Wollersheim v. the Church of Scientology was a 22 year court case, finally settled in May of 2002 with the payment of $8.6 million by the Church of Scientology.
It raises interesting issues of freedom of religion, and how responsible cults must be for the results of their actions.
Case History Summary.
In 1980, Lawrence Wollersheim filed suit against the Church of Scientology of California (CSC), claiming damages for intentional and negligent infliction of severe emotional distress. This is known as the Instant Action, and finally went to court in February 1986. After five and a half months, the jury awarded Wollersheim $30,000,000.
There were, as expected, a huge number of appeals and countersuits, the main ones being:
- In 1989 the second district of California Courts of Appeal reduced the award to $2,500,000.
- Subsequently the California Supreme Court denied review, upon which the case was appealed to the US Supreme Court.
- During this time period, another case (Pacific Mutual Life Insurance Co. v. Haslip (1991)) impacted upon the punitive damages aspect of the Wollersheim case, and the Supreme Court remanded the case back to the Appeal Court. The Appeal court reaffirmed its decision.
- CSC again appealed (1992) to the Califormia Supreme court, which again denied review (1993).
- CSC then appealed again to the US Supreme Court, which again denied review.
Additional Scientology Tactics
During the course of the case, CSC employed several tactics. It launched a number of tangential legal actions designed to ruin Wollersheim financially and destroy his ability to continue with the lawsuit. The California Court recognised the malicious nature of these lawsuits, fining CSC $500,000 under what is known as SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation).
Scientology also attempted to rearrange its corporate structure, stripping $500,000,000 from CSC and redistributing it to other Scientology corporate entities. It was necessary for Wollersheim to launch new lawsuits against other Scientology entities that had received the assets.
In fact this proved to be the killer for Scientology, as the new lawsuits would have required opening up the corporate records of Scientology to public scrutiny, jeopardising their charitable status and exposing possible fraudulent activities by Scientology executives. On May 9, 2002, CSC delivered the cheque for $8.6 million (damages plus interest) to prevent this exposure.
After the conclusion of the case, Scientology began a process known as "dead-agenting" which is an effort to spread malicious lies and rumours about an Anti-Scientologist person or organization, in an attempt to so thoroughly discredit them so that everyone concerned will be disgusted with them, and not listen to the information they have to give about the cult.
Why Wollersheim Sued
Wollersheim claimed that the hypnotic psychological techniques used by Scientology for recruiting and maintaining its membership systematically robbed Wollersheim of his ability to make independent decisions. It also claimed that Scientology's intentional, malicious, and coercive practices drove Wollersheim to the brink of insanity, suicide, and financial ruin.
Wollersheim's expert witnesses testified that Scientology's "auditing" sessions (note: auditing is the processe(s) of conditioning a pre-clear (a person being processed into Scientology) by means of question and answer sessions, sometimes using various meters) along with Scientology's other coercive practices used to convert or maintain its membership constituted brainwashing, thought reform, and mind control similar in many ways to what the Chinese and North Koreans used to "convert" American prisoners of war. Experts who testified considered Scientology's coercive practices to be "a grave threat to both constitutional freedom of thought and the religious freedom to choose or maintain a religious membership without any degree of compulsion or coercion."
Scientology has consistently claimed absolute immunity from any responsibility or liability stating that auditing is a form of religious pastoral counseling and that it and its other practices were all sacred religious doctrines and were therefore protected.
Court Comments.
The court made several comments specifically addressing the issue of where freedom of religious practice ends and damaging coercion begins.
"the patterns of activities which justified punitive damages in this case were either found not to qualify as religious expressions at all or were found not to be constitutionally protected because forced on participants like Wollersheim through emotional, psychological, and physical coercion (i.e. "auditing" and "disconnect.") Thus the imposition of punitive damages for this conduct does not impinge upon constitutionally protected religious expression. It only punishes and deters reprehensible activities which visit serious harm on others in society..." (note: disconnect is the act of severing ties with family, friends and loved ones when these ones express negative thoughts or actions about Scientology. Such people are then referred to as SPs (Suppressive Persons) and may cause the victim to become a PTS (Potential Trouble Source).
"The evidence was undisputed that the "auditing," "fair game," and "disconnect" actions taken in regard to Wollersheim were official practices of the Church of Scientology promulgated by its leaders, not some ad hoc abberational acts of individual employees." (Note: Fair Game is the notorious Scientology policy describing how to deal with critics, ex-members, and other undesirables dehumanized with the label "Suppressives"; they may be "Sued, tricked, lied to, or destroyed," as per policy.)
"...There is a compelling state interest in punishing and deterring this constitutionally unprotected, harmful conduct just as there is a compelling state interest in compensating the victims."
"We hold that the state has a compelling interest in allowing its citizens to recover for serious emotional injuries they suffer through religious practices they are coerced into accepting. Such conduct is too outrageous to be protected under the constitution and too unworthy to be privileged under the law of torts...
"Using its position as religious leader, the church and its agents coerced Wollersheim into continuing auditing even though his sanity was repeatedly threatened by this practice... Church practices conducted in a coercive environment are not qualified to be voluntary religious practices entitled to first amendment religious freedom guarantees."
Other Comments
In response to this, Scientology has made the claim that the trial and judgement is a First Amendment attack upon its freedom of religion. It claims that your religion will be next!
The jury foreman stated that the key policy in the decision was Fair Game, in which a person "may be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist...may be tricked, sued, lied to, or destroyed."
Ed Walters, a former high level Scientology intelligence operative and latter witness against Scientology stated that other religions have nothing to fear because "other religions don't seek out and destroy people who don't agree with them."
Implications For The Watchtower?
Just from a the brief summary given above, former Jehovah's Witnesses will recognise several close similarities between Scientology methods and Watchtower methods. These will be explored more extensively in future posts.
"Auditing" for example, has parallels with Bible Studies and the repetitive question and answer methods of Watchtower indoctrination.
"Disconnect" is a standard Watchtower technique begun very early in the conversion process with warnings about family members "discouraging the victim from searching for Bible Truth."
The labelling of outsiders with pejorative labels such as "Suppresives" or "Worldly" or "Apostates" is another shared characteristic in the indoctrination process.
Finally "Fair Game" has a parallel with "Theocratic Warfare": the justification of lying and damaging outsiders if it is in the interests of the cult.
Given these similarities, how would this case influence a case brought against the Watchtower for emotional damages suffered by the victim because of Watchtower's extreme coercion tactics? It is of interest that the courts recognised that it was Wollersheim's freedom of religion that was the issue, not Scientology's. What they claimed as freedom of religion was merely practices harmful to society.
We can ask, are not the Watchtower's coercive practices similarly damaging to society, and do not they too rob the victim of his/her freedom of religion? Does not the state have a similar compelling interest to enable the victims of Watchtower to recover for the damages they suffered because of religious practices they were coerced into? Are not Watchtower practices similarly harmful and therefore not protected by the First Amendment?
With the many court cases being launched against the Watchtower with regards to child abuse, perhaps this is an area that also deserves some legal scrutiny, for there are many suffering victims of the Watchtower's damaging emotional coercion.
Expatbrit.
Edited by - expatbrit on 10 October 2002 11:40:42