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Breaking: Rathbun v Miscavige -- Defendants Filed In Appeals Court - Feb 14, 2014

Free Being Me

Crusader
Re: Breaking: Rathbun v Miscavige -- Defendants Filed In Appeals Court - Feb 14, 20

I find it stunning to this day that I was once part of an organization that is run from top to bottom by incorrigibly corrupt, trained liars.

This is the legacy of L. Ron Hubbard. Liars.

And we are not talking about people who were duped by a hoax. They are knowingly and willingly lying about everything they think they can get away with. The lies aren't even consistent! The stories keep changing. The Scientologists don't.

I do as well. I had No idea what I really was a part of until landing here. I was a liar on the cults behalf and didn't even know it. I hear you, $cientology, the revolving door of lies. And is it spinning at full tilt .. lol. Being out now it seems so incredible to me people still in believe it all and probably are fed some acceptable truth about this case from Slappy.

I knew many $cio's in Texas, it would be interesting to see which showed up at the courthouse to spy and profile for OSA. Just so I could say remember me ... LOLOLOLOLOL. Gotcha. LOL.
 
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Re: Breaking: Rathbun v Miscavige -- Defendants Filed In Appeals Court - Feb 14, 20

Any word on the Ray's response to the court of appeals? Mimsey
 
Re: Breaking: Rathbun v Miscavige -- Defendants Filed In Appeals Court - Feb 14, 20

Another uphill battle for Ray? Mimsey

TX Lawyer • an hour ago

Litigation Update: The Austin Court of Appeals has set oral argument in the Miscavige mandamus for April 9 at 1:30 pm. 20 minutes of argument per side, in front of Justices David Puryear, Melissa Goodwin, and Scott Field. All three are Republicans. Fell free to google them, but I'm not a fan of any of them.

It is, in my experience, unusual to have an appellate court set argument before the responding party's brief has even been filed.Looking back over the opinions released by the court in the last couple months, I see that the same panel has granted mandamus relief at least twice, and Puryear and Goodwin were on another panel that also granted mandamus. Notably, one of those mandamus cases rejected the plaintiffs' attempt to take two "apex depositions" on the grounds that they had not shown the execs had any special knowledge of the case (which alleged a company was responsible for wildfires that occurred in Bastrop a few years back). Justice Field wrote separately to say that one of the two witnesses was a closer call, in his estimation, but the record didn't quite support that depo either.

Hopefully, Team Monique has sufficient evidence to get past this, but I wouldn't be happy with either the quick setting or the panel.
aquaclara > TX Lawyer • an hour ago

Thanks, Texas. Were you able to tell if the request for an extension was granted for Team Monique to be able to finish their side of the story?
TX Lawyer > aquaclara • an hour ago

It hasn't been granted yet, but it will be. First extensions are utterly routine, and it is (sadly) common for the courts to grant them only after the filing deadline has passed. Under our appellate rules, you can even file a motion for extension after the briefing deadline has expired.

Quotes copied from Tony's blog:
http://tonyortega.org/2014/03/08/jo...-long-to-recover-from-scientology/#more-13651
 

Smurf

Gold Meritorious SP

JBWriter

Happy Sapien
Re: Rathbun v Miscavige: Court of Appeals Update - TeamRathbun Files Response



Wow.

TeamRathbun filed their Response yesterday with the TX 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals and it is...spectacular!

To read the actual Response along with Tony Ortega's very helpful commentary, here's the link to today's The Underground Bunker: http://tonyortega.org/2014/03/18/do...scientology-to-stop-the-miscavige-deposition/

Excerpt:

In her response, Leslie Hyman writes on behalf of Monique that Judge Waldrip was correct in ordering the deposition of Miscavige, and that Scientology has mostly tried to confuse the issue with arguments that have nothing to do with the point of the lawsuit.

If you don't normally read the legal filings because they're too dry, please read this one.
The good parts really will jump out at you -- and the footnotes are...scrumptious.

Brava! Brava, Leslie Hyman!

JB
 

tetloj

Silver Meritorious Patron
Re: Rathbun v Miscavige: Court of Appeals Update - TeamRathbun Files Response

If you don't normally read the legal filings because they're too dry, please read this one.
The good parts really will jump out at you -- and the footnotes are...scrumptious.

Brava! Brava, Leslie Hyman!

JB

It's a doozy...

Basicallly says the other side is arguing anything but the relevant legal issues.
 

