Part Five of the Wilson v. Reliable Street Inc., et al series.
Sudden Reversal
The Court Invited Evidence — Then Refused to Consider It.
Discovery Never Occurred, Yet the Court Dismissed My Claims
Based On Factually Unsupported Explanations
Favorable to the Defendants.
By Sondra Wilson | Updated September 14, 2026
New to this case? This article is Part Five of an eight-part series. For the current appellate status, why the case matters statewide, and a roadmap to the complete series, begin with the Wilson v. Reliable Street Inc., et al. landing page.
From Procedural Bombardment to Sudden Reversal
Procedural Bombardment ended with the case transferred from Polk County to Story County, but the transfer did not resolve the central disputes defendants had placed before the court.
The Polk County proceedings had been compressed into a single 144-page Story County docket entry. Defendants had accepted service and joined their remaining motions. Their requests to dismiss, recast, and require greater factual specificity remained unresolved, as did my motions to amend, obtain additional time, estop repetition of statements I alleged were false, and preserve the case long enough to reach discovery.
I had also already told the court why discovery mattered. Defendants were demanding greater detail about individual roles, communications, knowledge, agreements, and allegedly wrongful conduct while some of that information remained exclusively within their possession.
When Judge Bethany Currie inherited the case, she therefore did not receive a blank slate. She inherited a compressed procedural record, unresolved dismissal and pleading disputes, and my repeated warnings that some of the facts defendants demanded could not truthfully be supplied before discovery.
What happened next is the subject of Sudden Reversal.
What This Article Examines
By the time Judge Currie began addressing the unresolved motions, two different evidentiary problems were already documented in the record.
Some factual allegations were supported by evidence I already possessed and was organizing for presentation. Others involved information controlled by defendants—authorship, knowledge, private communications, coordination, comparator treatment, motive, malice, and individual participation—that I could not obtain without interrogatories, document production, depositions, and other discovery.
That distinction is central to this installment.
The problem was not that I waited until after dismissal to say evidence existed. I had already identified and organized a substantial documentary record. At the same time, I had repeatedly explained that other facts necessary to clarify particular claims could not be reconstructed from my records alone.
The record shows what happened next.
On May 16, 2024, in D0005, Judge Currie directed the parties to say whether they intended to present evidence at the forthcoming combined hearing so that:
“sufficient time may be set aside.”
I responded on May 24, D0009, that I intended to present at least thirty exhibits.
Four days later, in D0013, Judge Currie stated that the substance of the pending matters would wait until after the hearing so the parties could:
“present whatever evidence they believe is appropriate to do so at this stage of the case”
and expressly contemplated a hearing involving “30 exhibits” and “extensive testimony,” potentially conducted in person so the evidence could be presented:
“in a commonsense fashion.”
I relied on those directions.
I continued rewriting the amended petition, repeatedly reported my progress to the court, organized approximately seventy sub-exhibits into what eventually became nineteen folders, and filed the completed 64-page Amended Petition on June 17. The petition expressly told the court:
“This Amended Petition, in context with the evidence, will demonstrate to the court why it would create injustice to rule in favor of Defendants’ Motions to Dismiss…”
Then the process changed.
After defendants objected to an evidentiary hearing, Judge Currie ruled on August 9, D0032:
“There should be no reason for the Court to receive evidence at a hearing on a motion to dismiss.”
The combined hearing was restricted to one hour of legal argument.
On October 4, D0036, Judge Currie expressly declined to consider the exhibits referenced throughout my petition and dismissed every claim except one written-defamation claim. Most were dismissed “with prejudice”—before discovery had occurred.
But that was not the end of the problem.
After declining to receive the evidentiary record, the ruling itself supplied explanations for disputed conduct and motive.
Judge Currie wrote that defendants:
“may have maintained excitement in their responsive text messages to her even if they were not quite as positive about all of Sondra’s involvement in reality.”
She then concluded:
“In an apparent effort to spare Sondra’s feelings, they were not entirely truthful with her.”
She characterized me as:
“merely a volunteer”
and stated:
“There is no evidence that Sondra was asked to leave because she is a trans woman.”
“There is no evidence that any of the Defendants ever said or did anything to treat Sondra differently due to her identity.”
The consequences were not merely temporary pleading rulings: most of the dismissed claims were dismissed with prejudice, making the absence of discovery and the factual reasoning used to reach dismissal materially more consequential.
Those statements raise the central question examined in this article: if the court could not receive my evidence and discovery had never occurred, what factual record established what defendants privately thought, why they communicated positively with me, why they later acted differently, or whether discriminatory motivation existed?
This installment reconstructs the sequence from the docket itself.
In This Part
I. March 15–April 1, 2024 — Before Judge Currie Inherited the Case, I Had Already Explained Why Discovery Was Essential
How defendants demanded details concerning authorship, knowledge, individual roles, and coordination while I repeatedly explained that some of those facts were unavailable without discovery.
II. May 15–28, 2024 — The Court Established a Combined Hearing With an Evidentiary Component
How Judge Currie directed the parties to disclose whether they intended to offer evidence, reserved time for that purpose, and expressly contemplated admitted exhibits and testimony before the pending matters were decided.
III. May 15–June 17, 2024 — The Continuances Were Used to Build the Amended Petition and Organize the Evidence
What my contemporaneous filings show I was doing during the extensions that defendants would later characterize as delay.
IV. June 17, 2024 — The 64-Page Amended Petition Was My Substantive Response to the Procedural Barrage
How D0020 answered defendants’ demands for greater specificity, identified Exhibits A–Q, distinguished facts I knew from facts requiring discovery, and laid out the evidence and unresolved questions claim by claim.
V. June 17–July 30, 2024 — I Continued Preparing for an Evidentiary Hearing Under the Court’s Prior Orders
How the June 17 order said legal argument would “likely” predominate but did not withdraw the earlier evidentiary directions; how Judge Currie later directed me to review the Rules of Evidence; and why I continued organizing exhibits and requested an in-person presentation.
VI. August 3–9, 2024 — After I Disclosed My Evidence—and What Only Discovery Could Reveal—Defendants Objected; the Court Withdrew the Evidentiary Process
How defendants opposed the evidentiary process after the substance of my evidence had been disclosed, and how the August 9 order ruled that there was “no reason” for the court to receive evidence.
VII. August 12, 2024 — With Evidence Excluded, Defendants Characterized Discovery Itself as “Harassment”
How defendants portrayed document requests, depositions, pleadings, and discovery as continued harassment while the hearing proceeded with no witnesses and no admitted exhibits.
VIII. October 4, 2024 — The Court Declined to Consider the Referenced Exhibits and Dismissed All But One Claim
How the court excluded the referenced evidentiary record, applied the motion-to-dismiss standard, and dismissed most claims with prejudice before discovery.
IX. The Court Said It Was Testing the Pleading—But Then Supplied Facts and Explanations of Its Own
What I pleaded, what defendants argued, what the court said actually happened, and why I contend the ruling resolved disputed factual inferences concerning motive, state of mind, credibility, and the parties’ relationships.
X. Dismissal With Prejudice Magnified the Fact-Finding Problem
Why potentially curable pleading deficiencies became lasting barriers before discovery or further amendment could develop facts concerning authorship, knowledge, malice, comparator treatment, participation, and coordination.
XI. Next: Plausible Deniability
How the effort to challenge the October 4 dismissals became entangled in disputes over the procedural history, continuances, and the reconsideration period.
March 15-April 1:
I. Before Judge Currie Inherited the Case,
I Had Already Explained Why Discovery Was Essential
\
May 15:
Defendants Identified the Motions Still Awaiting Decision
After transfer, defendants filed a Notice of Pending Motions (D0002), notifying the Story County court that their motion to dismiss, alternative motion to recast, and alternative motion for a more specific statement remained unresolved. My motions to amend, estop defendants from repeating statements I alleged were false, and preserve the case for discovery also remained unresolved.
These filings were covered in Part Four.
Arguments Contained Within the Buried Record
“Certain claims I stated within my original petition … may be more explicitly stated, except where Defendants appear to be attempting to usurp, undermine, and prevent the Discovery Process, and thus my Right to Due Process, from being exercised.”
March 15 omnibus filing, p. 2; D0001, p. 89.
“One of the primary purposes of this action is to substantiate the claims asserted; this will generally occur during the discovery process and trial. Thus far no government investigation and thorough review of evidence has occurred.”
March 15 omnibus filing, p. 5, ¶ 4; D0001, p. 92.
“I object to Defendants’ multiple requests to dismiss this action in its entirety, as they are attempts to deny me due process and disallow evidence and testimony to be presented....
Upon reviewing the evidence, it will become self-evident to the judge the exact reason Defendants have gone to such great length to try to prevent evidence from being examined. It would create a miscarriage of justice to dismiss this case during this early phase of the action.”
March 15 omnibus filing, pp. 16–17; D0001, pp. 103–104.
April 1:
I Explained That Defendants' Lack of Transparency Made it Impossible
to Identify Every Party's Precise Role Before Discovery
I then explained that some defendants might not know what others had done and that depositions and interrogatories were needed:
“Some Defendants currently may not know who said what or to whom—and some may not know what exactly Defendants … submitted to the Iowa Civil Rights Commission—or that statements submitted were in fact provably false.”
April 1 motion, p. 3, ¶ 6; D0001, p. 22.
“It is important that interrogatories and depositions are entered by each of the Defendants prior to me divulging too much information, which could alter more honest statements which might otherwise be given.”
April 1 motion, pp. 3–4, ¶ 6; D0001, pp. 22–23.
The defendants’ conduct had made it impossible for me to know exactly who did what:
“Defendants have not been upfront and communicated directly with me … which has made it impossible for me to determine the exact roles of each party.”
April 1 motion, p. 8, ¶ 16; D0001, p. 27.
I objected to dismissal before the discovery and trial phases:
“Defendants’ repeated attempts to get service quashed and the case dismissed … appear to be designed to … prevent this case from entering the discovery process and trial phases of the proceedings, at which point I will be able to prove the claims and allegations alleged within my Petition.”
April 1 motion, p. 4, ¶ 8; D0001, p. 23.
