IBM tries to intimidate witnesses from providing information

In a stunning development, IBM violated the rules of Magistrate Judge Eaton, possibly by having an ex parte communication with him, and having MJ Eaton write an opinion ordering no new subpoenas just hours after getting my request to delay for 3 weeks writing a response to IBM's ludicrous assertion that IBM has no information on computers that has not been turned over. I gave IBM an email sent to me by an IBM'er which confirmed that my prospective employer Wunderman had contacted IBM -- it was contemporaneous with the event, namely a few years ago. Thus, IBM had lied to The Court that IBM had turned over all ESI (Electronically Stored Information), since here was a letter from a person in my group at IBM which IBM should have looked for and turned over to me.

I sent my request, which had been preapproved by MJ Eaton, for a 3 week extension while I was making progress in settlement talks with IBM, and I said that IBM agreed that I could get third party subpoenas, e.g. the phone company. After I wrote letters to the various prospective employers, IBM freaked out (that's a technical term) and got the Magistrate Judge to write that no new subpoenas could be issued (of course, this was previously agreed to by IBM, so it would not hold), and then about two hours later, the US District Judge chimed in agreeing with the MJ.

And then IBM, wrote a letter to all of the witnesses telling them that the Magistrate Judge ordered that there are no new subpoenas. IBM also included a redacted copy of the order.

So, it looks like IBM is trying to stop the truth from getting out: that IBM did communicate with a prospective employer of mine, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prohibits retaliation upon a current or former employee, especially since IBM said that the event did not happen and that there is no proof that the employer Wunderman and Associates did talk to IBM. Wunderman is now owned by WPP-USA. And the IBM'er said that Cathy Cooper of Wunderman came to him for a reference, but he said good things. IBM asserted that Ms. Cooper did not communicate with IBM, and that no email or documents have information (e.g. phone logs).

Well, I find that pretty offensive for IBM to try to not only intimidate me from filing a suit, and not cooperating with the federal rules on discovery (FRCP 26 on providing ESI before the case begins), but also to try to intimidate its vendors: Ad companies, Headhunters, small tech companies.

So, I filed a shareholder proposal on the SEC website as a shareholder of more than $2,000 worth of IBM stock.

COMPANY: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORP
FORM TYPE: PREC14A
NUMBER OF DOCUMENTS: 1
RECEIVED DATE: 16-Jun-2009 19:04
ACCEPTED DATE: 16-Jun-2009 19:04
TEST FILING: NO
CONFIRMING COPY: YES
ACCESSION NUMBER: 0001394849-09-000021
FILE NUMBER(S): 1. 001-02360

In it, I write the following:

"This proposal is directly related to an incident that stemmed from Mr. Lindner being laid off in 2003. That was resolved. However, Mr. Lindner alleged that IBM had spoken to a prospective employer, and in violation of Title VII of the US Civil Rights Act of 1964, and in violation of the laws of NY State and NYC, IBM retaliated against Mr. Lindner.

Moreover, when the case 06cv4751 entitled -- Peter W. Lindner v IBM, Robert Vanderheyden, Heather Christo Higgins, John Doe #1, And John Doe #2 -- went to discovery, IBM wrote in a submission to the Magistrate Judge that some of the discovery requests require interviewing 'hundred of thousands of employees'. And IBM suggested that it did not have any ESI (Electronically Stored Information) in all of IBM that was responsive to the discovery request.

(This document is a letter from IBM on June 5, 2009 to Magistrate Judge Eaton, cc: Peter Lindner, and will be posted on this SEC site as a pdf, which requires that it be typed up first as per SEC filing regulations, which Mr. Lindner intends to follow.)

Surely no one in data processing believes that if IBM kept all their records -- as IBM promised -- that there is no record on any of their computers or any of their electronic storage media.

So, this shareholder proposal is to stop IBM from making such absurd statements to a Federal Court.

Furthermore, IBM was apprised the week of June 15 2009 that indeed a single document was found that proved that the prospective employer of Mr. Lindner had spoken to an IBM employee, IBM did not (as of this writing) inform the Court that it spoke wrongly.
To summarize: IBM said it had no ESI, when in fact it did."

I hope all you people who are IBM employees and IBM shareholders vote to stop IBM from discriminating against its employees, and using strong arm tactics to win. Maybe IBM won't win this time.

Peter