Type4_PTS

Diamond Invictus SP
Re: Rathbun v Miscavige: Court of Appeals Update - TeamRathbun Files Response

Wow.

TeamRathbun filed their Response yesterday with the TX 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals and it is...spectacular!



She shredded their legal arguments in the Writ of Mandamus and made them seem pretty weak, pathetic, and desperate.
 

Jump

Operating teatime
Re: Rathbun v Miscavige: Court of Appeals Update - TeamRathbun Files Response

She shredded their legal arguments in the Writ of Mandamus and made them seem pretty weak, pathetic, and desperate.

Sounds like she as-is'ed them perfectly.
 

Lone Star

Crusader
Re: Breaking: Rathbun v Miscavige -- Defendants Filed In Appeals Court - Feb 14, 20

Here is TX Lawyer's response on The Underground Bunker concerning Leslie Hyman's brief in response to Team Scientology's efforts to block DM's deposition....


Random observations on first skim-through of the brief . . .
Nice job of refocusing the case on the actual issue at hand: Whether the trial court abused its discretion by permitting the deposition of a specially appearing defendant on the jurisdictional issues raised by that special appearance. Unless there was no possible way that Judge Waldrip could have legally ordered that deposition, Miscavige loses.

Good strategy to place this in the context of Scientology’s history of abusing the judicial process. It won’t be outcome-determinative here, but you’ve got to lay the groundwork for knocking aside future abuses of the system when they occur.

It may be a bit of a tactical error to speak so confidently that the evidence shows Miscavige was behind all of the harassment. If the evidence on that point is already clear, then why would they need Miscavige’s deposition? I would have pitched it by saying that Monique’s independently-collected evidence shows Miscavige is in charge of these types of operations, but his affidavit and his no-personal-knowledge flunkies deny it, so the depo is therefore necessary to discover the actual facts. (Note: Although discovery on a special appearance is limited to jurisdictional facts, those facts frequently overlap with the merits of the case, as they do here. If DM directed this campaign in Texas from wherever else he may have been, that is a jurisdictional fact.)


Good work on the “unique or superior knowledge” point. That’s what gets you an apex deposition, and Team Monique’s evidence easily met that threshold. I also like the way the brief casts aside all that nonsensical veil-piercing/alter ego stuff raised in the mandamus petition – that’s all irrelevant nonsense.
I love that the brief makes the point I argued in my analysis of the petition a few weeks back: That the defendants should have raised all their ecclesiastical abstention arguments in a motion to dismiss/plea to the jurisdiction. This is a dispute over personal jurisdiction (whether Miscavige and RTC have sufficient contacts with Texas to haul them into court here), not subject matter jurisdiction (whether this is the type of religious dispute that courts are forbidden from interfering with). If they wanted to raise those issues, this isn’t the vehicle to do it. But don’t be surprised if a plea to the jurisdiction turns out to be their next gambit in the trial court .

Overall, very nicely done. Clear, succinct, and persuasive, particularly compared to all the muck thrown
at the wall in Miscavige’s brief. Team Monique should feel good going into the April 9 oral argument. Miscavige and RTC can now file a reply brief of up to 7,500 words between now and the oral argument. I would fully expect them to do so, although there is no firm deadline by which they have to file it. --TX Lawyer
 

betskand

Patron with Honors
Re: Rathbun v Miscavige: Court of Appeals Update - TeamRathbun Files Response

She shredded their legal arguments in the Writ of Mandamus and made them seem pretty weak, pathetic, and desperate.

Leslie Hyman is on my list of role models now, right after Monique. Wow, did she nail the issues...and I don't even understand most of what the thing said.

I've been reading TXLawyer's comments over on the Bunker. Very very enlightening. Recommend to any who are following this thread...

Addition: Oops, just realized Lone Star had transferred some of them into this thread. In any case, his following of the issues is very helpful. Thanks, Lone Star.
 

Lone Star

Crusader
Re: Breaking: Rathbun v Miscavige -- Defendants Filed In Appeals Court - Feb 14, 20

  • TX Lawyer5 hours ago No judge is going to order that a deposition be taken in the courthouse before it is first demonstrated that the witness is failing to cooperate with the questioning. That might happen here, but not before Miscavige's deposition is taken. If, as can probably be expected, he is obstructive or fails to answer proper questions, the judge would probably be more likely to appoint a special master (a quasi-judge) to attend a second deposition in order to rule on objections and instruct the witness to answer. Even in the highly unlikely event that the judge were to order the deposition to be reconvened at the courthouse, I would expect that the courtroom would be closed to the public, or that the depo would be taken somewhere off-limits to the public, such as a jury room. Again, sorry for the cold water!