This establishes the deeper contradiction: I was being challenged for insufficient factual detail while repeatedly explaining that the missing detail concerned facts held by the opposing parties.
May 15-28, 2024:
II. The Court Established a Combined Hearing
With an Evidentiary Component
The following chain of filings were brief and straightforward. Therefore paragraph and page numbers are not necessary to be cited for this section.
May 16:
Judge Currie Announced One Hearing and Asked Whether Evidence Would Be Offered
Judge Currie's Order Offering Opportunity to Present Evidence at Forthcoming Hearing
Entered May 16, 2024; D0005.
“The Court will set one hearing to address the motions already pending as well as the additional matters that are filed before that date.”
“The parties are requested to alert the Court how long they anticipate needing to address all pending motions...
[I]f the parties believe they will need additional time for argument - or if they intend to offer any evidence as well as argument - they are requested to alert the Court... so that sufficient time may be set aside."
The court therefore did not merely schedule legal argument. It expressly asked whether the parties intended to offer evidence and directed them to provide time estimates so that sufficient time could be reserved.
May 17:
Defendants Declined to Present Evidence
Defendants’ Response to May 16 Order
Filed May 17, 2024; D0007.
Defendants chose to rely on dismissal arguments without presenting additional evidence.
“Defendants do not intend to offer any further evidence at the hearing.”
May 24:
I Responded to the Court That I Intended to Present at Least Thirty Exhibits
Plaintiff’s Response to May 16 Order
Filed May 24, 2024; D0009.
I informed the court that I intended to offer at least 30 exhibits at the hearing, and that I would need at least an hour to do so.
“I intend to offer at least 30 pieces of evidence at the hearing…”
"I anticipate needing an hour to do this, however again I am
new to this process and cannot provide a precise estimate at this time."
May 28:
The Court Reaffirmed That Evidence Could Be Presented
Before the Pending Matters Were Decided
Judge Currie's Order Reaffirming the Presentation of Evidence Before Substantive Rulings
Entered May 28, 2024; D0013.
Judge Currie stated that the substance of the pending matters would wait until after the hearing, where the parties could “present whatever evidence they believe is appropriate to do so at this stage of the case” and make their legal arguments.
“[T]he substance will need to wait to be addressed following the hearing so the parties may present whatever evidence they believe is appropriate to do so at this stage of the case and may make their legal arguments....”
"If the parties anticipate that 30 exhibits will be admitted and extensive testimony will be needed at this hearing, the Court is
inclined to hold the hearing in person to ensure that all parties have the exhibits in front of them and can present their evidence in a commonsense fashion."
The order indicated that the substance of the pending matters—including defendants’ motion to dismiss—would wait until after the hearing. This followed the court’s earlier direction that the parties identify whether they intended to offer evidence “so that sufficient time may be set aside.”
After I informed the court that I intended to present at least thirty exhibits, the May 28 order reaffirmed that the parties could “present whatever evidence they believe is appropriate to do so at this stage of the case.” It further stated that if thirty exhibits would be admitted and extensive testimony received, the court was inclined to hold the hearing in person so that the evidence could be presented “in a commonsense fashion.”
Read together, these were not passing references to evidence. The court affirmatively directed the parties to disclose their evidentiary plans, explained that sufficient time would be reserved, delayed substantive consideration until after the hearing, and then described how a hearing involving numerous admitted exhibits and extensive testimony would be conducted.
The court’s successive orders established a court-directed evidentiary process for the combined hearing by requiring the parties to disclose whether they intended to offer evidence so that sufficient time could be reserved, postponing substantive consideration until after the hearing, and describing how numerous exhibits and extensive testimony could be presented.
Those orders created a reasonable expectation—and a concrete basis for reliance—that evidence would be permitted before the pending matters were decided.
This was especially significant because the hearing was intended to address multiple unresolved matters, including defendants’ motion to dismiss. As a self-represented litigant attempting to determine how those different motions would be handled together, I reasonably understood the court’s successive orders to mean that evidence would be permitted at the combined hearing before the substance of the pending matters was decided.
The August 9 order later stated that a motion-to-dismiss hearing is not evidentiary, but it did not explain why the court had previously directed the parties to identify evidence so that time could be reserved, reaffirmed that evidence could be presented, and described a hearing involving thirty admitted exhibits and extensive testimony.
May 15-June 17, 2024:
III. My Responsive Motions to Continue
That Would Later Be Reframed as "Delay"
Between May 15 and June 17, I filed several requests for additional time while responding to defendants' pleading demands and simultaneously preparing the evidentiary presentation Judge Currie's May orders had led me to expect.
The motions themselves document what the time was being used for.
My May 15 motion to continue (D0006), told the court that defendants had raised so many questions (in their February 29 and subsequent filings) that completing the amended petition was taking longer than expected:
“Because there were so many questions defendants put forth—and due to the large amount of schoolwork and recovery from jetlag—it is taking me longer than expected to draft the Amended Petition.”
To show significant progress, my May 24 motion to continue (D0010) attached my unfinished petition:
“I have attached the Amended Petition, which is nearly complete, so the court may see that a lot of work has been done, and that the ending is unfinished.”
My May 28 motion to continue (D0012), reported that “significant progress” had been made and requested enough time to finish both the amended petition and the supporting evidentiary organization.
My June 7 motion to continue (D0015) reported:
“I... organized and labeled numerous pieces of evidence into a Google Doc folder to prepare it for the court.”
The completed 64-page amended petition was filed on June 17. It identified Exhibits A–Q and expressly stated that the pleading should be understood “in context with the evidence.”
These continuances would later be counted and characterized as evidence of delay. But the contemporaneous filings tell the reader what was actually occurring during them: I was answering defendants' demands for greater factual specificity, rewriting the petition, organizing the evidence the court had told me to prepare, and documenting that work to the court as it occurred.
That distinction becomes important in Plausible Deniability, where the same continuances were later presented as part of a supposed history of delay and obfuscation.
Between May 15 and June 7, I submitted repeated updates, partial drafts, and descriptions of the work completed. Those filings showed that the extension requests arose from the scale of defendants’ procedural demands and the preparation of the amended petition and exhibits—not abandonment or inactivity.
A later July continuance had a separate documented cause. After defendants filed another motion to dismiss on July 5, I was simultaneously facing a July 22 filing deadline in my separate civil-rights case, Wilson v. State of Iowa and Kim Reynolds for Iowa. My July 18 filing disclosed both that conflict and my mistake in initially consulting the fifteen-day resistance period in the Iowa Administrative Code rather than the applicable civil rule. I requested until July 30 to file the resistance.
That matters because the continuances later became part of defendants' narrative of delay. The contemporaneous docket records not merely that extensions occurred, but why they occurred and what work was being performed during them.
June 17, 2024:
IV. The 64-Page Amended petition Was My Substantive Response
to Defendants' February 29 Procedural Barrage
Plaintiff’s Amended Petition — D0020
Filed June 17, 2024, at 9:41 a.m.
The work described in the preceding section produced a 64-page Amended Petition.
Its purpose was stated on the first page. I expressly identified the filings I was responding to: defendants’ February 29 motion to dismiss, alternative motion to recast, alternative motion for a more specific statement, the later March motions, and the court orders allowing amendment. The filing then stated:
“This Amended Petition seeks to address each substantive issue brought forth within Defendants' motions, thus satisfying their Motions to Recast and for a More Specific Statement.”
D0020, pp. 1–2.
I immediately told the court that the pleading and the evidence I was organizing were intended to be considered together:
“This Amended Petition, in context with the evidence, will demonstrate to the court why it would create injustice to rule in favor of Defendants' Motions to Dismiss and/or to Enlarge Order to Transfer.”
D0020, p. 2.
That sentence becomes important later in this article.
The June 17 filing did not represent that every evidentiary fact had been reproduced inside the pleading. It repeatedly identified the supporting exhibits by name, described what they contained, and tied factual allegations to those exhibits while the court-directed evidentiary hearing was still being developed.
The Petition Directly Answered the Demand for Greater Specificity
Defendants had argued that my original petition did not sufficiently identify which defendants were responsible for which conduct.
I responded directly in paragraph 8:
“While this Amended Petition does specify which Defendants are the subject of each claim, there is no way for me to know, with the evidence before me, which Defendant(s) had knowledge of the falsified document Sharon Stewart submitted to the ICRC at the time she filed it.
In fact, short of an admission by one or more of the Defendants, it may be impossible to determine if Sharon had knowledge that the document she submitted was falsified. This is, in large part, why [I] wish to acquire depositions from each of the Defendants.”
D0020, p. 7, ¶ 8.
That paragraph is important because it shows exactly where the pleading problem stood.
I was not telling the court that I had no facts.
I was telling the court that I had enough facts to identify the disputed document, its submission to the ICRC, the people connected to it, and several possible explanations—but I could not truthfully state which person possessed which knowledge without discovery.
The petition later demonstrated that distinction even more clearly.
I Identified the Exhibit Structure Before the Exhibits Were Formally Presented
Paragraph 12 told the court:
“The contents within this Amended Petition, in context with the evidence (Exhibits A–Q), appear to me to controvert each of the Defendants' substantive arguments.”
D0020, p. 8, ¶ 12.
Then paragraph 13 explained what those exhibit references meant:
“This Amended Petition references numerous ‘Exhibits’. Each Exhibit represents a folder located inside a Google Doc folder. I intend to submit these Exhibits as evidence to the court.”
D0020, pp. 8–9, ¶ 13.
The petition then described the contents of those folders rather than leaving the exhibit labels unexplained. They included:
“Emails, text messages, and Discord or Facebook messages between myself and involved parties, including Defendants, between Aug. 7 2021 and April 2022.”
It identified:
“Before and after photos of the outside area 4625 Reliable St. in Ames, IA, where I performed work for Reliable Street Inc and Lockwood Cafe in accordance with two separate agreements…”
and specifically named:
“The garden agreement”
and
“The prairie agreement.”
The same paragraph told the court that the evidentiary folders contained the ICRC submissions, disputed statements, screenshots, and other materials underlying the defamation and fraud allegations.
This distinction should not be lost.
The exhibits were referenced and described throughout the pleading, but paragraph 13 expressly said that I “intend[ed] to submit” them as evidence.
