Los Angeles Law Library - Corrupt Practice

                                                                                    Christine Langteau
To Judge Mark Juhas

Los Angeles Superior Court  

111 Hill Street

Los Angeles, California

Dear Sir/Madam,

20th February 2018

My name is Allan H. Palmer; I have registered as a patron with the County of Los Angeles Law Library. I have been using the named library for about three years to date. I was issue Library card number 1189-xxx-xxx-xxx, which I often use for computer access. I began using this facility while I was working on a Civil Rights matter, which was later file before in the California District Court, case number CV-2016-1311 and later I filed another case CV-2016-5247.

I am not a lawyer, however; I am acting on my own behalf as Pro Se litigant. I depend of the professionalism, knowledge and integrity of the law Library reference staff, to provide me with the information to reply to the court in an efficient, effective and timely manner to avoid the premature termination of my case. I am also researching and trying to categorized new incidents that may possible lead to further litigation, not malicious litigation; but litigation which represents a pursuit of Justice.

I am not one to complain unless a matter may have future impact on my use of a facility and or a service; as a result I will complaint to ensure that an escalation or a worsening of the problem does not ensue.

I have been using the service of reference librarians from my first day at the library, and being one who holds the opinion that it is very important and always try to learn the culture of the facility of whose service I use on a regular basis. Therefore I paid attention to the librarian in their interaction with me and with other patron who uses the service of the library. I have had for the most part, the good pleasure of the assistance of six of the reference Librarian at the Los Angeles County Law Library in my search for information, and I have always been satisfied with the quality of service, the level of courtesy, the degree of helpfulness and the standard of professionalism, the Librarian extended to me and the general service I have received. Unfortunately there is one exception, and that exception is librarians of whom this report is about.

I have never disrespected any member of the County Los Angeles, Law Library staff, and I have always go out my way to offer genuine compliment to members of staff, about various things, including the level of help they have efficiently offered me.

As I have said earlier, I have learn the protocol at the library, as it relates to the interaction with the reference librarian and the members of the public, who come to this facility looking for information, upon making a request. From my experience and observation, my understanding of the protocol is:

After a library patron makes a request for information, if it is information the Librarian do not have the information on hand; they will quickly consult their reference on their computer, after which they escort the patron, to the area of the library where the most appropriate piece (s) of literature can be found. The librarian will then select the most appropriate book, consult the index and flip the page to most appropriate location in the book in the presence of the patron. They normally end their service with a question soliciting if there is anything else they can do for the patron; and most of the times they encourage patron to return to the reference desk if they will like any further help.

I have had the opportunity to use the service of Christine Langteau, one of the reference Librarians at the County of Los Angeles Law Library on four separate occasions. Unfortunately for me, my experience for the better part has been an extremely disappointed one. In dealing with me, Mrs./Ms.  Langteau fail to follow the established protocol that has been followed by the other reference Librarian, whose service I have used repeatedly over the past three years. Ordinarily I would have over looked this as just rude and or unprofessional conduct, unfortunate there was an incident that happened that cause me to view Ms Langteau’s action in a different light and give me the ability to put my previous experiences with her into context.

Since I filed the above mentioned cases, I have been having mail tampering problems, which was geared to causing me to default on my obligation to keeping the cases acticve in the US district court. To ensure I did not default on the matter, causing a premature termination of the cases; I came up with two strategies, one of which included the Los Angeles County Law Library, where I planned to periodically check the activities on the cases at the Los Angeles County Law Library on the Federal Court System; a service the Law Library offers for a small fee.

I did this few times with no problem, in the last third of the year 2016; I went to the reference desk, as I have done a few times previously; Christine Langteau, was the available reference librarian at the reference desk (I have never used her service before) when I was summon I went to her and I made my request to check CV-2016-1311 which I did before. She asked me to excuse her and explained that she have to go into the little office on the north of the reference area for her pass word to the federal pacer system.

Mrs. Christine Langteau, went into the office and immediately went on the phone and made a phone call, when she was finished with the call, she return to the desk with an attitude and began to look up the information I needed. While in the process of providing the service, she said you know you can go to the Federal court and look up the same information, and she said in an annoying tone, it is best you do that because doing this (making the search) is very time consuming. I found her attitude and suggestion as being strange. I told her I knew that, the information can be access at the federal court, then I asked her, why will I want to walk to the District Court and clear security each time I want to look up the information when the library provide the service for a small fee?

My second encounter with Mrs. Christine Langteau, came around early February of 2017, I was involved in an incident and I did not know how to categorize the incident, so I went to the law library, to try and put the incident into prospective.  At the desk Ms. Christine Langteau was the available librarian. I told her I will like information about “class discrimination” if there were any law that governs that. She pointed me to what is considered the Supreme Court section (the first row of books north of the reference desk) at the library and told me, I may find what I am looking for over there. I walked over to the set of books not knowing where to start and what I was looking for, so I immediately return to the reference desk to seek the help of another reference librarian.

