By MONROE ROARK
mroark@TheCitizenNews.com

A third party in lawyer James Webb's libel lawsuit against The Citizen and local activist Steve Brown has responded to demands for his records with some legal maneuvering of his own.

John Mrosek, a Peachtree City resident who also is a lawyer practicing in Fayetteville, filed a motion Friday to quash a subpoena that Mrosek said is not only an unnecessary invasion of his own privacy, but requires him to improperly violate attorney-client confidentiality.

“I can be disbarred for breaking attorney-client privilege,” Mrosek said Monday. “That's something I take very seriously.”

To support that argument, Mrosek filed a six-page motion and a 21-page brief Friday in Fayette County Superior Court.

A copy of the original deposition notice was included in Mrosek's supporting materials. A March 3 letter from Stephen Ott of Webb, Stuckey and Lindsey advised Mrosek that he would be required to give a deposition April 25 and “may be subject to discovery procedures under the laws of the state of Georgia regarding the newspaper articles that appeared in The Citizen newspaper regarding James H. Webb Jr. and Webb, Stuckey and Lindsey.“

Webb's lawsuit stems from two letters Brown wrote earlier this year suggesting that Webb's position on the board of a new local bank along with developers and builders involved in past and present litigation against the city could be construed as a conflict of interest. Webb and his firm have served as city attorneys for Peachtree City since 1992.

After those letters appeared in The Citizen, Webb responded with his own letter demanding a retraction. When that did not happen, he filed suit against Brown, The Citizen and editor-publisher Cal Beverly.

Mrosek was advised by Ott to back up his computer files twice and store the material in a safe place so that it would be available later to the plaintiffs.

In the formal discovery request, Ott asked for “all documents authored by, sent by, received by and/or read by you from any one or more of the following: John or J.W. Mrosek, Stephen Fodor, Stephen Brown, Calvin Beverly, anyone on behalf of Fayette Publishing Inc., anyone on behalf of The Citizen, anyone on behalf of The Peachtree Citizen Review, Michael Hyde, Betsy Tyler, Nancy Faulkner, Mike Hyde and/or Mildred Harris.”

Mrosek has put the plaintiffs and the court on notice that he considers this “an extraordinarily broad, burdensome, unnecessary, unjustified and invasive discovery,” as he stated in his motion to quash the subpoena.

“I don't believe this is germane or ordinary,” he added Monday. “This goes well beyond the bounds of what is expected in litigation.”

Nothing in the plaintiff's motion specifically states why Mrosek might be a relevant party to the lawsuit, but Mrosek thinks the action against him is because he has submitted competitive bids for legal services for Peachtree City, and he makes no apologies for being a friend of Brown's.

Mrosek has been involved in litigation against the city in the past, filing in U.S. District Court in 1997 concerning a property damage issue. That was settled “favorably,” Mrosek said.

But Mrosek sees no reason for the plaintiffs to involve him in this lawsuit to this degree.

“Webb is going to be disappointed when he finds out there's no far-flung conspiracy against him,” Mrosek said.

To emphasize what he considers the inappropriate scope of the discovery request, Mrosek said in his motion that “given the breadth of plaintiffs' requests... [Mrosek] will risk contempt of court if he does not produce all client letters, back issues of Newsweek and a videotape of the Cracker Barrel 500.”

Mrosek summed up his argument by saying, “The discovery requests should be quashed in their entirety.”

Despite having to spend a considerable amount of his own time preparing these materials, Mrosek said that does not bother him, since he is trained to deal with precisely such a situation as this. “I'm an attorney. I can take care of myself,” he said.

What does worry him is the thought of other third parties who are not attorneys and must nevertheless take the same measures to defend themselves, he said.