They had not yet gone through the anticipated process of presentation, authentication, and admission.
As explained in the preceding section, that made sense in the procedural posture I had been given: Judge Currie had already directed the parties to disclose whether they intended to present evidence, I had told the court I intended to present at least thirty exhibits, and the May 28 order expressly contemplated admitted exhibits and extensive testimony.
The June 17 pleading was therefore functioning partly as a roadmap to the evidence I expected to present at that hearing.
The Petition Often Allowed the Reader to Understand What an Exhibit Contained Without Seeing It
The exhibit references were not meaningless placeholders.
For example, when discussing the relationships before March 31, 2022, I pleaded:
“Lyndsay and I would hang out and talk before and after each open mic. She often included heart signs, smiley faces, and expressions of gratitude in her text messages to me (Exhibit C).”
D0020, p. 14, ¶ 24.
That allegation told the court both what the communications contained and which exhibit would document them.
The same structure appeared later when I addressed the disputed accusations.
Paragraph 73 stated:
“According to Lyndsay Nissen's statement to the ICRC, Willa accused me of both stalking and harassing her, and of intentionally coming in during her shifts.
I absolutely never stalked or harassed Willa, nor did I know when she was working, nor did I come in or attempt to intentionally come in during her shifts. Exhibit Q3 – Lyndsay Nissen's libel.”
D0020, p. 32, ¶ 73.
So even without opening Q3, the pleading itself told the court what factual dispute the exhibit concerned.
The same thing occurred with what would later become central to my allegations concerning the modified document.
I Did Not Pretend to Know Who Created or Altered the Modified "D-3" Document
The petition described the modified document in paragraph 13 and then expressly identified the competing possibilities:
“A falsified document allegedly submitted to Sharon Stewart by Defendant Willa Colville.”
I then wrote:
“It is unclear to me at this time whether:
a.) Sharon Stewart created the falsified document without Willa knowing she modified it; or
b.) Sharon and Willa conspired together to create the falsified document; or
c.) Willa Colville created the falsified document without informing Sharon otherwise.”
D0020, p. 10, ¶ 13.
I did not choose one unknown explanation and plead it as established fact.
I identified the document, identified the people connected to its chain of submission, identified the competing possibilities that could explain its creation, and told the court that the precise answer was not yet known.
The petition returned to the same uncertainty when discussing Stewart's possible role.
Paragraph 17 stated:
“Based on the evidence I have before me, Sharon appears to be the only Defendant whose actions might not have been malicious and premeditated in nature.”
D0020, p. 12, ¶ 17.
Paragraph 19 likewise stated:
“I suspect that Sharon, Austin, and Lockwood Cafe ended up caught in the middle of this horrible situation, however until all the facts come forth – especially with regard to the falsified document Sharon submitted to the ICRC – she cannot be ruled out.
I want the truth of what happened – and exactly who is at fault – to be revealed.”
D0020, pp. 12–13, ¶ 19.
That is difficult to reconcile with the idea that the pleading simply failed to differentiate the defendants.
It expressly differentiated among them to the extent the available record permitted, while also identifying where discovery was necessary to determine their precise roles.
By the End of the Petition, the Modified Document Was Identified Even More Specifically
Near the end of D0020, I identified the disputed communication again:
“My final Discord message to Willa was screenshotted, rearranged, and made to look as if she told me to stop contacting her, but that I continued to do so.
The original Discord message, followed by the modified document wherein someone wrote a false statement at the top of the page, is shown in the Exhibit Q5 folder.”
D0020, p. 58, ¶ 121.
That paragraph becomes particularly important later in this series.
The petition did not merely use the phrase “falsified document.” It described what I contended had been changed, the false impression the changed presentation created, the existence of the original communication for comparison, and the exact evidentiary folder where both versions could be found.
The unanswered question was who performed the alteration and who knew about it.
That is a discovery question—not something the face of a modified document necessarily answers.
The Pleading Also Addressed Malice Where the Avialable Facts Allowed It
The same distinction appears in the defamation allegations.
As to Willa Colville, I pleaded:
“Willa knew that I never stalked or harassed her.
If any of the statements about Willa bringing these complaints to Sharon and Lyndsay are truthful, she acted with knowing or reckless disregard of the truth of the statements she made about me, thus indicating actual malice toward me.”
D0020, p. 58, ¶ 120.
Whether that allegation ultimately could be proven was a separate evidentiary question.
But the petition did not omit the issue. It identified the alleged false statement, the factual basis from which malice was being inferred, and the need for the underlying evidence and discovery to test it.
For other defendants, however, the petition could not responsibly claim the same knowledge without first learning who knew what, who communicated with whom, and who participated in preparing or submitting the disputed materials.
That is exactly the distinction I had been making since March.
The Fraud Theory Was Not Yet Pleaded With the Precision of My Later Amendments
There is also a point here that I think should be stated candidly because it may matter on appeal.
The June 2024 pleading's legal characterization of “fraud” was not yet well developed.
The petition stated:
“A falsified document (Q5), out-of-context statements of mine accompanied by libelous testimony (Q2), and numerous libelous statements by multiple Defendants were used in order to attack my reputation and integrity…”
D0020, pp. 58–59, ¶ 122.
It continued:
“Several Defendants appear to have commit actual fraud…”
D0020, p. 59, ¶ 123.
But the 2024 pleading did not yet neatly organize those facts under the elements of the particular civil fraud theory later demanded by defendants.
That is different from saying no underlying conduct was alleged.
The filing identified a disputed document, described the alleged alteration, identified the ICRC submission in which it appeared, described related statements and screenshots, identified several possible authorship scenarios, and explained why the precise knowledge and participation of each defendant could not be determined without discovery.
My later proposed pleadings attempted to cure the legal characterization by pleading the government-directed misrepresentation theory and coordinated conduct much more precisely.
That progression matters because the appellate issue is not whether the June 2024 petition was perfectly drafted by a trained attorney.
It is whether potentially curable pleading defects—especially defects intertwined with facts unavailable before discovery—properly justified terminating claims with prejudice before the facts could be developed.
The Agreements Were Also Pleaded With Considerably More Detail Than the Original Petition
The Amended Petition separately identified the Garden and Prairie Agreements.
Paragraph 74 alleged:
“Two agreements were entered into between Defendants Reliable Street Inc and myself: the garden agreement involved helping to restore and manage the community garden alongside SHEPH, and the prairie agreement with restoring native tallgrass prairie to surround the garden.”
“I was told these agreements were to last throughout the 2022 growing seasons.”
Paragraph 75 added:
“The garden agreement was also entered into by Lockwood Cafe.”
Paragraph 77 identified how the Garden Agreement began:
“I was asked by Sharon Stewart to enter into the garden agreement around September 20, 2021. Soon after Lyndsay confirmed Sharon's offer, which I accepted.”
And paragraph 78 identified the Prairie Agreement:
“On October 20… I submitted a proposal to Lyndsay Nissen about installing tallgrass prairie surrounding the garden. After meeting with Lyndsay in person, on October 27 Lyndsay gave me the okay to get started…”
D0020, pp. 32–33, ¶¶ 74–78.
Again, those allegations did not merely say, “I volunteered.”
They identified two separate arrangements, different participants, approximate dates, subject matter, duration, acceptance, and performance.
That becomes significant later when the dismissal order reduces the relationship to my being “merely a volunteer.”
Even the Discrimination Theory Was Pleaded as an Inference From Specific Circumstances
Paragraph 81 did not simply state the conclusion that discrimination occurred.
It identified circumstances from which I contended discrimination could be inferred, including:
“When complaints against me were made to Sharon and Lyndsay by Willa and Denise, a presumption of guilt was placed against me in favor of two non-transgender women;”
and:
“My perspective was not considered in their decision making.”
D0020, pp. 33–34, ¶ 81.
Whether that was legally sufficient under the particular discrimination theory I was then attempting to plead is a legal issue.
But it is important for the record to distinguish an inadequately articulated legal theory from an absence of factual allegations.
Those are not the same thing.
The Petition Was Built Around the Boundary Between What I Knew
and What Discovery Was Needed to Reveal
The June 17 filing therefore did not present the court with a blank accusation followed by a demand for discovery.
It presented a detailed chronology, named agreements, identified participants, quoted and summarized communications, identified ICRC submissions, described disputed screenshots and documentary alterations, expressly denied the stalking and harassment accusations, and repeatedly referenced the evidentiary folders supporting those allegations.
What remained unknown was principally information controlled by defendants: authorship, private communications, knowledge, coordination, and the state of mind of individual participants.
Paragraph 8 had already told the court why those questions mattered:
“there is no way for me to know, with the evidence before me, which Defendant(s) had knowledge…”
D0020, p. 7, ¶ 8.
And paragraph 19 stated the objective plainly:
“I want the truth of what happened – and exactly who is at fault – to be revealed.”
D0020, pp. 12–13, ¶ 19.
That is the record Judge Currie had before the evidentiary process changed.
The petition contained substantial factual allegations and pointed repeatedly to an organized evidentiary record. What it did not—and could not—supply were facts exclusively within the knowledge of the opposing parties.
That distinction becomes critical in what happened next.
June 17, 2024:
V. The Court Clarified the Upcoming Hearing Was Not a Trial
The Court Confirmed This Was Not a Trial — But Did Not Withdraw the Evidentiary Component
Order Setting Hearing
Entered June 17, 2024, at 2:31 p.m.
Only hours after I filed the Amended Petition, Judge Currie entered an order setting the unresolved matters for a sixty-minute Zoom hearing.
The order stated:
“As a reminder, this is not the trial and the Court anticipates that the parties will likely only need to present legal arguments, not testimony.”
Read years later in isolation, that sentence could be interpreted as signaling a narrower hearing than the May orders had contemplated.
That was not how I understood it at the time.
I read the June 17 order cumulatively with the court’s prior directions. On May 16, Judge Currie had expressly asked whether the parties intended to present evidence so that sufficient time could be reserved. On May 28, after I disclosed that I intended to present at least thirty exhibits, she stated that the substance of the pending matters would wait until after the hearing so the parties could “present whatever evidence they believe is appropriate” and expressly discussed a hearing involving admitted exhibits and testimony.
