Karen#1
Well-known member
TONY ORTEGA
Excerpt:
[Justices Goorvitch, Lui, and Richardson]
We hope you had a chance to join us yesterday as we watched, live, the oral argument hearing in Leah Remini’s “Fair Game” lawsuit against Scientology that was streamed online at the Second Appellate District in Los Angeles.
It was in front of the same Division Two that heard Danny Masterson’s criminal appeal last month, but this time the three justices asked more questions.
Once again on the panel were newer justices Anne Richardson (on the Div 2 bench since 2024) and Stephen Goorvitch (2026), but this time they were joined by Justice Elwood Lui, the presiding justice of Division Two since 2018.
Leah is suing over what she says is a relentless campaign of online smears as well as in-real-life harassment from Scientology, but the church says she started things with her A&E television show, and it’s the church’s right to call her names if it wants to.
Both sides are appealing a preliminary ruling in the case that removed some of Leah’s defamation claims. Scientology wants even more of those claims removed, Leah wants the stricken claims restored.
The justices pushed back against attorneys for both sides in some interesting ways, and it’s not obvious to us how they’re going to rule. So we’d really like to get your thoughts on this transcript. The court has 90 days to issue a ruling.
Here’s the full transcript of the hearing. At noon, we’ll post our latest Group Therapy podcast, where we talked about our impressions of the hearing with our fun crew of former Scientologists.
READ MORE
tonyortega.substack.com
Excerpt:
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[/td]We hope you had a chance to join us yesterday as we watched, live, the oral argument hearing in Leah Remini’s “Fair Game” lawsuit against Scientology that was streamed online at the Second Appellate District in Los Angeles.
It was in front of the same Division Two that heard Danny Masterson’s criminal appeal last month, but this time the three justices asked more questions.
Once again on the panel were newer justices Anne Richardson (on the Div 2 bench since 2024) and Stephen Goorvitch (2026), but this time they were joined by Justice Elwood Lui, the presiding justice of Division Two since 2018.
Leah is suing over what she says is a relentless campaign of online smears as well as in-real-life harassment from Scientology, but the church says she started things with her A&E television show, and it’s the church’s right to call her names if it wants to.
Both sides are appealing a preliminary ruling in the case that removed some of Leah’s defamation claims. Scientology wants even more of those claims removed, Leah wants the stricken claims restored.
The justices pushed back against attorneys for both sides in some interesting ways, and it’s not obvious to us how they’re going to rule. So we’d really like to get your thoughts on this transcript. The court has 90 days to issue a ruling.
Here’s the full transcript of the hearing. At noon, we’ll post our latest Group Therapy podcast, where we talked about our impressions of the hearing with our fun crew of former Scientologists.
READ MORE
The Leah Remini v. Scientology appeal hearing: The full transcript!
We hope you had a chance to join us yesterday as we watched, live, the oral argument hearing in Leah Remini’s “Fair Game” lawsuit against Scientology that was streamed online at the Second Appellate District in Los Angeles.
tonyortega.substack.com
