Talk:Kim Vandenberg

Court order


The content added here is highly inappropriate. Has anyone read WP:BLPPRIMARY? "Do not use trial transcripts and other court records, or other public documents, to support assertions about a living person." 175.39.61.121 (talk) 19:27, 11 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Many Wikipedia pages refer to restraining orders against living persons. The publishing source Unicourt "makes court data more accessible and useful". "The company provides real-time API access to court data to Fortune 500 companies and AmLaw firms for business development and intelligence, litigation analytics, case research, litigation tracking, underwriting, investigations, due diligence, compliance, machine learning models, and process automation." Arguably more reliable than TMZ publishing restraining order information which WP does allow as a source. A court order after a hearing is different than relying on transcripts and other underlying documents to a proceeding as the court may or may not accept that information. The RO is relevant to balancing a very self-promotional page. Madador nadador (talk) 17:35, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

Agreed the information is highly inappropriate and violates BLP which includes a clear and unequivocal presumption of privacy for such matters. This content violates several aspects of BLP guidance. Namely, it also states, "Material that may adversely affect a person's reputation should be treated with special care; in many jurisdictions, repeating a defamatory claim is actionable…

Avoid repeating gossip. Ask yourself whether the source is reliable; whether the material is being presented as true; and whether, even if true, it is relevant to a disinterested article about the subject…

Consensus has indicated that the standard for inclusion of personal information of living persons is higher than mere existence of a reliable source that could be verified…

Wikipedia is not a forum provided for parties to off-wiki disputes to continue their hostilities…

Experience has shown that misusing Wikipedia to perpetuate legal, political, social, literary, scholarly, or other disputes is harmful to the subjects of biographical articles, to other parties in the dispute, and to Wikipedia itself…

Therefore, an editor who is involved in a significant controversy or dispute with another individual—whether on- or off-wiki—or who is an avowed rival of that individual, should not edit that person's biography or other material about that person, given the potential conflict of interest." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2603:8001:6802:1ED:38D8:ED7B:F048:954B (talk) 18:48, 12 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Defamation requires the statement to be false so not relevant here. The special care pertains to accuracy of the information. Material is consistent with other Wikipedia pages. A disinterested article would present the good with the bad about the subject. Madador nadador (talk) 19:22, 12 September 2022 (UTC)


 * The above defamation and right to privacy analysis is inaccurate. See various state laws on “libel per quod” as it relates to the knowing, intentionally incomplete and misrepresented description of a private legal matter. Additionally, there are many applicable state laws for this malicious invasion of privacy and online harassment through exposing or threatening to expose private information in a public forum.  Given the content’s focus on this one legal document in the context of heavily disputed and contentious claims in an unsettled and on-going legal matter, the material is inappropriate for Wikipedia. It seems more so, on top of all other issues with this post, that the poster of the content at issue is not a disinterested editor and is instead attempting to continue the dispute in an inappropriate forum in order to further harm the subject of the page maliciously.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2603:8001:6802:1ED:38D8:ED7B:F048:954B (talk) 22:09, 12 September 2022 (UTC)