Against that background, I understood the June 17 statement primarily as an explanation of what the hearing was not: it was not the trial, and I should not expect a trial-like presentation involving witnesses, testimony, cross-examination, and the full evidentiary process that would occur at trial.
I did not understand it to mean that documentary exhibits had been prohibited or that the evidentiary component established by the May orders had been withdrawn.
The June 17 order did not say:
- that exhibits would not be received;
- that no evidence could be presented;
- that the May 16 or May 28 directions were rescinded; or
- that evidence was irrelevant to every one of the several motions consolidated into the hearing.
Instead, it said the parties would “likely” need legal argument rather than “testimony.”
That distinction mattered to me.
My Amended Petition had already expressly told the court:
“I intend to submit these Exhibits as evidence to the court.”
D0020, pp. 8–9, ¶ 13.
And nothing in the June 17 order told me that I should stop preparing them.
My subsequent conduct confirms how I understood the court’s directions. I continued organizing the evidentiary record. Then, on July 19, Judge Currie specifically directed me to familiarize myself with Chapter 5 — Evidence before the upcoming hearing.
To me, the cumulative message remained straightforward:
This was not the trial, but I still needed to understand the Rules of Evidence and be prepared to present the evidence appropriately at the combined hearing.
That is why the August 9 order did not read to me as a clarification of something I had previously misunderstood. It read as a reversal.
August 3-12, 2024:
V
The July 5 Motion Was Rebuilt Around What the Amended Petition Revealed
The significance of the June 17 disclosure becomes clearer when defendants’ original February 29 motion is compared with their renewed July 5 motion.
The July motion was not simply the old dismissal motion filed again.
Between the two filings, I had been required to answer defendants’ demands for greater specificity. My 64-page Amended Petition identified the defendants connected to particular claims, described the Garden and Prairie Agreements, identified Exhibits A–Q and their contents, disclosed factual theories I could support from my own records, and expressly identified facts I could not yet know without discovery.
Defendants then had approximately eighteen days to evaluate that filing before submitting their new twenty-one-page dismissal motion.
A claim-by-claim comparison shows how their arguments changed.
February 29: Defendants First Demanded More Information
The original motion did two things simultaneously.
It sought dismissal for insufficient factual pleading, while alternatively demanding that I disclose considerably more.
Their Motion for a More Specific Statement identified four supposed deficiencies. Among them:
“the petition does not state which causes of action are applicable to particular defendants”
and:
“the petition does not provide sufficient detail regarding the purported ‘agreement’ between Plaintiff and Defendant Reliable Street, including (1) when it was made, (2) whether it was oral or written, (3) the terms of the alleged agreement, or (4) the nature of the alleged breach”
and:
“the petition does not make any allegations of any conduct on the part of Defendant Nissen”
D0001, pp. 131–132, ¶¶ 93–99.
I objected contemporaneously because I believed some of those demands extended beyond matters I could responsibly know before discovery.
In my April filing, I specifically warned that requiring premature specificity could reveal what I knew while defendants still controlled information I did not know:
“designed to tease out preliminary statements from me”
and I explained:
“some Defendants currently may not know who said what or to whom – and some may not know what exactly Defendants Reliable Street Inc., Lockwood Cafe, Nissen, Stewart, and Esker submitted to the Iowa Civil Rights Commission – or that statements submitted were in fact provably false”
I therefore argued that discovery should occur before the parties were forced to reveal information that could allow stories to be aligned:
“prior to interrogatories and depositions which will occur at a later stage in the proceedings.”
Whether that concern ultimately proves coordinated misconduct is a separate question.
What can now be compared objectively is what defendants asked me to disclose, what I subsequently disclosed, and how their dismissal arguments changed afterward.
Discrimination: Some February Objections Disappeared; the July Motion Focused on Information Still Outside My Possession
The February motion initially argued that my two-page petition did not even clearly allege that I belonged to the protected class:
“Plaintiff fails to allege any membership in a protected class.”
It also argued that I had not pleaded that I sought the accommodations and had not identified similarly situated persons outside the protected class who received different treatment.
D0020 answered much of that.
Paragraph 81 expressly alleged:
“I am a transgender woman, whose gender identity is protected against gender-related discrimination throughout the State of Iowa.”
It further alleged that:
“a presumption of guilt was placed against me in favor of two non-transgender women”
and:
“My perspective was not considered in their decision making.”
By July 5, defendants no longer argued that my transgender status had not been pleaded.
They instead concentrated the public-accommodation challenge on a different missing fact:
“Plaintiff does not allege that similarly situated persons outside the protected class were not deprived of services at Reliable Street or Lockwood Café.”
More specifically:
“Plaintiff fails to allege that non-transgender persons who had generated employee complaints were allowed to continue to patronize Reliable Street or Lockwood Café.”
D0022, p. 17, ¶¶ 81–83.
That evolution matters.
The renewed motion had abandoned one deficiency D0020 had cured and focused instead upon a comparator record I did not possess.
I had no access to defendants’ historical complaints concerning other patrons, who those patrons were, their protected-class status, what employees reported about them, what internal discussions occurred, whether they were warned, whether complaints were investigated, or whether similarly situated non-transgender patrons were permitted to remain.
Those were facts held principally by defendants.
Yet the absence of that information was now being used as a ground for dismissal before I had discovery.
Promissory Estoppel: Defendants Asked for the Agreement’s Details—Then Used Those Details to Construct a New Attack
The change in the promissory-estoppel argument is even more concrete.
On February 29, defendants complained that I had not sufficiently stated:
“when [the agreement] was made,”
“whether it was oral or written,”
“the terms of the alleged agreement,”
or:
“the nature of the alleged breach.”
Their original dismissal theory said that I had not alleged a clear promise of compensation or an ongoing relationship, had not alleged an assurance upon which I could rely, and—although I had “arguably pled the ‘detriment’ prong”—had not adequately pleaded reliance.
D0020 then supplied substantially more.
I alleged two separate agreements, identified the parties, explained that both were oral, stated that they were intended to continue through the 2022 growing season, identified when each was made, and alleged performance until March 31:
“Both agreements were oral with the possibility of being extended in the future.”
“I was asked by Sharon Stewart to enter into the garden agreement around September 20, 2021. Soon after Lyndsay confirmed Sharon's offer, which I accepted.”
and:
“on October 27 Lyndsay gave me the okay to get started, and [I] performed labor in accordance with both agreements until March 31, 2022.”
The July 5 motion accordingly no longer claimed ignorance of what agreements I was alleging. It expressly acknowledged:
“The Petition alleges that Reliable Street entered into two agreements with Plaintiff (1) an agreement related to a garden, and (2) an agreement related to a prairie”
and acknowledged that Lockwood Café was alleged to be part of the Garden Agreement.
The attack then changed.
Defendants now argued the claim should be:
“dismissed out of hand”
because I had described the work as volunteer work.
And, using details revealed in D0020, they specifically invoked the 50-percent café discount and $300 payment for supplies to argue that I had suffered no actionable injustice:
“Plaintiff acknowledges that she was given a 50% discount on all orders at Lockwood Café through March 31, 2022.”
and:
“Plaintiff also acknowledges that she was given $300 which ‘covered most of the supplies I had purchased.’”
D0022, pp. 14–15, ¶¶ 68–73.
That is an unusually clear example of the procedural dynamic.
Defendants first demanded the underlying details because they supposedly could not adequately respond without them. Once I supplied those details, the new motion used those disclosures to formulate a more specific dismissal theory.
Whether that is ordinary adversarial lawyering or became unfair in the context of this case depends on the surrounding procedure.
The problem here was the asymmetry: I was being required to expose my evidence and factual theory before obtaining reciprocal discovery into theirs.
Defamation: After I Cured One Alleged Defect, the Theory Shifted—and One Allegation Was Then Described as Missing Even Though It Was Expressly Pleaded
The defamation comparison is particularly revealing.
In February, defendants argued that the stalking-and-harassment allegation failed because I had not pleaded three elements concerning Willa Colville:
publication, falsity, and malice.
They wrote that I had not specifically alleged that I did not stalk or harass her, and that I had not alleged actual malice.
D0020 responded directly.
Paragraph 73 stated:
“I absolutely never stalked or harassed Willa, nor did I know when she was working, nor did I come in or attempt to intentionally come in during her shifts.”
And paragraph 120 pleaded the state-of-mind allegation in the terminology defendants themselves had invoked:
“Willa knew that I never stalked or harassed her.”
“she acted with knowing or reckless disregard of the truth of the statements she made about me, thus indicating actual malice toward me.”
The July 5 motion no longer argued that falsity had not been alleged.
Instead, it developed a new argument: that accusing me of “stalking and harassing” was protected opinion rather than an objectively provable assertion:
“Ms. Colville’s statement that Plaintiff was ‘stalking and harassing her’ … was a mere statement of opinion”
and:
“these alleged statements … indicate Ms. Colville’s subjective beliefs about the nature of Plaintiff’s conduct.”
That shows the defense theory adapting to D0020.
But what came next is even more significant.
Despite paragraph 120 expressly alleging “knowing or reckless disregard” and “actual malice,” D0022 stated:
“The Petition does not allege that Ms. Colville made any statements with malice.”
and:
“The Petition does not allege that Defendant Colville acted with actual malice, or otherwise did not have regard for the truth of her statements.”
That is not an inference about defendants’ strategy.
It is a direct textual conflict between D0020 and D0022.
D0020 expressly alleged what D0022 told the court had not been alleged.
The Renewed Motion Also Used My Own Cautious Language to Construct Factual Inferences Against Me
There is another important development in the defamation argument.
D0020 tried to distinguish among defendants rather than assume that everyone had the same intent.
For example, I wrote that some conduct by Sharon Stewart and Lyndsay Nissen:
“may have been done out of genuine safety concern for Willa and Denise”
while continuing to argue that acting on untested accusations with a presumption of guilt was discriminatory.
That was deliberately cautious pleading. I was acknowledging an innocent possibility because discovery had not yet established their actual subjective reasoning.
The July motion then used that conditional language affirmatively against the defamation claim.
