Scientology asks court to freeze Laura D’s forced-abortion case for a long-shot appeal

We told you that Bert Deixler, Scientology’s top-flight attorney, had filed a notice that the church planned to appeal a federal court ruling even after getting shot down in its latest attempt to throw up a roadblock before Laura DeCrescenzo finally gets her day in court this August on her 9-year forced-abortion lawsuit.

Now, we have the actual argument that Deixler is making to the Los Angeles Superior Court that it should put a stay on Laura’s case while the church pursues a long-shot appeal even after its Hail Mary federal lawsuit was stomped by a judge who killed it “with prejudice” to keep it from coming back.

As a sign of the church’s desperation, Deixler uses some pretty intimidating-sounding language in this motion for a stay to convince the state court in Los Angeles that it should hold things up since the church’s federal appeal could win the day and make everything go away…

“This Court should not proceed to trial in the matter when there is a real possibility that trial will be unnecessary or, worse, that trial would go forward in a case later enjoined by the federal courts, thus wasting both the parties’ and the Court’s resources,” Deixler writes.

Wow. Let’s remember how we got here so you can get some sense of how obnoxious that statement is.

Laura was just 12 years old when she signed the billion-year contract of the Sea Org and began working 90-hour weeks until she turned 13, when she was put on the 112-hour adult schedule. When she was 17, she’s testified, she was coerced into having an abortion because that’s been Scientology policy since at least the 1970s, that its Sea Org women end their pregnancies so they can keep up the grueling schedule. The policy was supposedly ended in 2010, but we’ve seen some evidence that it’s still continuing today. Laura escaped the Sea Org in 2004 after getting so desperate to leave she drank bleach and was kicked out. She stayed in the church itself for four more years, but then filed her lawsuit in 2009 once she realized that it was an option. That delay — she was supposed to have filed it by 2008 — has been in part why the case has dragged on so long, but it’s also because she had to defeat two separate motions for summary judgment filed by the church, and numerous times the case changed judges.

She finally has a trial set for August, but in December Scientology filed its long-shot lawsuit in federal court, trying to argue that a federal judge should step in and wipe out Laura’s state court lawsuit, even though Scientology has been litigating it there for years.

That federal judge, George Wu, saw through Scientology’s gambit, and he granted Laura’s motion to dismiss on May 3, with prejudice, preventing the church from refiling the case with some changed language. It was about as much a slam-dunk as Laura could hope for, and the way seemed clear for her state trial.

But now Deixler is arguing that Laura’s case should be put on hold so Scientology can pursue a long-shot appeal of its long-shot federal gambit.

We hope the state court can see through this dishonesty. A hearing in the matter has been set for June 8.

We asked attorney Scott Pilutik, who has followed this case for years, for his thoughts on this motion…

Scientology is asking the California court to hit the pause button on the looming trial date while its federal appeal is heard by the Ninth Circuit. They’re right that a successful appeal would moot the need for a trial, but they’re misrepresenting their appeal’s chances for success, which is a key factor in determining whether to allow the stay. An appeal based on a hail-Mary motion brought years after it could have conceivably been brought, and that was rejected “with prejudice,” isn’t likely to find a friendly ear.

I’m unsure of the particular interplay between federal and state court concerns here but I don’t believe Scientology even can appeal the federal court decision by right, given how they’re attempting to use it to stay a trial. To the extent this can be viewed as an interlocutory appeal, such appeals have to clear a higher bar because they’re naturally regarded as potential delay tactics. Except it’s not a true interlocutory appeal–Scientology is playing federal and state courts off each other.

Recall that this case started out, many years ago, in federal court until Scientology successfully got one of the federal causes of action dismissed on statute of limitations grounds, thus robbing federal court of jurisdiction, which is why we’re now in state court.

Scientology’s argument here appears to be that the California courts, in deciding that Laura’s claims weren’t time-barred (despite that the statute of limitations had run) due to Laura’s credible claim that Scientology’s misconduct caused her to delay filing, got it wrong in that they should have applied federal law instead of California law to that question. And, the argument goes, that federal analysis would have resulted in granting preclusive effect to that original federal dismissal, resulting in the dismissal of all of Laura’s claims.

Scientology’s argument raises too many questions it can’t answer straight-faced, such as why California would be required to analyze a state-claim statute of limitations question under federal law principles, and why Scientology waited years to bring the federal action it now claims implicates dire federal state comity issues.

 
Here’s the document filed by Deixler…

DeCrescenzo v. Scientology: Motion for stay during appeal by Tony Ortega on Scribd

 
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HOWDYCON UPDATE

Hey, we’re only a month away from this year’s HowdyCon in Chicago, June 21-23. As in past years, we’re looking forward to meeting readers of the Bunker, culminating in Saturday night’s main event.

The biggest difference this year is that our Saturday night event is separate from that evening’s dinner. Chee Chalker is setting up an inexpensive pizza dinner that you don’t need to pay for ahead of time, after which we’ll walk over to the theater where our event, hosted by Chicago Fire star Christian Stolte, will take place. Because it’s a separate event, we’re asking that you pay $10 each to get into the Saturday night event, which will help us recoup what the Bunker paid for the venue. (We have never made a penny on our HowdyCon meetups, we only try to break even.)

Please email your proprietor (tonyo94 AT gmail) in order to reserve your spot for Saturday night’s main event. Seating is limited, and we’re going to have some really interesting people on stage and they may make a few announcements that you don’t want to miss.

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on May 23, 2018 at 06:25

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