David Miscavige insists he was still not served, asks court for time to object to ruling

[UPDATE: Judge Barber has granted Miscavige’s request, and the Scientology leader can put off answering the lawsuit itself until his objections to the ruling naming him a defendant can be heard. Isn’t American justice grand?]

We’re looking forward to the two sides in the Baxter v. Scientology labor trafficking case to turn in their 10-page answers to Judge Thomas Barber’s question about “duress” today.

We expect each of those answers to include arcane legal references to past US Supreme Court rulings about arbitration; Judge Barber is trying to decide if he even has the right to rule on whether former Sea Orgers Valeska Paris and Gawain and Laura Baxter were forced to sign contracts that would derail their lawsuit.

While we’re waiting for that legal catfight to ensue, we noticed that Scientology leader David Miscavige is up to his usual legal shenanigans.

If you remember, the big news recently was that Magistrate Judge Julie S. Sneed had ruled that Valeska and the Baxters proved to the court’s satisfaction that Miscavige has been evading their attempts to serve him the lawsuit. She ruled that he has been properly served by substitution, and that he is an official defendant in the case. She gave him 21 days to make his first answer to the lawsuit’s amended complaint.

But hold on, not so fast, Miscavige says.

He’s asking the court for more time to answer the complaint, because in the meantime he says that he doesn’t accept Judge Sneed’s ruling, he doesn’t believe he’s been properly served, and he is going to be filing objections to her ruling and wants the court to rule on it by tomorrow!

Sheesh. The nerve of this guy.

Mr. Miscavige currently faces a situation in which he must prepare a response to the First Amended Complaint without knowing whether the Court will sustain the Objections and set aside the Order deeming him served…Without the enlargement of time, Mr. Miscavige will be required to participate in these proceedings, with all attendant burdens, including answering or moving to dismiss the Amended Complaint, as though he has been properly served and made a litigant, though he contends he was not.

(Emphasis ours.)

So Dave is saying that it’s too much a burden on him to answer a lawsuit that was filed last April, and that his fellow defendants (CSI, RTC, etc) answered long ago, because he is objecting to Magistrate Judge Sneed’s ruling, and wants the court to drop everything it’s doing and rule on Dave’s objection by tomorrow.

See how they are, judge?

Most likely this is just a forgettable speed bump in the case, and the real action will come later today as the two sides turn in their 10-page arguments for whether Judge Barber can rule on what is before his very eyes, that these plaintiffs were forced to sign ridiculous contracts that would put them into a Scientology star chamber.

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