    TX Lawyer5 hours ago Sorry to pour cold water on this, but depositions ordinarily do not take place in the courtroom. It will be at some private location, probably a law firm's conference room in California, and closed to the public. We'll be lucky if we ever get to see the video, which the church will surely take steps to keep under wraps

    ---From The Underground Bunker


 

Lone Star

Crusader
Re: Breaking: Rathbun v Miscavige -- Defendants Filed In Appeals Court - Feb 14, 20

TX Lawyer2 hours ago Judge Waldrip himself wrote that the anti-SLAPP motion was not frivolous. Nor is this mandamus proceeding frivolous, nor would I expect any future filings to be frivolous (i.e., to be so objectively meritless on the facts and law that they can only have been filed for an improper purpose such as harassment or delay). These filings are aggressive and probably unlikely to succeed, but there's nothing improper about being aggressive in defending your client in a lawsuit.

Is there a point where the courts will put a stop to it? Not by prohibiting the defendants from filing motions. The best way of controlling it is entering a scheduling order and setting the case for trial. The defendants seem to be burning credibility with Judge Waldrip, so each successive overreach will likely prove less and less successful. If he holds everyone's feet to the fire on discovery and takes the case to trial on a reasonable schedule, there won't be too much the defendants can do about it.




  • TX Lawyer2 hours ago Scientology has a lengthy history of lawsuits in California, and they have been smacked down by those courts on quite a few occasions. I don't see why it would be surprising for a California judge to enforce a commission from a Texas judge to take a discovery deposition of a California resident.



  • TX Lawyer4 hours ago It's likely to be at least several days prior to the oral argument. You want the judges to have time to read it, and you want to get the last word in.

TX Lawyer
4 hours ago But it's not up to Miscavige. He can't force Monique R. to settle. She's entitled to take her case all the way to trial. If Miscavige refuses to appear for his deposition, the court can and eventually will grant "death penalty" sanctions against him, which would eliminate his ability to defend himself in the case. And even then, Miscavige is still a key fact witness in the case. If he refuses a deposition subpoena, he can be arrested so he can provide his testimony while in custody. Unless and until the defendants make a settlement offer that Monique is willing to accept, David Miscavige is eventually going to testify under oath.

--From the Underground Bunker
 

Jump

Operating teatime
Re: Breaking: Rathbun v Miscavige -- Defendants Filed In Appeals Court - Feb 14, 20

TX Lawyer2 hours ago Judge Waldrip himself wrote that the anti-SLAPP motion was not frivolous. Nor is this mandamus proceeding frivolous, nor would I expect any future filings to be frivolous (i.e., to be so objectively meritless on the facts and law that they can only have been filed for an improper purpose such as harassment or delay). These filings are aggressive and probably unlikely to succeed, but there's nothing improper about being aggressive in defending your client in a lawsuit.

Is there a point where the courts will put a stop to it? Not by prohibiting the defendants from filing motions. The best way of controlling it is entering a scheduling order and setting the case for trial. The defendants seem to be burning credibility with Judge Waldrip, so each successive overreach will likely prove less and less successful. If he holds everyone's feet to the fire on discovery and takes the case to trial on a reasonable schedule, there won't be too much the defendants can do about it.




  • TX Lawyer2 hours ago Scientology has a lengthy history of lawsuits in California, and they have been smacked down by those courts on quite a few occasions. I don't see why it would be surprising for a California judge to enforce a commission from a Texas judge to take a discovery deposition of a California resident.



  • TX Lawyer4 hours ago It's likely to be at least several days prior to the oral argument. You want the judges to have time to read it, and you want to get the last word in.

TX Lawyer
4 hours ago But it's not up to Miscavige. He can't force Monique R. to settle. She's entitled to take her case all the way to trial. If Miscavige refuses to appear for his deposition, the court can and eventually will grant "death penalty" sanctions against him, which would eliminate his ability to defend himself in the case. And even then, Miscavige is still a key fact witness in the case. If he refuses a deposition subpoena, he can be arrested so he can provide his testimony while in custody. Unless and until the defendants make a settlement offer that Monique is willing to accept, David Miscavige is eventually going to testify under oath.

