Scientology fires back at the Garcias, but reveals absolutely bonkers ‘arbitration’...

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Scientology fires back at the Garcias, but reveals absolutely bonkers ‘arbitration’ instructions

[Mike Ellis and Judge James Whittemore]

In October, the Church of Scientology held its first-ever internal arbitration procedure. It heard the case of Luis and Rocio Garcia, former members who had given about a million dollars to the church and wanted a good portion of it back.

The Garcias had sued the church, claiming fraud, [...]

[Mike[.......]

Continue reading...

 

[J. Warbler]

From the "Judge's" instructions to the "Jury," if I understand correctly.....

The plaintiffs are "....persons declared Suppressive, who dramatize missed withholds.......and they cannot communicate freely."

The part about "cannot communicate freely" sounds an awful lot like the "Judge" is saying they should not be believed.

Hard to imagine that a real Judge will let this stand. But, who knows?

 

[Enthetan]

The plaintiffs are "....persons declared Suppressive, who dramatize missed withholds.......and they cannot communicate freely."

The part about "cannot communicate freely" sounds an awful lot like the "Judge" is saying they should not be believed.

Hard to imagine that a real Judge will let this stand. But, who knows?

In the real world, those would count as prejudicial statements, and cause the whole thing to be tossed out as a mistrial, and a whole new trial ordered.

In arbitration, the standards include

The arbitrator(s) must be neutral, and the consumer must have a reasonable opportunity to participate in the process of choosing the arbitrator(s).

The consumer must have a right to an in-person hearing in his or her hometown area.

The clause or procedures must not discourage the use of counsel.

Full arbitration standards manual from the American Arbitration Association

If it wasn't CoS, and just a regular company/consumer dispute, the judge would long ago have dropped the hammer on them

 

[Mimsey Borogrove]

There are a couple points - why didn't Ellis sign the 2 page letter of instructions?

The other is the change of charges - the Garcia's thought they were doing an arbitration about the validity of their fraud claim, and arrived to find out the addenda was whether or not they followed the refund policy. Thus their pages of documentation was disallowed by IJC.

I wonder if that distinction will be obvious to Judge James Whittemore and what he will do about it?

The whole basis of their lawsuit was ignored by the Scientology Arbitration.

Mimsey

 

[IWantOffThisTrain]

Since CO$ led the arbitration and didnt cover and/or ignored major components in the Garcia's lawsuit I wonder if the judge will now allow those parts components to move forward in federal court. I would think he would have to, otherwise it sets precedent for a defendant in a civil suit to say "I'm going to ignore the part of your suit where I stole your money and only deal with the fact I used your credit card without your approval".

 

[IWantOffThisTrain]

Oh it would also be interesting if Whitmore contacts those who served on the arbitration panel to find out if they were subjected to any ethics handling for not siding with CO$ when they awarded the $48,000 judgement against CO$. If they were it would be yet another reason that the process is unfair and biased.

 

[Mimsey Borogrove]

"The Scientology response is slick, as you can see for yourself below, but will it satisfy Judge Whittemore? What the Garcias could use at this point is the judge ordering an evidentiary hearing to probe both sides about what happened at the arbitration. " Tony Ortega https://tonyortega.org/2018/02/24/s...-absolutely-bonkers-arbitration-instructions/

Senior Train, re: delving into the arbitration panel, though that would be interesting, I don't know how an evidentiary hearing would make much of a difference. If the judge sees undue influence or other errors in the arbitration, he may rule it was invalid, and move forward, or order it redone. He seems allergic to challenging or infringing upon the religious amendment so he may surprise everybody and say: "yep, justice has been served", and accept it as a done deal.

We shall see.

Mimsey

First Amendment - Religion and Expression. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

 

[IWantOffThisTrain]

Mimsey, I really hope he is faking those allergies and going along with CO$ just to insure they cant claim their "religious freedoms" were impinged upon so that when he deems their process unfair/illegal/bad for whatever reason thus setting a precedent for others to file for refunds without having huge legal bills! I'm an eternal optimist but I gotta admit its really getting hard to believe this is what hes doing, maybe we can find some good allergy meds for Whitmore, oh wait that would just give CO$ cause to blame Big Pharma...