 * The above editor's concerns regarding defamation and right to privacy warrant careful evaluation, given the special caution that must be afforded to BLP articles. To that end, I have investigated this content dispute, giving careful consideration to this editor’s concerns in the immediately preceding comment as well as earlier comments the editor has made regarding the disputed content.
 * To summarize, the following concerns have been raised about the disputed content (the court order):
 * 1. The content may be defamatory. In particular, User 2603:8001:6802:1ED:15BD:FD76:D339:B702 has asserted that the information is incomplete and misleading.
 * 2. The content may reveal private information.
 * 3. The content may not be relevant to an article about an Olympic swimmer.
 * 4. Using the court order as a reference may violate the WP:BLPPRIMARY rule against using "trial transcripts and other court records, or other public documents, to support assertions about a living person."
 * 5. The court order that is cited may violate the WP:BLPPRIMARY rule against using public records that reveal personal details.
 * Each concern must be taken seriously, to first and foremost protect the living person who is the subject of this article, while still maintaining the integrity of Wikipedia. While Wikipedia has no tolerance for defamatory information or gossip on a BLP page, it is also important to ensure the community editing feature of Wikipedia is not being used by the subject of an article to remove unfavorable but accurate and relevant information.
 * For this review, I have looked up the cited docket (Family Court Case No. 20STRO05954) on the Los Angeles Superior Court website (https://www.lacourt.org/ --> Online Services --> Family Law --> Case Access --> 20STRO05954 --> Search), which is the most reliable source for up-to-date case information and is available free to the public. From there, copies of the case filings can be downloaded through the link to the “Case Document Images” site.  Under “Party Information,” the Court’s docket page identifies the Petitioner as “Hall Gary Jr.” and the Respondent as “Vandenberg Kimberly.”
 * 1. IS THE CONTENT IN DISPUTE DEFAMATORY?
 * The content in dispute asserts: “On November 2, 2021, a Los Angeles judge issued a restraining (protective) order against Vandenberg, ordering Vandenberg to not harass, contact or come within 100 yards of Gary Hall, Jr. and immediate family (expires November 2, 2024).”
 * Reviewing the docket, the latest ruling by the Court was on January 21, 2022, in which Judge Richardson of the Los Angeles Superior Court ordered Vandenberg to pay a portion of Hall’s attorney’s fees. In this Order, Judge Richardson stated: “On November I and 2, 2021, the Court held a contested hearing on Petitioner Gary Hall’s Request for Domestic Violence Restraining Order (DVRO). After hearing testimony from the parties and their witnesses, considering the evidence admitted and argument of counsel, the Court granted a three-year restraining order.”
 * On November 2, 2021, the docket shows that the Court filed a Minute Ruling. This Minute Ruling by the Court states: “Court finds Petitioner has proven by preponderance of the evidence that she was in a qualifying relationship under the Domestic Violence Protection Act pursuant to Family Code §6211 and that Respondent has engaged in acts of abuse pursuant to Family Code §6203 which warrants the issuance of restraining orders.”
 * The Court’s November 2, 2021, Minute Ruling concludes: “Petitioner’s request for a Domestic Violence Restraining Order is granted. The Court orders a permanent Restraining Order for a period of 3 years. Restraining Order is to expire on November 2, 2024.”
 * Also on November 2, 2021, a Form DV-130 “Restraining Order After Hearing (Order of Protection)” was filed by Petitioner and signed by Judge Richardson. The Form DV-130 states the following relevant pieces of information:
 * --The “Name of the Protected Person” is “Gary Hall, Jr.”
 * --The “Name of Restrained Person” is “Kimberly Vandenberg.”
 * --There are 3 “Additional Protected Persons”: “Elizabeth Hall” (identified as the wife of Hall), as well as Hall’s son and daughter. In the Court’s Minute Ruling of the same date, the Court stated that Elizabeth Hall testified as a witness for Hall.
 * --“Expiration Date” is “November 2, 2024” at midnight.
 * --In the section on “Personal Conduct Orders,” Judge Richardson checked the boxes to order Vandenberg to not do the following things to the Protected Person or the Additional Protected Persons: (1) “Harass, attack, strike, threaten, assault (sexually or otherwise), hit, follow, stalk, molest, destroy personal property, disturb the peace, keep under surveillance, impersonate (on the Internet, electronically or otherwise), or block movements.”; (2) “Contact, either directly or indirectly, by any means, including, but not limited to, by telephone, mail, e-mail, or other electronic means.”; or (3) “Take any action, directly or through others, to obtain the addresses or locations of any protected persons.”
 * --In the section on “Stay-Away Order” (part a.), Judge Richardson specified that Vandenberg must stay 100 yards away from: the protected person; home of the protected person; the job or workplace of the protected person; vehicle of the protected person; the additional protected persons; and the children’s school or child care. No exceptions are identified in part b.
 * Based on these three orders by the Family Court, the disputed content was factually accurate and not misleading.
 * Of particular concern to me initially was User 2603:8001:6802:1ED:15BD:FD76:D339:B702’s claim that the order being referenced is "an unsettled and on-going legal matter." However, after a thorough review of the docket, that claim cannot be supported.  As noted above, the Family Court stated on November 2, 2021, that the Court “orders a permanent Restraining Order for a period of 3 years.” The granting of a permanent restraining order is a final disposition of the petitioner’s request for a restraining order, which followed a 2-day hearing.  This is confirmed by the Los Angeles Superior Court website, which states that the “Status” of the case is “Statistical Disposition.”  In Family Court cases in California, “Statistical Disposition” means the court has issued its final ruling on the petition.
 * The docket further shows no pending matters before the Family Court. To the contrary, Vandenberg’s window for filing a Notice of Appeal of the Family Court judge’s final ruling has expired with no record of an appeal having been filed. Moreover, neither Vandenberg nor Hall has filed with the Family Court a Form FL-300, which is the only way the restraining order being discussed here could be modified or ended.  With no such filing having been made and no other pending matters before the Court, the case is not “ongoing” and has concluded.
