Judge Hammock to rule today that RTC will remain in Leah Remini’s Scientology lawsuit

[Leah Remini and Judge Randolph Hammock]

Judge Randolph Hammock issued a tentative ruling yesterday in anticipation of today’s continued hearing in Leah Remini’s lawsuit.

And while it reveals that he will agree with Scientology and add more paragraphs from Leah’s lawsuit that will be stricken, he also plans to overrule Scientology’s objections to the declarations from Mike Rinder and Claire Headley, and will keep the Religious Technology Center (RTC) in the lawsuit.

Today’s session is a continuation of a hearing that began on January 16 and resumed on January 19. (We were fortunate enough to be at both.) At the hearing on the 19th, attorney Robert Mangels raised an objection that Leah’s lawsuit didn’t make specific allegations about RTC, which is the nominally controlling entity in the Scientology movement. (Leah is also suing the Church of Scientology International and RTC’s chairman, David Miscavige.) Mangels argued for RTC to be let out of the lawsuit.

Judge Hammock explained that at this early stage in the trial, Leah only needs to allege that RTC has contributed to the harassment and stalking that she says she’s been subjected to. And since RTC had not bothered to file a separate opposition from CSI in the last round of filings, Judge Hammock decided that he would allow Leah a short time to add more evidence to her complaint in the form of supplemental declarations.

Mike Rinder and Claire Headley did just that, submitting detailed declarations which described RTC’s role in retaliation campaigns in Scientology’s history. Both Mike and Claire asserted that RTC and Miscavige would be behind any campaign of harassment against Leah.

Scientology bitterly opposed the new sworn statements, calling Mike and Claire “partners in bigotry” and said they had been out of Scientology too long to know how it operates today.

But in his tentative ruling, Judge Hammock says that the declarations from Rinder and Headley meet the minimum standard he’s been citing. And it’s fun to see him summarize what those declarations contain…

Rinder contends it is “incorrect” to call RTC an entity separate from the “other Scientology entities that defame and attack Leah Remini.” Instead, it too is “micro-managed” by Defendant Miscavige, and aids Scientology’s efforts to silence Suppressive Persons…

[Claire] Headley corroborates that Defendant Miscavige, as Chairman of the Board of RTC, “directs the activities” of OSA. She attests that “[o]ne of the primary roles David Miscavige plays as head of RTC is the planning and supervision of campaigns intended to silence, muzzle, and destroy anyone who violates Scientology’s policies.” Headley “attended and personally witnessed many meetings…in which David Miscavige outlined what steps were to be taken to accomplish the goal of destroying and silencing” Scientology’s enemies.

With Leah’s submission of these new declarations, Judge Hammock says in his tentative ruling that she has met her burden to tie RTC to the allegations in her lawsuit. “Plaintiff has met her burden to establish that Defendant RTC is a proper Defendant,” he writes.

But it’s not all bad news for Scientology. At the hearing on January 16, CSI’s attorney William Forman raised a number of items that he wanted the judge to toss out of Leah’s lawsuit along with the ones he had already decided to strike because they were either too old to fit for the defamation allegation, or were clearly just opinion or parody. Because, you see, Scientology can call Leah names all it wants, as long as it doesn’t make factual claims about her.

So, after reviewing Forman’s list, Judge Hammock has agreed to add to the list of items that are being struck from the lawsuit. Among the articles posted by Scientology that are not actionable because they were posted more than a year before the lawsuit was filed, for example, are such gems as “Leah Remini is a Disgrace to Women of Valor Everywhere,” “As the World Remembers the Holocaust, Bigot Leah Remini Inspires Praise of Hitler,” “Leah’s Anti-Religious Sugar Daddy’s History of Drug Dealing and Cons,” and “Remini: Aftermath Propaganda Inciting Religious Hate.”

On the other hand, after arguments made by Leah’s attorney Linda Singer at the previous hearings, Judge Hammock has put back in a few items, including a tweet by Scientology claiming that certain advertisers had dropped Leah’s Game Show Network program People Puzzler, and allegations made by Leah in reference to attacks on a publicity firm she had employed.

So it’s a mixed bag in some ways, but in general Scientology was largely unsuccessful in its attempt to derail Leah Remini’s lawsuit. Judge Hammock plans to let her most important claims about harassment and tortious interference stand, even if she has lost numerous parts of her defamation claims.

And now, with a third attempt to get this hearing finished over three weeks, we have a feeling Judge Hammock is going to be more likely to adopt his tentative ruling today and then move on. We’ll let you know what we hear.

Wednesday UPDATE: We called the court clerk today after we didn’t see a Minute Order filed on the docket. We were told that after considerable argument yesterday, Judge Hammock still didn't rule but has taken the matter under submission.

This guy. So for now, we wait.

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Chris Shelton is going Straight Up and Vertical

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