It argued that my petition:
“concedes that Ms. Nissen understood the purpose of Ms. Colville’s statements was to protect her livelihood and safety at work”
and relied upon my phrase “may have been done out of genuine safety concern” as support for that inference.
This is another reason the information imbalance matters.
My effort not to overstate facts I could not yet know was converted into a purported factual concession about another person's actual state of mind.
But “may have been” is not “was.”
The distinction is precisely the kind of thing discovery was needed to resolve.
Fraud: The Original Weakness Remained—But D0020 Exposed Exactly Which Knowledge I Still Lacked
The fraud comparison is more nuanced and should be presented candidly.
The February motion had already argued that, if my claim were treated as civil fraudulent misrepresentation, it failed to plead all seven elements—including scienter, intent to deceive, reliance, and damages.
D0020 did not yet cure the legal theory cleanly.
But it supplied much more information about the underlying conduct: the allegedly modified document, its use in the ICRC process, the original communication for comparison, out-of-context screenshots, the people through whom the document traveled, and several possible authorship scenarios.
At the same time, I expressly disclosed the limit of my knowledge:
“there is no way for me to know, with the evidence before me, which Defendant(s) had knowledge of the falsified document Sharon Stewart submitted to the ICRC at the time she filed it.”
and:
“short of an admission by one or more of the Defendants, it may be impossible to determine if Sharon had knowledge that the document she submitted was falsified.”
I identified depositions as the means by which that question could be investigated.
The July motion then acknowledged that D0020 implicated Lockwood Café, Sharon Stewart, and Willa Colville in the disputed-document theory, but again attacked the claim for failing to establish all seven fraud elements—including scienter and intent.
So fraud is not the best example of an allegation defendants newly invented after D0020.
It is something more important for the procedural argument:
D0020 made explicit that certain elements turned on knowledge and intent that could not be allocated among defendants without discovery, yet the renewed dismissal motion continued to use the absence of that developed state-of-mind evidence as a basis for terminating the claim before discovery.
What Changed Between February and July
When the filings are placed side by side, a pattern becomes visible.
On February 29, defendants said they needed more information in order to respond:
- Which defendants were subject to which claims?
- What were the agreements?
- When were they made?
- What were their terms?
- What did Nissen allegedly do?
- Which specific facts supported each cause of action?
I objected at the time that some requested specificity involved information unavailable without discovery and that premature disclosure could reveal the structure of my case before reciprocal discovery occurred.
The court-directed process nevertheless led me to provide substantially more.
By June 17, defendants had a sixty-four-page roadmap identifying:
- the claims and relevant defendants;
- two separate agreements and their alleged terms;
- a detailed chronology;
- Exhibits A–Q;
- what those exhibits contained;
- the factual propositions I believed they supported;
- the disputed document and alternative possibilities concerning its creation;
- which facts I believed I knew;
- which facts I was only inferring;
- and which facts I explicitly said could not be known without depositions and discovery.
Then came D0022.
The renewed dismissal motion demonstrates that defendants used the new factual detail to refine their arguments.
Some February objections disappeared because D0020 had answered them.
Other arguments shifted to newly revealed facts.
Still others focused on the precise gaps that remained after I had disclosed the limits of my own knowledge.
That is the point at which the procedural sequence becomes especially consequential.
This Was not Reciprocal Discovery
Defendants had obtained a detailed picture of my evidentiary case without answering interrogatories, producing internal communications, sitting for depositions, or otherwise revealing the corresponding information that remained within their control.
I had disclosed:
what I knew.
what I could prove from my own records.
what exhibits I possessed.
what those exhibits were intended to show.
And critically:
what I still did not know.
The July 5 motion could then be written with all of that information available.
I still could not see the other side of the factual record.
That is the asymmetry.
July 5:
Defendants Again Sought Dismissal Without Discovery,
While Demanding That My Pleading Satisfy Every Element of Every Claim
Defendants did not merely challenge the pleading in general terms. Their twenty-one-page motion to dismiss (D0022) addressed all five possible claims, identified the governing elements claim by claim, and argued that the petition failed to allege facts sufficient to establish one or more—and in some instances every—required element.
Defendants moved to dismiss the amended petition before discovery had begun. Their motion again challenged whether the pleadings alleged enough facts to sustain the claims.
The Court-Directed Process Had Led Me to Reveal
the Contents of My Evidence, Providing Defendants With Information They Could Build Around
There was another consequence of the process that I did not fully appreciate at the time.
By June 17, defendants did not merely know that I had exhibits. My Amended Petition identified Exhibits A–Q and described what they contained—including communications with the defendants themselves, the Garden and Prairie Agreements, the ICRC submissions, disputed screenshots, and the document I alleged had been altered or falsified. Many of those materials consisted of communications in which individual defendants had personally participated.
I cannot establish from the present record whether defense counsel opened and reviewed every linked folder. But defendants had plainly been told what evidence I possessed and what I contended it showed before their August 3 filing opposed the evidentiary component of the hearing.
By July 30, I had also informed the court that the materials were organized into nineteen folders of text messages, electronic communications, photographs, and related records, and I identified several of the elements I believed those materials would support.
That was not formal civil discovery. But functionally, the court-directed evidentiary process caused me to reveal substantial information about the structure and substance of my evidence before I had received reciprocal discovery into defendants' private communications, knowledge, authorship, or coordination.
That asymmetry mattered because I had already told the court in March and April that some of the information defendants were demanding from me could not be known without interrogatories and depositions. I was therefore disclosing the evidence available to me while the evidence exclusively within defendants' control remained inaccessible.
The chronology then became more consequential: defendants did not object when the court initially asked about evidence, when I announced at least thirty exhibits, or when the court reaffirmed the evidentiary process. Their square objection came later, after the amended petition had identified the exhibit structure and after I invoked the May 28 order to request an in-person presentation.
That timing does not by itself establish why defendants waited to object. It does raise a prejudice question: did the court-directed sequence require me to reveal enough of my evidentiary strategy to permit defendants to see the developing case against them, without providing me the reciprocal discovery necessary to learn the information they controlled, before the evidentiary process was then withdrawn?
What the Record Proves, Through Evidence, Context, and Reasonable Inference
The record does not, by itself, establish that defendants originally filed the February motions with a secret plan to extract information for a later dismissal motion. That question concerns purpose and intent. What the record does establish is the sequence and its practical effect: defendants demanded greater specificity; I warned that some requested information was discovery-dependent and that premature disclosure could expose my case asymmetrically; the court-directed process led me to disclose substantially more; and defendants' next dismissal motion incorporated those disclosures, abandoned some objections that had been cured, developed new arguments around newly revealed facts, and continued attacking informational gaps that I had expressly identified as unavailable without discovery.
My contention is that this process functioned as a one-sided substitute for discovery. Defendants obtained an increasingly detailed map of my evidence and its limitations, while I received no comparable access to their internal information. When the evidentiary process was then withdrawn and discovery itself was later characterized as “harassment,” that informational imbalance became materially prejudicial.
August 3-12, 2024:
VI. After I Disclosed My Evidence—and What Only Discovery Could Reveal—Defendants Objected; Then the Court Withdrew the Evidentiary Process
July 19:
Judge Curried Directed Me to Review the Rules of Evidence Before the hearing
Judge Currie's Order Directing Plaintiff to Review Rules of Evidence
Entered July 19, 2024; D0026.
After my July 18 filing, Judge Currie reset the upcoming hearing and expressly directed me, as a self-represented litigant, to review the Iowa Court Rules.
The order stated:
“Plaintiff, representing herself, is expected to be familiar with and comply with the Rules, especially Chapter 1 (Civil Procedure) and Chapter 5 (Evidence).”
and:
“The Court encourages Plaintiff to review the Rules....”
At the time, I did not understand that direction as notice that evidence had been excluded from the forthcoming hearing.
I understood it in the context of the court’s earlier May orders.
On May 16, Judge Currie had expressly asked the parties whether they intended to offer evidence so that “sufficient time may be set aside.”
After I responded that I intended to offer “at least 30 pieces of evidence at the hearing,” the court’s May 28 order stated that the substance of the pending matters would wait until after the hearing so the parties could:
“present whatever evidence they believe is appropriate to do so at this stage of the case”
and expressly contemplated a hearing in which:
“30 exhibits will be admitted and extensive testimony will be needed”
so the evidence could be presented:
“in a commonsense fashion.”
Against that procedural background, the July 19 instruction to study Chapter 5 — Evidence reinforced my understanding that I needed to prepare for the evidentiary component of the combined hearing: what evidence would be admissible, how exhibits should be presented, and what rules governed their use.
I did not read the order as withdrawing the evidentiary process.
Nothing in the July 19 order said that the court had rescinded its May directions, that exhibits would no longer be received, or that the combined hearing had become argument-only.
To me, the practical message was: learn the rules before the hearing.
That understanding is reflected in what I did next.
On July 30, I expressly relied upon Judge Currie’s earlier May 28 order and requested that the hearing be held in person so that the evidence could be presented and discussed. I was not inventing a new evidentiary procedure. I was continuing to prepare under the process I understood the court itself to have established.
That makes the later August 9 ruling materially different from a simple clarification.
By then, I had spent months organizing the evidentiary record in reliance on the court’s earlier orders and had been specifically told to familiarize myself with the Rules of Evidence before the upcoming hearing.
Only afterward did the court rule:
“There should be no reason for the Court to receive evidence at a hearing on a motion to dismiss.”
That is why I describe what followed as a sudden reversal rather than merely a misunderstanding on my part.
July 30:
Relying on the Court's Earlier Orders,
I Requested an In-Person Hearing to Present the Organized Evidence
Plaintiff’s Motion to Estop, Resistance to Motion to Dismiss, and Request for In-Person Hearing
Filed July 30, 2024; D0028.
In this filing, I reiterated that discovery and unpresented evidence were necessary to establish facts supporting my claims. I expressly invoked the evidentiary process established by the court’s May 16 and May 28 orders and requested that the combined hearing be held in person so the evidence could be presented.
“Your Honor, in your May 28 order, you wrote … ‘If the parties anticipate that 30 exhibits will be admitted and extensive testimony will be needed at this hearing, the Court is inclined to hold the hearing in person…’
“Per your May 28 order, Your Honor, I request an in-person hearing so that evidence may be presented and discussed.”
