The Wollersheim Case
Last year [1990] the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari in the case of Wollersheim v. Church of Scientology, [52] a decision that upheld a damage award for the ex-Scientology member seeking relief but which contained language that may provide difficulties in future lawsuits by ex-cult members.
Larry Wollersheim was a manic-depressive for most of his life, an important fact of which the Church of Scientology was aware. From 1972 through 1979 he became heavily involved in Scientology and underwent rigorous encounter sessions known as "auditing" [53] aboard a ship owned by the group. When he tried to escape, he was forcibly restrained and made to continue the sessions in spite of his feeling that he "was dying and losing (his) mind." One psychiatric expert witness in the trial noted that his was one of several events underlying and causing Wollersheims's mental illness. Scientology also pressured him to "disconnect" from his family.
Convinced that auditing was causing him psychiatric problems, Wollersheim decided to risk becoming a target of Scientology's "freeloader debt" and "fair game" campaigns, which are aimed at discouraging defectors, [54] Risk became reality when Wollersheim left the group: Scientologists initiated a campaign to ruin his photography business. Wollersheim went bankrupt and ended up in psychiatric care.
In his complaint, Wollersheim alleged fraud, and negligent and intentional infliction of emotional injury. [55] The trial court summarily decided Scientology is a religion and auditing is a religious practice. [56] After hearing the evidence, the trial judge dismissed the fraud count but allowed both emotional injury counts to go to the jury, which awarded the plaintiff $30 million in damages.
The appellate court upheld the finding of intentional infliction of emotional injury but reversed the finding of negligent infliction of emotional distress. Further, it found the trial court correctly ruled that Wollersheim's claims were subject to the discovery exception to the statute of limitations. [57] The court then reduced the damage award to $2.5 million, finding $30 million excessive considering the evidence at trail that the Church of Scientology's net worth is $16 million. Wollersheim claimed that the group's true net worth is closer to $250 million but he failed to prove it at trial.
The court found the Church of Scientology's conduct met every requirement of an intentional infliction of emotional distress tort. As to the church's defense that such conduct was protected by the First Amendment, the court had no trouble finding it was not. The court accepted the trial court's adjudication that Scientology is a religion for purposes of this case [58] but concluded that even if Wollersheim had freely participated in the activity, it would still not be protected religious conduct.
It was the element of coercion that lowered the value of auditing as a religious practice. Unlike the Molko case, the retribution complained of was not divine but in the here and now, and the state had a compelling interest in discouraging the deliberate economic ruin of one of its citizens.
Though the First Amendment analysis is sound, the language in the opinion is frequently disturbing. The court ventures to say that lawsuits that have a chilling effect on practices such as auditing ought not to be tolerated because, absent coercion, "the only harm which occurs is emotional injury to the psychologically weak." [59] The findings of Lifton, Schein, Singer, Delgado and other scholars in cult-related behavioral studies, and the testimonies of ex-cult members, would belie such an assumption. [60]
52. Wollersheim v. Church of Scientology, 212 Cal. App. 3d 872, 879 (1989), cert. denied, 110 S.Ct. 1937, 109 L.Ed. 2d 300 (1990).
53. These sessions are designed to train an individual to have no emotional response whatever to verbal stimuli. For a detailed description of this process and its effects, see F. Conway & J. Siegelman, Snapping, supran. 14, at 161-68.
54. See Allard v. Church of Scientology, 58 Cal. App. 3d 439, 443 (1976), n.1.
55. Interestingly, there was no cause of action for false imprisonment, though the court found ample evidence of coercion, and no cause of action for invasion of privacy, though the court found evidence that the confidences Wollersheim made in a confessional setting were improperly disclosed.
56. Compare F. Conway & J. Siegelman, Snapping supra n. 14, at 166: "The Scientology method...has no religious or spiritual pretensions."
57. 3 Witkin, Cal. Procedure, Actions, & 356, at 383(3d ed. 1985). The question of when he discovered, or should have discovered, all of the elements of his causes of actions against the church was a jury question, and the court of appeals was satisfied with their finding that Wollersheim's discovery fell within the statutory period.
58. The court suggested this is still a question of lively debate. See Founding Church of Scientology v. United States, 409 F.2d 1146, 1160-61 (1969); Founding Church of Scientology v. Webster, 802 F.2d 1448, 1451 (1986).
59. Wollersheim, 212 Cal. App. 3d at 89l3.
60. Also, the court found no distinction between Scientology's policy of "disconnect" and the "shunning" practiced by Jehovah's Witnesses and Mennonites. Where shunning isolates one member of a group from the rest of the members, the disconnect policy isolates the individual from his family outside the group. Since in Wollersheim's case the practice of disconnect was coerced, the court escaped having to conclude whether to follow the law in Paul v. Watchtower Bible & Tract Soc. of New York, 819 F.2d 875 (1987) (religion cannot be held civilly liable to shunned former member because shunning is constitutionally protected conduct) or Bear v. Reformed Mennonite Church, 341 A.2d 105 (1975) (religion may be civilly liable to shunned former member because shunning must yield to compelling state interest in protecting family relations).
Sara Van Hoey
Cults in Court
Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 8, No. 1, 1991
http://www.icsahome.com/infoserv_articles/van_hoey_sara_cults_in_court.htm
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