Plaintif Co$ against Time Warner

In 92 civ. 3024 (PKL) UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK



CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY INTERNATIONAL,

        Plaintiff,
        -against-

TIME WARNER, INC., TIME INC. 
MAGAZINE COMPANY, and RICHARD BEHAR,

        defendants

United States District Judge Leisure ruled in favor of the 
defendants in a summary judgement.

The only part of the suit that was not ruled in the favor 
of the defendants:

        "Of the statements set forth at paragraph 52 of the
        complaint pursuant to this Court's ruling of November 23,1992
        only the following remains at issue:

                'One source of funds for the Los
                Angeles-based church is the notorious,
                self-regulated stock exchange in Vancouver,
                British Columbia, often called the scam
                capital of the world.'

        The Court finds that a reasonable jury could find by clear
        and convincing evidence that Time published the above statement
        with actual malice.

The statements dismissed by the Court as not being defamatory, or libelous are
these passages included in the May 6, 1991 Time Magazine article:

                1.   "In reality the church is a hugely
                profitable global racket that survives by
                intimidating members and critics in a mafia-
                like manner."

                2.   "Says Cynthia Kisser, the [Cult
                Awareness] network's Chicago-based executive
                director:  'Scientology is quite likely the
                most ruthless, the most classically
                terroristic, the most litigious and the most
                lucrative cult the country has ever seen.  No
                cult extracts more money from its members.'"

                3. "Those who criticize the church --
                journalists, doctors, lawyers and even judges
                so often find themselves engulfed in litigation,
                stalked by private eyes, framed for
                fictional crimes, beaten up or threatened
                with death." ...

        "CSI challenges the following as false ad defamatory:

                   'THE LOTTICKS LOST THEIR SON, Noah, who
                jumped from a Manhattan hotel clutching $171,
                virtually the only money he had not yet
                turned over to Scientology.  His parents
                blame the church and would like to sue but
                are frightened by the organization's
                reputation for ruthlessness.

                   'His death inspired his father Edward, a
                physician, to start his own investigation of
                the church.  'We thought Scientology was
                something like Dale Carnegie," Lottick says.

                "I now believe it is a school for pychopaths.
                Their so-called therapies are manipulations.
                They take the best and brightest people and
                destroy them."'

                'It was too late.  "From Noah's friends
                at Dianetics" read the card that accompanied
                a bouquet of flowers at Lottick's funeral.
                Yet, no Scientology staff member bothered to
                show up.'"

Judge Leisure states in his opinion:

        "Because the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment
        are designed to ensure debate, not litigation, is
        vigorous, the subjective nature of the test of liability
        cannot create a bar to summary disposition of libel
        suits.1 ..."

        "... In addition, the Court must 'consider this case against
        the background of a profound national commitment to the principle
        that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and
        wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and
        sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks."  _New_York_Times_Co._,
        376 U.S. at 270.  As quoted in _The_New_York_Times,

                     'In the realm of religious faith, and in
                   that of political belief, sharp differences
                   arise.  In both fields the tenets of one man
                   may seem the rankest error to his neighbor.
                   To persuade others to his own point of view,
                   the pleader, as we know, at times, resorts to
                   exaggeration, to vilification of men who have
                   been, or are, preeminent in church or state,
                   and even to false statement.  But the people
                   of this nation have ordained in the light of
                   history, that, in spite of the probability of
                   excesses and abuses, these liberties are, in
                   the long view, essential to enlightened
                   opinion and right conduct on the part of the
                   citizens of a democracy.'

        "Id. at 271 (quoting Cantwell v Connecticut, 210 U.S. 296, 310
        (1940)).  Because sharp disagreement is essential to robust
        debated about important issues, "[a]ctual malice under the _New
        _York_Times_ standard should not be confused wit the concept of
        malice as a evil intent or a motive arising from spite or ill
        will."  _Masson v. New Yorker Magazine, Inc._, 501 U.S. 496, 510
        (1991).  The speaker's belief in his statements, even his
        exaggerations, enhances, rather than diminishes, the likelihood
        that they are protected from libel attack by the First Amendment.
        Only where the speaker himself lacks this conviction, where the
        speaker entertains serious doubt as to the veracity of his
        statements, is the false statement actionable. _See St. Amant_,
        390 U.S. at 731.

                                        Tom Klemesrud SP5