I again stated that dismissal before discovery would prevent the claims from being established, and that I was nearly finished organizing the evidence I had access to:
“To dismiss this case prior to the discovery phase, wherein the claims I made within the Amended Petition will be shown to have merit, would violate my right to a fair trial.”
“I have organized and labeled most of the evidence for this case, as referenced throughout the Amended Petition.”
“My evidence … currently includes 19 folders of categorized text messages, electronic communications … photographs, and similar documents.”
I again explained that dismissal before discovery would prevent facts concerning malice, authorship, knowledge, comparator treatment, and each defendant’s respective role from being developed.
I identified particular elements that would become apparent only through evidence or discovery. For example:
“Once I present evidence to the court, including the falsified document which was presumably created by [Defendant Colville], it will become apparent that the defamation she performed was in fact malicious.”
“It will become abundantly clear following the discovery phase that [Defendant] Nissen actively participated in defamation and fraud against me.”
“Exhibit Q2 … is a Google Doc folder containing evidence that [Defendant Martinez] screenshotted out-of-context statements I made alongside a phony testimony… Once the out-of-context statements are shown within their proper context, it will become evident to the court that Denise is in fact liable for defamation and fraud.”
Regarding discrimination, I explicitly stated that evidence unavailable before discovery would be needed:
“Direct evidence of discrimination will be shown to the court following the discovery phase, at which point direct evidence may be submitted to the court.”
August 3-12, 2024:
VI. After I Disclosed My Evidence—and What Only Discovery Could Reveal—Defendants Objected; Then the Court Withdrew the Evidentiary Process
Before August 3, defendants had already received far more than notice that I possessed evidence.
My June 17 Amended Petition identified Exhibits A–Q, described the nature of the materials they contained, tied particular exhibits to particular allegations, and repeatedly distinguished between facts I could establish from my own records and facts I could not know without discovery.
By July 30, I had disclosed that the material had grown into nineteen organized folders and had identified specific issues the evidence would address.
At the same time, I had repeatedly told the court what remained inaccessible to me without discovery: private communications, authorship, individual knowledge, coordination, comparator treatment, malice, and the precise roles of the different defendants.
That created an important informational asymmetry.
Defendants knew increasingly more about the evidence I possessed, the allegations it supported, and the specific gaps I had identified in my own knowledge. I still had no reciprocal discovery into the information they controlled.
For months, defendants had not objected to the court-directed evidentiary process. They did not object when Judge Currie asked whether evidence would be presented. They did not object when I disclosed at least thirty exhibits. They did not object when the May 28 order expressly contemplated admitted exhibits and testimony.
Their square objection came later—after the Amended Petition had disclosed the structure and substance of my evidentiary case and after my July 30 filing again identified both the evidence I possessed and the facts I still expected discovery to reveal.
Only then did defendants argue that the evidentiary hearing should not occur.
That timing does not, by itself, establish their subjective motive. But the procedural advantage is objective.
They had received a detailed roadmap of what I knew, what evidence I had, what I contended it showed, and what I still did not know—before I had access to discovery into the corresponding information they possessed.
Their August 3 filing then sought dismissal at precisely that pre-discovery stage.
That is the prejudice issue.
I think that gets much closer to what you're trying to show than the current language about merely “seeing the developing case.”
Their motion to dismiss attacked the absence of facts concerning elements and circumstances that I had already identified as dependent, at least in part, upon evidence or discovery unavailable to me.
August 3:
Defendants Opposed the Evidentiary Component of the Hearing
And Mischaracterized the Continuances as Delay
Defendants’ Corrected Reply in Support of Motion to Dismiss and Resistance to Request for Evidentiary Hearing
Filed August 3, 2024; D0030.
Defendants argued that dismissal must be decided from the pleadings and that an evidentiary hearing was improper. They also listed my prior extension requests and argued that further delay would undermine the function of a motion to dismiss.
Their filing did not address why the court had earlier asked whether evidence would be offered, reserved time for it, or reaffirmed that evidence could be presented at the combined hearing. It treated my request as though it arose independently of the court’s May orders.
Their corrected filing stated:
“Defendants strenuously resist another continuance…”
“Iowa courts have specifically held that an evidentiary hearing is not proper at this juncture.”
August 9:
The Court Changed Course,
Ruling That Evidence Would No Longer Be Allowed at the Hearing
Judge Currie's Order Retracting the Opportunity to Present Evidence at the Forthcoming Hearing
Entered August 9, 2024; D0032.
This order produced the “sudden reversal” described in the title of this installment.
The court invited evidence, reaffirmed that evidence could be presented, later directed me to review the Rules of Civil Procedure and Evidence, and then withdrew the evidentiary process after I had relied upon the earlier directions—before dismissing fact-dependent claims “with prejudice.”
The May 16 order had expressly directed the parties to disclose whether they intended to offer evidence so that sufficient time could be set aside. After I responded that I intended to offer at least thirty exhibits, the May 28 order reaffirmed that evidence could be presented before the substance of the pending matters was decided and described how a hearing involving thirty admitted exhibits and extensive testimony could proceed.
The June 17 order had said that the parties would “likely” need legal argument rather than testimony because the hearing was not the trial. It did not prohibit exhibits or rescind the court's earlier evidentiary directions. My subsequent understanding that evidence remained part of the combined hearing was reinforced when Judge Currie later directed me to study the Rules of Evidence.
The August 9 order was markedly more categorical, and marked the "sudden reversal" central to this article. The order stated that there was “no reason” to receive evidence and treated my request as procedurally misplaced. The manner in which Judge Currie framed my request made it appear as if I did not read her previous orders. It also did not acknowledge that the combined hearing had contained a motion to dismiss the entire time, and that this was still a combined hearing.
"Plaintiff's Resistance to Defendants' most recent Motion to Dismiss also includes requests to reschedule the matter for an in-person hearing (rather than the Zoom hearing she previously agreed to) and to give her additional time to present evidence.
As the Court explained in a previous order, a hearing on a motion to dismiss is not an evidentiary hearing.
When determining whether to grant a motion to dismiss, the court views 'the allegations of the petition in the light most favorable to the petitioner' and resolves any doubts in her favor.
The court 'accept[s] as true the petition's well-pleaded factual allegations, but not its legal conclusions.'
Typically, the court 'cannot consider factual allegations contained in the motion [to dismiss] or the documents attached to the motion.'
There should be no reason for the Court to receive evidence at a hearing on a motion to dismiss. The requests are denied for an in-person hearing and that the parties be given additional time so Plaintiff can present evidence.
Furthermore, the Plaintiff was already given one extension of the hearing date to complete her resistance.
The motion to dismiss was filed July 5, more than one month ago. The Court declines to continue the hearing again."
The problem was not merely that the court ultimately applied the general rule that motions to dismiss ordinarily are decided from the pleadings. The problem was that the court had established an evidentiary process for a combined hearing involving several unresolved matters, allowed me to prepare and organize evidence in reliance on that process, and then withdrew it without clearly separating which matters could receive evidence and which could not.
The August 9 order framed my request as unnecessary without acknowledging that I had made it expressly “per” the court’s May 28 order. It treated the correct general rule governing motions to dismiss as though that rule resolved the confusion, but did not explain why the court had previously directed the parties to prepare for evidence at a combined hearing that included the dismissal motion.
The Court Did Not Distinguish Between the Different Matters Set for the Combined Hearing
The August 9 order accurately stated the general rule that a motion to dismiss ordinarily is decided from the pleadings rather than outside evidence. But the scheduled hearing was not limited to defendants’ July 5 motion to dismiss.
The court identified four groups of matters to be heard:
1. defendants’ February 29 motion to dismiss, alternative motion to recast, and alternative motion for a more specific statement;
2. my March 15 motions to estop and amend;
3. defendants’ July 5 motion to dismiss the amended petition; and
4. my renewed July 30 motion to estop.
The court had previously established an evidentiary process for this combined hearing. It had directed the parties to disclose whether evidence would be offered so that sufficient time could be set aside, reaffirmed that evidence could be presented before the substance was decided, and described how thirty admitted exhibits and extensive testimony could be handled.
The August 9 order did not explain whether evidence might remain relevant to amendment, estoppel, recasting, or the demand for a more specific statement while remaining unavailable for the motion to dismiss. Instead, it applied the rule governing dismissal to the hearing as a whole and limited all four matters to one hour of legal argument.
The issue therefore was not simply that I attempted unexpectedly to introduce evidence into an ordinary motion-to-dismiss hearing. The court knew that I was preparing evidence for a combined hearing it had structured, knew that the amended petition referred to that evidence, and knew that I had identified other facts as unavailable without discovery.
August 12:
I Reminded the Court the Evidentiary Request Came From Its Own Orders —
and Offered to Present the Evidence Later
After the August 9 ruling, I tried to resolve the procedural problem rather than insist that the entire evidentiary record had to be received during the August 12 hearing itself.
In my August 12 response to Defendants' reply (D0031), filed several hours before the hearing, I explained:
“My request to schedule the evidentiary hearing was in response to Judge Currie's previous order coupled with my confusion with regard to order of process…”
I also argued that the pleading should survive where the allegations raised a reasonable expectation that discovery would reveal supporting evidence:
“A theory asserted need only be plausible in order to survive a motion to dismiss … which requires enough fact to raise a reasonable expectation that discovery will reveal evidence of the conduct alleged.”
I then cited Iowa Rule 1.457, reflecting my understanding that factual development could require later amendment:
“Such amendment of the pleadings as may be necessary to cause them to conform to the evidence and to raise these issues may be made upon motion of any party at any time, even after judgment…”
Most importantly, I expressly told the court:
“I have no objection to the evidentiary hearing being scheduled after today's hearing.”
I therefore was not insisting that the August 12 hearing itself become a trial or that every exhibit had to be received that day. I was asking that the procedural path the court had previously established not become the reason the evidence and discovery were never reached at all.
No later evidentiary hearing occurred before most of my claims were dismissed with prejudice, and discovery still had not occurred.
August 12, 2024:
VI. With Evidence Excluded,
Defendants Characterized Discovery Itself as "Harassment"
Three days after the court eliminated the evidentiary component of the hearing, the parties appeared by Zoom on August 12.
