Judge denies Valeska Paris redo: Trafficking case still stuck in arbitration
When Tampa federal Judge Thomas Barber forced into “religious arbitration” the labor trafficking lawsuit filed against Scientology by former Sea Org workers Valeska Paris and Gawain and Laura Baxter because of contracts they had signed as employees, he said he couldn’t consider their claims that they had been coerced to sign those contracts because a Supreme Court ruling tied his hands.
Last month, Valeska’s attorneys filed a motion asking Judge Barber to reconsider that ruling because a new opinion from the Supreme Court, Coinbase, Inc. v. Suski, issued on May 23, changed the underlying law and should allow Judge Barber now to consider those claims of fraud and coercion.
Scientology responded that Coinbase did no such thing. It was a ruling, the church’s attorneys argued, that only applied when multiple, conflicting contracts are involved, and that was not the situation in this lawsuit.
The three Australian residents sued in Tampa in 2022 over allegations that Scientology abused them as children and adults working in the Sea Organization and aboard Scientology’s cruise ship, the Freewinds. Judge Barber ruled that the contracts they signed obligated them not to sue the church but instead to submit to its internal form of arbitration.
And now, he has agreed with Scientology that the new Supreme Court ruling does not change the underlying law and does not justify a reconsideration of his ruling…
Upon careful consideration, the Court concludes that, contrary to Plaintiffs’ position, Coinbase does not constitute an intervening change in the law that would warrant reconsideration. In Coinbase, the Supreme Court considered who should decide the issue of arbitrability in the event of two conflicting contracts – one with an arbitration provision and one without an arbitration provision….
In the instant case, although there are multiple arbitration agreements, none conflict on this issue. Each agreement quite clearly sends disputes – including fraud and duress challenges – to the arbitrator. To be clear, Coinbase’s holding does not constitute an intervening change in the law because its holding corresponds to a unique factual scenario that is not presented here, and Coinbase otherwise agrees with the well-established holdings of Buckeye and Prima Paint. Plaintiffs’ motion for reconsideration is therefore denied.
Ugh. We were afraid that he might see it this way. And we know that he is sympathetic to Valeska’s situation. Judge Barber was clearly unhappy that the law prevented him from even considering her argument that she had been forced to sign Scientology contracts without even getting to read them.
After his March 2023 ruling forced the case into Scientology arbitration, he granted Valeska and the Baxters the right to petition the Eleventh Circuit for an interlocutory appeal, but that petition was denied. And now Barber has denied their motion to reconsider his ruling.
So now, Valeska and the Baxters, unless they come up with another idea for a motion, are faced with following in Valerie Haney’s footsteps: They will have to actually go through the arbitration so they can then appeal to the Eleventh Circuit afterward (and this would not be a petition the appeals court could refuse to hear.)
As we’ve seen in Valerie’s case, Scientology has turned its “arbitration” into a grueling, abusive process, and after five days of ludicrous sessions, Valerie still sees no end in sight to it. Also, even if Valeska and the Baxters submit themselves to the same thing and manage to finish it, they would be appealing Judge Barber’s ruling to an Eleventh Circuit that has already upheld Scientology arbitration in the case of Luis and Rocio Garcia.
It’s not a good situation. As we’ve pointed out before, US courts have made it extremely difficult for ex-Scientologists to sue Scientology for what happened to them while they were members of the organization. The lawsuits that have escaped this trap (Leah Remini’s defamation lawsuit and the harassment suit filed by Danny Masterson’s victims) are different because they are suing for what Scientology is doing to them since they have left.
We feel for Valeska and the Baxters. We will reach out to them to see if we can find out what they intend to do.
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Disgusting.
Is there any legal reason why Valerie can't just wear a wire into her fake arbitration session and publicize it? Hard to get good video in that situation without being caught, but audio would be easy.
If the lawyers screech about it, just point out that according to Hubbard all such proceedings are supposed to be recorded on cassette tape. For ironic media points, the recordings could be provided to the judge in that format.
My guess is that even the threat of that in this backdoor comments section that nobody but a few hard-core Scientology critics and OSA ever read might be enough to end the arbitration proceedings toute-suite. We can only hope.
When Scientology bullied its way into tax exemption 31 years ago, they won more than the right to not pay taxes, they won the right to hide the abuses they committed on their indentured servants. It’s time the IRS took off their blinders and cut Miscavige down to size. I know what Scientology did back then, but Miscavige has effectively decimated the internal membership since then. What is it going to take to get them to do something?