--From the Underground Bunker


Not if they use the 'Bluebird Motorhome in Creston' tech that saved Hubbard from subpoena.
 

TG1

Angelic Poster
Re: Breaking: Rathbun v Miscavige -- Defendants Filed In Appeals Court - Feb 14, 20

First, Leslie Hyman rocks. Her brief is brilliant. Fangirl here.

Second, to those who are posting here TX Lawyer's Bunker posts, thank you. I do visit the Bunker. But the threads are enormously long and hard to wade through on school nights. Thank you.

Third, Leslie Hyman rocks!!!

TG1
 

Udarnik

Gold Meritorious Patron
Re: Breaking: Rathbun v Miscavige -- Defendants Filed In Appeals Court - Feb 14, 20

First, Leslie Hyman rocks. Her brief is brilliant. Fangirl here.

Second, to those who are posting here TX Lawyer's Bunker posts, thank you. I do visit the Bunker. But the threads are enormously long and hard to wade through on school nights. Thank you.

Third, Leslie Hyman rocks!!!

TG1

Anyone who references Monty Python in an American legal brief is all right in my book.
 

Lone Star

Crusader
Re: Breaking: Rathbun v Miscavige -- Defendants Filed In Appeals Court - Feb 14, 20

First, Leslie Hyman rocks. Her brief is brilliant. Fangirl here.

Second, to those who are posting here TX Lawyer's Bunker posts, thank you. I do visit the Bunker. But the threads are enormously long and hard to wade through on school nights. Thank you.

Third, Leslie Hyman rocks!!!

TG1

I know I sound like a broken record, but damn Ray J. hit a massive home run by bringing her on board!! What a win!!

Yes DM.....This is called a real "WIN"!!!! The kicking your ass in court stats are straight up and vertical!!! And contributed largely by a Woman!! Karma is calling on you punk!! :biggrin:


P.S. I kinda like the way Ray J. sounds. From now on his nicname is RayJay. I have proclaimed it. It is done! I am OT3PeeO!! I have the powah!!
 

Lone Star

Crusader
Re: Breaking: Rathbun v Miscavige -- Defendants Filed In Appeals Court - Feb 14, 20

TX Lawyer been busy posting again.....

NOTE: Most of you probably know this, but if you click on the time stamp it will take you to the place in the Underground Bunker blog where the individual post is so that you can see who and what he's replying to for context.


TX Lawyer5 hours ago Given that CSI lost the anti-SLAPP motion, I really don't see how it shows that anti-SLAPP is a bad law. The statute sets out the standards for dismissal, and the judge found that the church didn't meet the standards. The fact that it took so long to get to that conclusion is obviously a downside, but why wouldn't you want the law in place for all those other defendants who really are being bullied by some deep-pocketed plaint who is trying to use the courts to shut down the defendant's exercise of free speech?
Put it this way: If the church sued you for slander for all the mean things you've said about Scientology, wouldn't you like to know that their case will likely get tossed at an early stage of the proceeding because they can't prove you know any of those mean things are untrue?


TX Lawyer • 5 hours ago
  • My point is that if the evidence already proves Miscavige is directing the actions against Monique R. in Texas, there is no need to take another deposition to establish that fact.
TX Lawyer5 hours ago Theoretically, they could file a confession of judgment, which would just be a document stipulating that Mrs. Rathbun is entitled to whatever relief she is seeking. That's highly unlikely because she's seeking unliquidated damages, which could be anywhere between $1 and $1 billion. In fact, I'm not even sure you could do a confession of judgment without a specific sum for damages, and Mrs. Rathbun has no incentive to agree to any amount that Miscavige is likely to accept.
Judges cannot force parties to settle.

TX Lawyer5 hours ago
  • A witness in a civil lawsuit can be required to testify, unlike a defendant in a criminal case. The witness can still invoke the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination if the testimony on a particular question or subject would tend to incriminate the witness in a criminal act. Hence, DM could validly invoke the Fifith Amendment and refuse to answer questions about his acts of assault, kidnapping, false imprisonment, etc. (although I would think he would be more likely to deny them all than to invoke the Fifth). Unlike in a criminal case, however, the court in a civil case can instruct the jury that they may infer from the witness's refusal to answer that the answer would have been something negative. In a criminal case, the jury cannot infer that the defendant's decision not to testify says anything about his guilt or innocence.
 
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