this situation since you are not the authorized representative of either Trustee Mary Loo Woo, or her insurance company, for my claim against her.
I continue to believe that the fairest, fastest, surest, least disruptive, and most economical way of settling these claims, as well as the estate, is to have all parties – or their insurance companies – simply try to negotiate a mutually-agreeable, global settlement of all claims and counter-claims. If we can quietly reach an agreement, then there will be no more claims, no more letters, and no more costs and delays – and Trustee Mary Lou Woo can close out the estate. If we do not reach a mutual agreement, for some reason, then we are certainly no more at a stalemate than we are at this time.
If this suggestion is not acceptable to you, then I will have no choice but to continue to press my claims against you and your firm, Trustee Woo, and all the other parties I have named. For ease of reference, I have now consolidated most of these claims at the following Web address:
www.the-catbird-seat.net/Claims-By-Harmon.htm
I sincerely hope that we can move forward quickly on this matter, so we can all get on with our lives. Please feel free to contact me directly if you have any comments or questions.
I will respond to the remainder of your letter regarding the arbitration matters in a separate letter which I will address to James B. Farris of The American Arbitration Association.
Very truly yours,
Bobby N. Harmon
cc: Mary Lou Woo, c/o Steven Guttman (via fax @ 808-529-7177)
James B. Farris, Senior Case Manager, American Arbitration Association
(via fax @ 559-490-1919)
Robert Kihune, Douglas Ing, Constance Lau, Diane Plotts, Nainoa Thompson,
Trustees of Kamehameha Schools (via fax @ 808-523-6313)
Dee Jay Mailer, CEO, Kamehameha Schools (via fax @ 808-523-6313)
P&C Insurance Co., Inc. (via fax @ 808-523-6313)
Susan Tius, Esq., c/o Rush Moore Craven Sutton Morry & Beh
(via fax @ 808-521-0597)
Henry H. Peters, Richard S. H. Wong, Lokelani Lindsey, Gerard Jervis and Oswald Stender, and Kenneth Hipp, Esq., c/o Marr Hipp Jones & Pepper
(via fax @ 808-536-6700)
Jeffrey H.K. Sia, Esq., Ayabe Chong Nishimoto Sia & Nakamura
(via fax @ 808-526-3491)
Robert S. Tameler, ALPS, Claims Administrator for Bradley Tamm and
Greg Dunn
(via fax @ 406-728-7416)
Lori Chung, Aon Insurance Managers (via fax @ 808-540-4301)
Casimer Fidele, Tradewind Insurance Company (via fax @ 808-521-7489)
Hugh Jones, Deputy Attorney General (via fax @ 808-586-1477)
J.P. Schmidt, Hawaii Insurance Commissioner (via fax @ 808-586-2806)
Janet Hughes, Internal Revenue Service (via fax @ 303-844-3596)
Billy Beaver, Pension & Welfare Benefit Admin. (via fax @ 626-229-1098)
Ralph F. Boyd, Jr., U.S. Dept. of Justice (via fax @ 202-514-1116)
PricewaterhouseCoopers, c/o Warren Price III, Esq. (via fax @ 808-533-0549)
Marsh & McLennan, Honolulu Office (via fax @ 808-585-3510)
Terry Mullen, CEO/Pres., John Mullen & Co. (via fax @ 808-531-0053)
Lyn Flanigan Anzai, Hawaii State Bar Association (via e-mail: lanzai@hsba.org)
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