 * The concern raised about defamation can be disposed of swiftly. In the United States, across the board, falsity is a threshold requirement for every defamation-related claim — including libel per quod (see, for example, CA Civ. Code §§45 & 45a).  For further information, please refer to the California Civil Jury Instructions on defamation per quod and the sources cited therein.  The element of falsity does not vary by state, as the above editor suggests, because the requirement of falsity is a First Amendment issue.  There is an interesting discussion on defamation and the First Amendment, particularly in the context of statements made online, in the August 1, 2022, report by the Congressional Research Service entitled False Speech and the First Amendment: Constitutional Limits on Regulating Misinformation.
 * To be clear, defamation has no place in this discussion. The content being discussed on this Talk page is regarding the existence of a court order against Vandenberg, and it is abundantly clear based on the above that the order in question exists, is final and currently in effect, and was accurately described by the original editor.  Vandenberg herself has neither appealed the order nor filed for a modification or termination of the order.
 * 2. DOES THE CONTENT IN DISPUTE REVEAL PRIVATE INFORMATION?
 * A public court order filed in a public case is, by definition, not a private fact. The case has not been sealed by the Family Court and all of the court filings are available online for download by the public.  Recognizing the sensitivity of domestic violence cases, I also checked the docket to see if Hall or Vandenberg ever filed a motion to seal the case; however, neither party even requested that the legal proceedings be kept private.
 * 3. IS THE CONTENT RELEVANT?
 * The question was raised whether this information is relevant to the article at issue under Wikipedia’s standards. At the outset, I observe that describing it as a “swimming page” is arguably a mischaracterization, where the information on the page at issue is not limited to statistics about Vandenberg’s swimming career.  Rather, the page also includes personal details about her background, promotional quotes by Vandenberg from interviews, and a description of organizations Vandenberg is involved with, including one that appears to have no connection to swimming (“an organization that focuses on literacy and gender equality in education”).
 * I next turned to Wikipedia pages of other Olympic athletes as a guide. The disputed content appears to have similar relevancy to content that is included on the pages of other Olympic athletes.  For example, among other Olympic swimmers, the Wikipedia page of swimmer Klete Keller includes his legal troubles relating to the 2021 United States Capitol attack.  With respect to content involving specifically restraining orders filed against athletes, two examples are instructive.  First, the Wikipedia page of Olympic ski jumper Matti Ensio Nykanen includes a reference to a restraining order against Nykanen, as well as details of domestic violence committed by Nykanen.  Similarly, the Wikipedia page for Olympic volleyball player Kim Marie Willoughby includes details of a “three-year protective order” that a judge issued against Willoughby.
 * 4. DOES THE SOURCE VIOLATE THE WP:BLPPRIMARY RULE AGAINST USING COURT RECORDS TO SUPPORT ASSERTIONS ABOUT A LIVING PERSON?
 * This rule does not apply because the referenced court record is not being used to support “assertions about a living person.” Rather, the court record is being used to support an assertion about a ruling made by the Family Court division of the Los Angeles Superior Court.
 * The Wikipedia rule is intended to prevent, for example, someone from citing to a witness’s testimony about something that a living person allegedly did as support for an assertion that the living person did the thing the witness testified to. This is because of reliability concerns raised by such uses of public records.
 * In contrast, the court order here is being used solely as the source for the existence of that court order and the court’s ruling contained therein. There is no reliability concern here.  The court order itself is the most reliable source available to support an assertion about what the court ordered.
 * In general, WP:PRIMARY allows citation to primary sources to support “straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge.” The use of the court order here is consistent with this policy, where the statement being supported is being taken verbatim from the court order.
 * 5. DOES THE SOURCE VIOLATE THE WP:BLPPRIMARY RULE AGAINST USING PUBLIC RECORDS THAT INCLUDE PERSONAL DETAILS?
 * Having reviewed the Form DV-130, I agree that the original editor’s reliance on this document violates Wikipedia’s policy against using public records that include personal details and conclude that, as a result, it should not be used as a source. However, during the course of my review of this content dispute, I noted that the Family Court’s November 2, 2021, Minute Ruling and its January 21, 2022, Ruling do not contain any personal details and would be acceptable and authoritative alternative sources for the disputed content.
 * Based on the above review, I propose the content be reinstated as revised below, based on the concerns raised by the above editor:
 * “On November 2, 2021, following a two-day hearing, a Los Angeles Family Court judge granted a request by Gary Hall, Jr. for a Domestic Violence Restraining Order against Vandenberg, after finding that Hall proved by a preponderance of the evidence that Vandenberg had engaged in acts of abuse pursuant to Family Code §6203 which warranted the issuance of restraining orders. The Court ordered a permanent Restraining Order against Vandenberg for a period of 3 years, expiring on November 2, 2024.”
 * Revised Reference:
 * If a disagreement remains regarding this content, the dispute resolution noticeboard or requests for comment within Wikipedia’s Dispute Resolution System would be the appropriate next step ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_requests/Guide ). 2603:8000:B001:F06:CC54:335A:7E1A:3E12 (talk) 08:28, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
 * This rule does not apply because the referenced court record is not being used to support “assertions about a living person.” Rather, the court record is being used to support an assertion about a ruling made by the Family Court division of the Los Angeles Superior Court.
 * The assertion that Vandenberg is subject to a restraining order is absolutely an assertion about a living person. The three other athletes you brought up all have their various legal troubles supported by independent sources.  Not so here.  If no secondary sources are talking about Vandenberg's case then including it in our article strikes me as undue. Squeakachu (talk) 18:07, 27 September 2022 (UTC)