The certified transcript confirms exactly what the hearing had become:
“NO WITNESSES WERE CALLED”
and:
“NO EXHIBITS WERE OFFERED OR ADMITTED.”
The documentary evidence I had spent months organizing was therefore not examined. The hearing proceeded as legal argument only.
What happened during that argument is important because defendants did more than contend that my Amended Petition was legally insufficient.
Their attorney returned to the same narrative that had followed me from the ICRC proceedings into the litigation: that I was the aggressor, that my attempts to obtain redress were themselves harassment, and that allowing the case to proceed would merely enable more of it.
He told the court:
“if this case is not dismissed, the very clear context is that the defendants will be subjected to additional harassment with the blessing of the court system: harassment through discovery, harassment through pleadings, document requests, depositions.”
He then argued that my public interest in reaching discovery demonstrated how eager I was to continue that supposed harassment.
That statement went directly to one of the central conflicts already documented in this case.
Since March, I had explained that discovery was necessary to determine facts I could not truthfully know from the outside: who authored particular materials, who knew about them, what defendants privately communicated with one another, who participated in particular decisions, and whether the representations made to the ICRC were coordinated. The June 17 Amended Petition expressly stated that there was “no way” for me to know which defendants possessed certain knowledge without discovery and specifically identified depositions as necessary.
Now the ordinary mechanisms by which those facts could be obtained—document requests and depositions—were themselves being characterized as harassment.
I rejected that characterization immediately:
“I have never harassed the defendants.”
I explained that I was trying to use the lawful processes available to resolve the dispute, not regain personal access to anyone:
“I don't want to harass them. I've been trying to take care of this in avenues that our government gives us, which is to try to resolve situations with the only peaceable and legal ways that we have to do it.”
I further explained that I had not been going to their property, confronting them, or attempting to insert myself back into their lives:
“So to say that I'm harassing by, for example, wanting this to move forward in discovery? No. I want this over and behind me.”
Later in the same hearing, I again explained that I had sought mediation, had not gone out of my way to contact defendants, and viewed discovery as the means of finally resolving the factual dispute rather than prolonging it.
My Student Legal-Research Project Was Mischaracterized to Build a new False Narrative Against Me
Defendants' attorney then added another characterization that bears on the broader pattern documented throughout this series.
He began by correctly noting that Iowa courts generally apply substantive law equally to represented and self-represented litigants. But he went further. He argued that those standards should apply with:
“particular force to this particular plaintiff”
because, according to him, I:
“actually hold[] herself out as an expert on the law”
and published a supposedly comprehensive guide to litigation.
That was not an accurate description of what I had represented.
ReUniteTheStates.org was a student and public-access legal-research project—not a claim that I was an attorney or legal expert. Improving the project had been my Spring 2023 Honors project in Business Law, and the website was operated through Wild Willpower PAC.
More importantly, its front-page disclaimer had been published long before this hearing. It expressly stated:
“This webpage constitutes a grassroots attempt to make the justice system more accessible for the average civilian.”
and:
“Information throughout this page does not constitute legal advice, nor should it be construed a replacement thereof.”
It further warned:
“Some information may be incorrect or out of date.”
and instructed readers:
“do not use this website as your sole source of law-related information.”
So when defendants' attorney told the court that I held myself out as an “expert on the law,” the website he invoked expressly said the opposite.
I corrected that characterization during the hearing:
“I have not put that anywhere in any of my websites. I haven't said that out loud, and I don't contend to be.”
I explained that the project identified itself as a student resource, that I was not a licensed attorney, and that it compiled materials from court websites, legal dictionaries, and other research sources.
I also explained why I had been forced to teach myself enough law to proceed at all. I had contacted more than fifty attorneys seeking representation. The least expensive quote I received required $5,000 up front and $275 per hour. Unable to afford that, I began organizing legal resources for my own use and making them publicly available so others without counsel could have a better starting point.
That distinction matters.
Trying to learn the law because I could not afford counsel was being reframed as a reason to hold me to an even harsher standard. Trying to obtain discovery was being reframed as harassment. And the same allegation of harassment I was suing to challenge was again being used to argue that the case itself should not be permitted to proceed.
That does not, standing alone, establish every element of retaliatory intent. But it is part of the contemporaneous record supporting my contention that the defendants repeatedly carried the same damaging narrative forward into new procedural settings—and then used that narrative to argue against the very processes through which its accuracy could have been tested.
The Result of the Hearing
The August 12 hearing therefore ended without testimony and without admission of a single exhibit.
The court had previously directed the parties to prepare for the possible presentation of evidence; I had disclosed and organized that evidence; defendants objected to the evidentiary component; the court withdrew it; and at the resulting argument-only hearing, defendants characterized further discovery itself as harassment.
No witness was examined. No exhibit was admitted. No deposition had occurred. No interrogatory answers had been received.
Yet less than two months later, most of my claims would be dismissed with prejudice.
October 4, 2024:
VII. The Court Declined To Consider the Referenced Exhibits
and Dismissed All But One Claim
Judge Currie's Order Dismissing All But One Claim w/ Prejudice
Entered October 4, 2024; D0036.
Judge Currie stated:
"Sondra referenced several exhibits in her Amended Petition. The exhibits are apparently saved in a Google Doc folder. The Court does not have access to the exhibits and does not consider them in addressing the motion to dismiss. See Rucker v. Taylor, 828 N.W.2d 595, 598 (Iowa 2013) ('[D]istrict courts generally do not consider facts outside the pleadings in evaluating a motion to dismiss.').'"
Defendants did not cite Rucker v. Taylor in their July 5 motion to dismiss or their August 3 reply opposing an evidentiary hearing. The case first appears in the filings reviewed here in Judge Currie’s October 4 ruling, where she cited it to explain why the exhibits referenced in the amended petition would not be considered.
A Procedural Asymmetry Became Increasingly Apparent
When I made a procedural mistake in July, Judge Currie emphasized that I was expected to know and comply with the Rules, specifically directing me to study Civil Procedure and Evidence.
I accept that self-represented litigants are ordinarily held to procedural rules.
When the October dismissal was later entered, Judge Currie independently cited Rucker v. Taylor as authority for declining to consider the exhibits. There is nothing inherently improper about a judge researching and applying controlling law.
But the practical asymmetry mattered.
I was responsible for independently locating and understanding procedural law, and my mistakes could operate against me. At the same time, the court could independently locate additional authority supporting a procedural result that excluded the evidentiary record I had organized in reliance upon its earlier directions.
The concern is therefore not that Rucker was cited. It is what followed: the exhibits were excluded, discovery had not occurred, and most claims were nevertheless dismissed with prejudice for factual insufficiency.
A ruling that outside evidence could not be considered at the motion-to-dismiss stage did not require the court to decide that potentially curable claims could never be clarified, amended, supported through discovery, or presented again in the same action.
Even if excluding outside evidence was procedurally correct, why did that require dismissal with prejudice before potentially curable deficiencies could be developed through discovery or amendment?
The Court Recited a Plaintiff-Favorable Standard
But Used Unresolved Facts Against the Claims
The court stated that the allegations had to be viewed in the light most favorable to me and that reasonable doubts were to be resolved in my favor. But that protection appears largely absent from the result.
Where authorship, knowledge, malice, coordination, comparator treatment, and individual participation remained uncertain, the ruling treated the absence of fully developed detail as a reason for dismissal—even though I had repeatedly identified those exact subjects as matters requiring defendants’ documents, private communications, interrogatory answers, and testimony.
A plaintiff-favorable standard should not operate only as introductory language. It should determine how uncertainty is resolved. Here, uncertainty arising from defendants’ control of essential information was repeatedly converted into a defect in my pleading.
The court dismissed every claim except one libel claim. Most of the dismissed claims were dismissed with prejudice, preventing them from being reasserted in this action.
That statement completed the procedural circle. The court had directed preparation for evidence, received repeated notice that I was organizing it, later withdrew the opportunity to present it, and then noted that the exhibits were inaccessible and would not be considered.
At the same time, the court dismissed most claims for insufficient factual allegations before discovery had revealed the information I had repeatedly identified as being within defendants’ control. Most of those dismissals were with prejudice.
I do not contend that the court was required to use outside evidence to decide whether the amended petition stated a claim. The narrower and more serious issue is that the court’s own orders led me to prepare for an evidentiary process involving several pending matters, did not clearly distinguish which matters could receive evidence, withdrew the process after I had relied on it, and then imposed dismissal with prejudice before either the organized evidence or discovery could inform amendment and further factual development.
My appellate contention is that the cumulative effect materially prejudiced my ability to present, clarify, preserve, and obtain adjudication of claims whose factual development had never been completed.
The Broader Equality Argument Is Addressed on the Case Landing Page
The broader statutory and Iowa constitutional equality theories arising from these events are addressed separately on the case landing page; this installment is limited to what happened procedurally before those theories and their factual basis could be fully developed.
Read the Full Equality Analysis in Section VI of the Case Landing Page
The dismissal foreclosed not only factual development, but the opportunity to develop, preserve, and seek appellate review of legal theories that had not yet been fully briefed.
VIII. The Court Said It Was Testing the Pleading —
But Then Supplied Facts and Explanations of Its Own
Before examining the individual claims, Judge Currie correctly stated the motion-to-dismiss standard. The October 4 order explained that the court was to presume well-pleaded facts true while disregarding facts outside the pleading, and that dismissal was appropriate only if the claims were legally deficient as a matter of law:
“[T]he court ‘presume[s] the well-pleaded facts to be true while eschewing any facts asserted by either party outside the pleading.’”
“The court ‘accept[s] as true the petition’s well-pleaded factual allegations, but not its legal conclusions.’”
A moving party is
“entitled to dismissal only if the petition shows the claim or claims are legally deficient and the plaintiff has no right of recovery as a matter of law.”
Order Granting in Part and Denying in Part Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss, D0036, p. 8.
That distinction is critical because my Amended Petition did not plead the factual explanation Judge Currie ultimately supplied for defendants’ conduct.
