Scientology tells court: Two arbitrators have agreed to serve in Valerie Haney case

Last week we told you that attorney Graham Berry had taken charge of Valerie Haney’s case in a big way, submitting filings which included new names for possible arbiters in her lawsuit against Scientology, which has been forced into “religious arbitration.”

Previously, Scientology had said that the people Valerie nominated, including Elisabeth Moss, Tom Cruise, and Shelly Miscavige, were unavailable. This time, Valerie submitted 15 names, including such Scientology figures as Jenna Elfman, Giovanni Ribisi, John Coale, and Rebecca Minkoff.

Now, Scientology has informed Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Gail Killefer that one of those 15 people has in fact agreed to serve as an arbitrator. Also, Scientology is revealing that it nominated an arbitrator of its own in July of last year who agreed to serve.

“In short, Defendants and Plaintiff each have an arbitrator to hear this dispute,” Scientology says.

Those two arbitrators will now select a third person, and the arbitrating panel will be ready to serve. (All three must be members of the Church of Scientology in good standing.)

In the court papers submitted Wednesday, Scientology did not name either of the two arbitrators who have agreed to serve, redacting the name of the person nominated by Scientology last July because, they said, “Plaintiff and her agents have been targeting designated arbitrators with unwanted publicity and intimidation by providing their names to the tabloid press.”

Besides keeping the names under wraps, Scientology also is objecting fiercely to Berry’s recent filings, blasting him for submitting affidavits the church says are “improper, unreliable, or inadmissible.” In particular, the church is objecting to affidavits from Mike Rinder and Luis Garcia, as well as the stunning January 2022 appellate ruling that restored the civil lawsuit filed by Danny Masterson’s accusers, but which, Scientology points out, was a ruling that was “unpublished.”

In a footnote, Scientology attorney William Forman indicated just how put out the church is…

Defendants this day have served a motion for sanctions directed to Plaintiff and her counsel for the extraordinary amount of false, misleading, and impermissible material in Plaintiff’s Response to the Order to Show Cause and accompanying exhibits and declarations. As pointed out in the motion for sanctions, Mr. Berry has been cited before by a judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court for being a vexatious litigant. The motion for sanctions shows that he continues to burden the judicial system with false and frivolous submissions.

Berry has long been a thorn in the church’s side, handling cases against Scientology since the early 1990s, when he famously had process servers target several of Scientology’s celebrities at a Winter Wonderland event.

Valerie filed her lawsuit against Scientology in June 2019, alleging that she had been held against her will as a Sea Org employee at Scientology’s secretive “Int Base” east of Los Angeles, and that she had escaped from the base in 2016 by hiding in the trunk of a car. She then went to work for Leah Remini as her assistant for several years, and during that time she alleges that she was harassed, stalked, and libeled by Scientology. (Valerie continues her work in the entertainment industry, but she’s now working for another producer.)

Scientology derailed Valerie’s lawsuit when it filed a successful motion arguing that a contract Valerie signed when she formally left the church obliged her to take any grievances to Scientology’s own brand of “religious arbitration” and not to a court of law. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Richard Burdge granted Scientology’s motion in January 2020, denying Valerie a right to trial. A contract is a contract, he ruled, and Valerie would have to take her case to Scientology’s own brand of internal justice.

Valerie filed numerous motions and petitions trying to get Burdge’s order overturned, to no avail. And under a new judge, Judge Gail Killefer, Valerie was under pressure to get the arbitration process going or risk having the lawsuit dismissed outright.

It’s very important to understand that Scientology’s “arbitration” is nothing like the kind of independent arbitration that you might have gone through if you ever had to settle a claim with a doctor or a roofer or an employer. In that sort of arbitration, a retired judge or other person is selected by both sides to be the arbitrator, and that person listens to evidence on both sides and renders a verdict from a neutral position. Handling things this way saves the court system a lot of time and money, and that’s why judges can be anxious to divert cases to arbitration in order to lighten their caseload.

Scientology’s arbitration is completely different. Founder L. Ron Hubbard never described rules for arbitration, and Scientology is built on the premise that everything must come from Hubbard, who is known as “Source.” So under Hubbard’s successor, David Miscavige, a jackleg set of procedures has been cobbled together from the rules for Scientology “committees of evidence,” which is something like a court martial. (Hubbard was a Navy man in WW2.) Adapting those “CommEv” rules, Scientology arbitration takes place with a panel of three arbitrators, who must all be members in good standing.

This has been one of the chief objections raised by former Scientologists suing the church. They know that simply by filing a lawsuit they will be declared “Suppressive Persons,” which is Scientology’s way of labeling someone an enemy of the church. There’s no way, these former members say, that a panel of three Scientologists in good standing would ever hear a case fairly that involves an “SP.”

The only previous time a court-ordered arbitration was held, plaintiffs Luis and Rocio Garcia say they were denied an attorney, they couldn’t bring smartphones, they were denied a transcript of the proceedings, and the “International Justice Chief” didn’t allow 90 percent of the evidence they had brought.

And now, with her arbitrating panel nearly set, Valerie Haney may soon experience a similar “court” with all the rules set by Scientology.

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Tomorrow on the Underground Bunker podcast

We hope you had a chance to see HBO’s excellent 2021 investigation into the origins of the QAnon phenomenon, Q Into the Storm, directed by Cullen Hoback. One of the surprising stars of the series was Fredrick Brennan, the young man who had founded 8chan, the imageboard that became the nursery for the QAnon movement, something Brennan came to regret.

It turns out that Fred is a regular reader of the Underground Bunker and had reached out to us. We invited him on for a rollicking podcast episode to talk about the similarities between Scientology and QAnon, and other subjects. It will be available to everyone tomorrow morning at 7 am Eastern.

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Source Code: Actual things founder L. Ron Hubbard said on this date in history

Avast, Ye Mateys: Snapshots from Scientology’s years at sea

Overheard in the Freezone: Indie Hubbardism, one thought at a time

Past is Prologue: From this week in history at alt.religion.scientology

Random Howdy: Your daily dose of the Captain

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