When I return to the reference desk, I notice Ms. Langteau, was still sitting at her chair, before her desk, having a secretive conversation on the phone. I know it was secretive because, I have seen her help patron on the phone before, and the level of her voice, her posture and body language were consistent with that. In this case Me. Langteau had her head down, her mouth was almost into the transmitter of the phone and she was whispering, her head was down as if to block out all else, and she held the phone with both hands as if to guard the information she was sharing. The first time I asked her assistance, I did not think anything of her, excuse to get her enough space from me to carry on a private phone conversation, and I did not take anything of it on this occasion. She ended the call when I got into ear shot of her conversation. After she ended her phone conversation, she came from behind the reference section and said to me, let’s go over here, she walked me to the same area where, she sent me to earlier, and then she asked me what are you looking for? A short while before she was so sure of what I was looking for, that in her professional opinion, she thought I could have found it on my own, that she sent me to look for it; now she is asking me what I was looking for.

However, I repeated my request to her, then she look at me as if I was speaking foolishness, with both of her hands open palm up in front of her, at the level of her chest while both shoulders hunched upward encasing her neck, with a look that confer that I was making a foolish request of her. I knew that I will not reach anywhere with the poor attitude that Ms. Langteau, were displaying so, I told her not to worry; I will find the information on my own.

On February 9^th 2018, I went to the Los Angeles Law Library to do some additional research, on a civil case I am working on, I went to the reference desk to get some help, as is my custom. When I went to the reference desk, I noticed Mr. Langteau was the only person at the desk, I know she was one who always looks for some reason not to provide the service, I requested. So I left, went over to the book shelve #24, I took up one of the book and I ensure I had the correct spelling of the word Annotated, I wrote my question on a piece of paper, then I returned to the reference desk and made my request. “I am looking for the Annotated section for equal protection under the law.” She looked at me blankly and in a condescending tone, asked me what is that, I said to her it is right covered under the 14^th amendment. It was then she pointed me to the book shelve # 18 and said those are the constitution go and look in those maroon books over there. In the same manner she did. So I went over to the book shelve and I suddenly realize, I did not know where to start, it was reminiscent of my last encounter with Ms. Langteau.

As a result, I immediately return to the reference Desk to seek the assistance of another reference librarian. On my arrival to the reference desk, there was another person waiting on the other reference librarian for help. When I get to the reference desk, I noticed, Ms. Langteau was on the phone in the same manner she was some months ago. She held the receiver of the phone with both hands, her right hand held the middle of the receiver and her left hand held the lower part of the receiver, her mouth was directly over the open end of the receiver and she was whispering, however this time her whisper was audible, and I hear reference Librarian Ms. Langteau discussing my request with the person on the telephone. I stood there silently as I listen. She was taken aback when she looked up and saw me standing at the reference desk listening to her conversation.

After which, she got up from her seat, and said: “the United States constitution is over her, I walked with her to shelve # 18, she took nine (9) volumes from shelves #18 eastern section and another book put them on the top of the book shelves and said happy reading and walked back to her seat at the reference desk. That was as far as her assistance went; bearing in mind that my only reference to the 14th amendment was in answering her question to narrow down my request to to lend clarity to her pretend ignorance. 

I looked at Ms. Langteau and I smiled as she walked back to her place at the reference desk. I then walked back to the reference desk and I waited my turn and I give the same information to another reference librarian, who give me what I was looking for it was USC 42 1985 and she give me some supplementary reading which I did not need.

After I received the help I needed, I immediately took picture of the search result of the two librarian that was given the same information. I did a quick comparative edit of the photos and I post said photo on Facebook. below is a link and the edited pic I shared. 

Facebook Reference: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=543434456026007&set=a.132820307087426.1073741826.100010783712244&type=3&theater

The actions of Christine Langtuea is not unprofessional it is corrupt and constitute the offence of corruption. To pass on information to a third person of the request a patron made, to her in the capacity of your professional practice, is bad enough, but to take step that goes outside the library official protocol, steps one is required to work with, in order to sabotage a library patron research, and hinder his ability to complete their work is taking it to another level.

No one ever engages in such practice for the fun of it, but 90% of the time there are reward involved. The question I will like answer for is. Who is the person Christina Langteau was and has been relaying my request for information to (although I have a sneaking suspicion) and what reward did she received for forwarding those information, and sabotaging my legal efforts. 

It was my intent to name her in a lawsuit I intent to file later this year, however, to do such may convey the wrong impression to the public of the hard working and basically honest reference librarian that comes to work every day and do their best to serve the public.