When Volume One of Sic Itur Ad Astra was published in 1999, the Subscribers to the Pre-Publication Subscription Agreement (PPSA), sometimes referred to as the “book contract,” were told by the trustees that the remaining several volumes would be published soon. However, years passed and they weren’t produced, but without explanation or notice. Finally, in 2004 Subscriber Frederic G. Marks, formerly Galambos’ attorney and the co-author of the PPSA, brought up the matter with trustees Wayne Joyner and Charles W. Hayes. He learned that they had reversed their previously enthusiastic position toward publishing and now held that the book should not be sold without a non-disclosure agreement. Because he had worked with Galambos on the PPSA Marks knew that this was the opposite of what Galambos had intended.  Galambos had intentionally not included a non-disclosure agreement in the PPSA, and to require one now would directly violate both his wishes and the written contract itself.

 

Despite repeated attempts to reason with the trustees, spanning approximately two years, they refused to yield on the matter. Marks felt that the only way to get the book published was to file a lawsuit against Joyner and Hayes, which he did in 2006.  Joining him as Plaintiffs were fellow Subscribers Joseph Hentz, Stuart Smith, JeanMollenhauer, Rogan Coombs, Joseph Droll, Gregg Rooten, Thomas R. Wood, Marilyn Wood, Greg Staininger, and John Fountain.  I believe that it is likely that many more people would have joined them but for the most part people were unaware of the action.  I did not learn of it until more than a year after it was over.

 

In the course of the litigation it was revealed that Joyner had appointed Peter Giansante as trustee. It has now become apparent that Giansante was the driving force behind the trustees’ violation of the contract by refusing to publish, and their withdrawal of Volume One from the market.

 

Unbelievably to me, Marks and his fellow Plaintiffs did not prevail at trial.  In 2007 the judge, in what seemed to me to be as faulty a reading of the situation as you could imagine, ruled in favor of the trustees.  Among other things he ruled that the publication of Volume One constituted “full performance” and that leaving out V-201 entirely was the trustees’ right because editing is a “creative and artistic endeavor” for which there is “no objective standard by which completion can be measured.”To some extent, I suppose, he was following the “letter” of the law, but the spirit was entirely overlooked. Reading the judge’s decision made me sick. Any Galambos student can imagine what the Professor’s reaction would have been if he had learned that what he called his most important course had been left out, and that his trustees had gloated about their legal victory. (See May 2009 Open Letter).With trustees like that, he didn’t need any 
enemies. Links to the pertinent legal documents are below. My extensive comments on the decision and on Wayne Joyner’s presentation of it to FEI’s’ customers are in my letter to Joyner of June 28, 2014.