When recent news stories claimed that Leah Remini’s lawsuit against Scientology and its leader David Miscavige had been “gutted” by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Randolph Hammock, we told you we found that to be a strange assessment.
In fact, Judge Hammock had left in eight of Leah’s nine causes of action, including the most important ones regarding her claims of harassment and tortious interference by Scientology’s goons.
Well, some of the press may not understand what a favorable ruling that was for Leah, but David Miscavige apparently does, because he’s now moved to have Judge Hammock peremptorily removed from the case, claiming that Judge Hammock is prejudiced against him.
Leah first filed her lawsuit on August 2, and she herself peremptorily removed the first judge who was assigned to the case, Judge William Fahey. He was replaced by Judge Barbara Scheper, who then recused herself because her husband had done work as an attorney for Scientology.
That’s how we ended up with Judge Randolph Hammock, who we liked. We got to see him in action earlier this year in Los Angeles, and we enjoyed the way he handled both sides in the case, and talked about using “common sense” when it came to things like judging whether there was malice in Scientology’s attacks on Leah online. Of course there was, he said.
Yes, Judge Hammock did remove numerous paragraphs from Leah’s defamation claims because either they were time-barred (too much time had passed) or because they were, Judge Hammock found, to be opinion and not statements of fact.
But he let stand her allegations of personal harassment, interference with her business contracts, and she has moved to put back in some of the defamation claims that were repeated by Scientology’s social media feeds in more recent attacks. Also, she has moved to add more allegations about Miscavige personally, and to add a count of Civil Conspiracy against the Scientology leader.
It was all too much for Miscavige, apparently, who had his personal attorney Jeffrey Riffer submit the peremptory challenge.
We can’t wait to see who we get next.
Scientology’s attempt to gut Bixler lawsuit DENIED
After Danny Masterson was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison on September 7, the lawsuit that had been filed against him and the Church of Scientology by his victims in 2019 finally got a chance to get going again.
But before they could submit a new version of their complaint, Scientology filed four special motions to strike against their 2020 complaint, which we said at the time seemed sort of odd. If Scientology knew a new version was coming, why try to gut the old one?
Well, Judge Upinder Kalra didn’t go for it, and on Monday he finally delivered his ruling flat-out denying all four motions to strike.
Repeatedly in his lengthy ruling, Judge Kalra pointed out that at this stage in the lawsuit, the Jane Does only minimally have to allege that they had been terrorized by a conspiracy run by Scientology. Proof of those allegations can come later, and it’s too early for Scientology to get the case kicked out of court at this point.
For example, Scientology has argued that some of the people who had attacked the Jane Does in various ways, including online postings, were not, in fact, agents of the church itself. But Judge Kalra pointed out that Scientology can’t simply make that assertion and have the court accept it as fact. It’s the other way around at this point in the lawsuit, and the fact that these attacks were being made after news of the case first broke does suggest a conspiracy being advanced by Scientology itself.
What is clear is that all of the activities of the actors shared a similar characteristic. First, they all occurred after Plaintiffs’ accusations against Masterson and the ensuing LAPD investigation were publicly revealed. Second, the content or context of the attacks shared comparable features. Each actor either directly attacked the Plaintiffs about their accusation of sexual misconcduct at the hands of Masterson, or their victimization by Defendants or was similarly harassing that coincidentally occurred after Plaintiffs’ accusations against Mastrerson and the other Defendants became public. This alone is sufficient to satisfy the minimal showing that a conspiracy in fact existed and that individual actors who engaged in similar conduct were co-conspirators.”
Again, proof connecting those people to the church will have to come later, but at this point the Jane Does only need to allege it, and they have done that properly.
Judge Kalra completely shut down Scientology’s attempt to strike portions of the lawsuit.
Now, he will have to consider whether to allow in the new complaint, which adds a fourth victim and racketeering allegations against Scientology. A hearing is scheduled to hear arguments on that for May 29.
Wow, a huge victory for the Jane Does, and Scientology cannot be happy about it.
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Did Missavage admit to being served or did I miss something? "...David Miscavige apparently does, because he’s now moved to have Judge Hammock peremptorily removed from the case, claiming that Judge Hammock is prejudiced against him."
So, he thinks this lawsuit is all about him? Hmmm, what an ego!
Leah and the Jane Does will prevail. I can't imagine the public standing by and continuing to let Scn unleash its terror freely.
Theoretically each of the CoS entities could also premptorily remove the judge on their own one at a time until they feel they got their best shot in the Remini suit? At what point in all these hearings is it too late for them to do so?