What I Pleaded
For example, I alleged that Nissen’s contemporaneous communications had appeared genuinely positive to me. In describing our relationship, I pleaded that she frequently sent heart signs, smiley faces, and expressions of gratitude and that:
“Over time I became under the impression we were friends. We always had a wonderful time at the open mics.”
I further alleged that the negative feelings later attributed to her were not apparent to me during those months. The same pleading separately documented specific approvals and expressions of gratitude surrounding the garden and other projects.
I also alleged that the March 31 decision had already been made before I was given any meaningful opportunity to respond:
“their mind was apparently made up before the meeting started. They had resolved to ban me from the property, with no conversation, and with only a vague, offensive allegations which merited more explanation than I was given.”
Amended Petition, D0020, p. 26, ¶ 59.
And in the discrimination section, I expressly alleged that the circumstances raised an inference of discrimination because:
“When complaints against me were made to Sharon and Lyndsay by Willa and Denise, a presumption of guilt was placed against me in favor of two non-transgender women.”
Amended Petition, D0020, pp. 33–34, ¶ 81.
I also alleged that my perspective had not been considered before punitive action was taken.
What Defendants Asked the Court to Conclude
Defendants disputed the legal sufficiency of those allegations.
Their July 5 motion stated at the outset:
“Defendants have been subject to years of harassing conduct by Plaintiff, both inside and outside of the legal system.”
Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss Amended Petition, D0022, p. 1, ¶ 3.
They further stated that Reliable Street and Lockwood Café had barred me:
“due to reports of harassing conduct towards customers and employees.”
D0022, p. 2, ¶ 5.
On public-accommodation discrimination, defendants argued that I had not alleged a comparator:
“Plaintiff does not allege that similarly situated persons outside the protected class were not deprived of services at Reliable Street or Lockwood Café.”
They specifically argued that I had not identified
“non-transgender persons who had generated employee complaints [who] were allowed to continue to patronize Reliable Street or Lockwood Café.”
D0022, p. 17, ¶¶ 81–84.
But that comparison itself illustrates the discovery problem. Information concerning complaints against other patrons, how defendants handled those complaints, internal discussions, comparator treatment, and the reasons for particular exclusions was not information reasonably available to me before discovery.
And on promissory estoppel, defendants repeatedly relied upon my use of the word “volunteer.” They argued:
“The promissory estoppel claim should be dismissed out of hand in light of Plaintiff’s concession that all of her work on the garden and prairie ‘was done as a volunteer.’”
and:
“Volunteering is, by definition, work that is not compensated.”
D0022, pp. 14–15, ¶¶ 68–73.
Those were arguments about whether the facts I pleaded were legally sufficient.
What the Court Then Said Happened
The October 4 order went further.
In its conclusion, Judge Currie supplied an explanation for why defendants had communicated positively with me:
“the others may have maintained excitement in their responsive text messages to her even if they were not quite as positive about all of Sondra’s involvement in reality.”
“In an apparent effort to spare Sondra’s feelings, they were not entirely truthful with her.”
D0036, p. 26.
The order then supplied another explanation for the exclusion:
“Eventually, one or more employees of Lockwood Café complained to the owner about Sondra. In response, Sharon supported her employees.”
It characterized the legal and factual relationship this way:
“Sondra was merely a volunteer and had no right to expect payment when she was asked to no longer return to the facilities.”
And it made categorical statements about discriminatory treatment:
“There is no evidence that Sondra was asked to leave because she is a trans woman.”
“There is no evidence that any of the Defendants ever said or did anything to treat Sondra differently due to her identity.”
The order continued:
“Just the opposite – it appears that each of the individual defendants went out of their way to be nice to Sondra and avoid saying anything directly to her that would upset her.”
D0036, p. 26.
And one of the strongest statements appears on the next page. After characterizing my theory as accusing people I regarded as friends of having “nefarious intentions from the start,” the court stated:
“Simply put, that was not the case.”
D0036, p. 27.
That sentence is especially important.
“That was not the case” is not phrased as a conclusion that my pleading failed to allege a legally cognizable cause of action. It reads as a determination of what actually happened and what defendants actually intended.
Yet discovery had not occurred.
That is the Contradiction
The October 4 order simultaneously said that the court could not consider facts outside the pleading and that my well-pleaded facts had to be accepted as true—while also supplying explanations about defendants’ private feelings, reasons for communicating positively with me, reasons for excluding me, and whether they possessed discriminatory or “nefarious” intent.
Those were among the very subjects I had repeatedly said could not be fully known without discovery.
That does not mean a court is prohibited from drawing every legal conclusion from pleaded facts. A motion to dismiss necessarily requires the court to decide whether the alleged facts, taken as true, satisfy the law.
The narrower appellate question is whether the court crossed that line by resolving competing factual inferences against me—particularly concerning motive, state of mind, credibility, and the actual nature of the parties’ relationships—rather than simply deciding whether the facts I pleaded were legally sufficient.
The Derecho Hypothetical Shows the Same Problem in a Different Form
In addressing the Garden Agreement, the court recognized that I had alleged Nissen told me that Emily Poag and I were “in charge” of the garden throughout the 2022 growing season. It nevertheless reasoned:
“For example, if a derecho had taken out the garden, Sondra would not have completed the 2022 growing season and Sondra would not have been entitled to any particular financial benefit in exchange for her volunteer work to that point.”
D0036, p. 18.
But that hypothetical did not describe an allegation in my petition. I had alleged that Nissen herself represented that I and Poag were “taking the lead” and “in charge” for the year, and that I performed months of work in reliance upon the arrangement. D0020, p. 18, ¶ 35.
Defendants had argued that the claim failed because I was a volunteer and because no clear promise of continuing compensation or guaranteed relationship had been alleged. D0022, pp. 14–15, ¶¶ 68–73.
The question for appellate review is whether substituting a hypothetical natural disaster for the conduct actually alleged was an appropriate way to determine pleading sufficiency—or whether the reliance consequences of defendants’ own alleged promises and conduct required factual development.
The underlying Garden and Prairie evidence is reconstructed in Political Sabotage, Exhibit C.
IX. Dismissal With Prejudice Magnified the Fact-Finding Problem
Even if Judge Currie correctly identified deficiencies in parts of my June 2024 pleading, the consequences of those deficiencies were a separate question.
The court did not dismiss most claims merely because they required clarification. It dismissed them with prejudice.
That distinction mattered because the missing facts were not all of the same kind. Some were tied to an evidentiary record I had already organized and repeatedly told the court I intended to present. Others concerned matters I had expressly identified as being within defendants' control—authorship, private communications, knowledge, malice, individual participation, comparator treatment, and coordination—and therefore required discovery.
In the June 17 Amended Petition itself, I explained why that distinction mattered. When defendants demanded that I identify which parties knew about the disputed ICRC material, I wrote:
“there is no way for me to know, with the evidence before me, which Defendant(s) had knowledge of the falsified document Sharon Stewart submitted to the ICRC at the time she filed it.”
I continued:
“In fact, short of an admission by one or more of the Defendants, it may be impossible to determine if Sharon had knowledge that the document she submitted was falsified. This is, in large part, why [I] wish to acquire depositions from each of the Defendants.”
Amended Petition, D0020, p. 7, ¶ 8.
That is especially significant for allegations involving fraud and coordinated conduct.
The final document could show that a presentation had been altered or that accounts conflicted with contemporaneous records. But the document alone could not necessarily reveal who created it, who supplied it, who knew it was inaccurate, what communications occurred before submission, or whether multiple participants coordinated their accounts.
Those questions are not peripheral to fraud, malice, or conspiracy. They can be central to them.
My June 17, 2024 Amended Petition did not state civil conspiracy as a separately labeled cause of action. But it did identify unresolved questions of coordination and expressly explain that discovery was needed to determine the roles, knowledge, and communications of the different defendants. In my later proposed amended pleadings, after I had been able to reconstruct the record more fully, civil conspiracy was expressly pleaded as a separate claim. The significance of the October 4 dismissal is therefore not that a conspiracy count had already been dismissed by name; it is that dismissal with prejudice became a barrier to developing and presenting the coordinated-conduct theory that the earlier pleading and discovery requests were already attempting to investigate.
Yet discovery into those subjects had not occurred before the claims were dismissed with prejudice.
The result was therefore more consequential than a ruling that my 2024 pleading needed greater specificity. It converted an incomplete, pre-discovery pleading into a barrier against later presenting the fuller facts and legal theories that discovery and amendment were supposed to develop.
I later attempted to do exactly that. I reorganized the claims, distinguished the Garden and Prairie Agreements from ordinary unpaid volunteer work, pleaded contractual and equitable theories more clearly, added abuse-of-process and conspiracy allegations, and attached the reconstructed evidentiary record directly to proposed amended pleadings.
But by then, the October 4 dismissals had become part of the reason those fuller theories could be resisted as already foreclosed.
That is why I am asking the appellate court to examine not only whether particular claims were adequately pleaded in June 2024, but whether dismissal with prejudice was an appropriate remedy where potentially curable deficiencies overlapped with facts that could not reasonably be developed before discovery.
A ruling that outside evidence could not be considered in deciding a motion to dismiss did not necessarily require the court to decide that those claims could never later be clarified, amended, supported through discovery, or presented again in the same action.
The “with prejudice” determination is what turned the procedural problem into a lasting one.
X. Next: Plausible Deniability
The October 4 ruling did not end my effort to challenge the dismissals.
After settlement proceedings ended, I began trying to reorganize the pleading, attach the supporting evidence more clearly, and seek reconsideration of Judge Currie's order.
But the next phase of the case became a fight over the procedural history itself.
A newly assigned judge initially did not account for the orders that had stayed and restarted the reconsideration deadline. I then had to reconstruct that history while defendants recast earlier continuances as a “yearslong pattern of delay and obfuscation” and increasingly portrayed my continued litigation as a source of stress, expense, and fault.
The time spent answering those characterizations came from the same finite period I was trying to use to challenge the October 4 dismissals and complete a cleaner amended petition. By spring, that conflict collided with a five-class semester, finals, and other extraordinary events occurring at the same time.
Part Six, Plausible Deniability, reconstructs how the opportunity to substantively challenge the October 4 ruling was progressively consumed before the reconsideration window closed.
Part Six: Plausible Deniability
