Clark Carr
There’s more back and forth between Narconon International’s president, Clark Carr, and the National Association of Forensic Counselors. If you recall, the NAFC filed a massive lawsuit — with 82 defendants — against Scientology and its drug rehab network, Narconon, alleging that Scientology had been misusing the NAFC’s trademarks and logos for several years in an attempt to make the rehab program appear more legitimate than it is. The ultimate aim of this effort was to attract people into the program and then into Scientology itself, the NAFC alleged. The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Oklahoma, because that’s where the rehab system’s flagship facility is — the ailing Narconon Arrowhead.
But then Carr countered by filing a class action lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court, saying that he and an undefined number of other people had been harmed by the NAFC’s “fraudulent” and useless certifications. Carr said that although the NAFC claimed its certifications for drug counselors were “national” in scope, they aren’t recognized by California state government, where Narconon International is headquartered. Carr had apparently just realized this was the case after listing “CCDC” after his name for years — the Certified Chemical Dependency Counselor certification that the NAFC issues.
NAFC lawyer David Keesling responded by having Carr’s class action removed to federal court, and then filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, criticizing Carr for trying to pull a fast one by not notifying the Oklahoma federal court of his Los Angeles lawsuit, or even mentioning that the NAFC was suing him in his complaint. Carr filed an opposition to the remove, asking for his suit to be remanded back to state court. And now, we have two new filings. We have Carr’s response to the NAFC’s motion to dismiss the class action. And we have the NAFC’s opposition to Carr’s attempt to have the case remanded back to superior court.
We’ll let the lawyers go through both documents and let us know in our comments section if they’re impressed by the legal arguments they find.
Here’s the opinion of one of our legal helpers, who went through Carr’s filing: “If Carr thinks the NAFC certifications are ‘worthless’ and ‘bogus’ in California, why didn’t he, as the president of Narconon International, research the certifications before using them and allowing other Narconon employees to use them? He tries to come off as an innocent who didn’t know any better, but he’s the highest level officer in the organization, and he claims the certificates have been ‘bogus’ for years. The NAFC should have fun exploring how ‘innocent’ he really is.”
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Garcia judge asks for a quick response about Scientology’s Rinder aversion
Just yesterday we told you that Scientology is asking for its former spokesman, Mike Rinder, to be kept out of the deposition of the church’s “International Justice Chief,” Mike Ellis, in the federal fraud lawsuit brought by Luis and Rocio Garcia.
Rinder has been acting as an expert witness and consultant for the Garcia team in the suit, which was first filed in January 2013. The Garcias are alleging that the church used fraudulent means to convince them to donate hundreds of thousands of dollars. The church responded by asking Judge James D. Whittemore to compel the Garcias to use Scientology’s internal arbitration procedures to settle the dispute, characterizing the dispute as religious in nature and not proper for a civil court.
Whittemore has scheduled a hearing on February 18 to decide the arbitration motion, and he has allowed both sides to schedule depositions in advance of it. The Garcias are eager to question Ellis. The “IJC” submitted a declaration in the lawsuit that Mike Rinder subsequently trashed. Rinder cited his own personal experience of helping to write up the church’s arbitration rules, which he characterized as a sham.
Scientology didn’t like the idea of Rinder sitting in with the Garcia team as Ellis is questioned in deposition, and it asked for a protective order to keep Rinder out.
If Scientology was hoping for a simple “yes” from Judge whittemore, they didn’t get it. Whittemore has asked the Garcia team to respond to Scientology’s motion, and he gave them only four days to do it. Holidays? What holidays? We like how seriously this judge is taking things in this case, and how determined he seems to be to get things done.
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Posted by Tony Ortega on December 17, 2014 at 07:00
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