Gerry Armstrong--Transcript of Proceedings 03-08-1996

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IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

IN AND FOR THE COUNTY OF MARIN

HONORABLE GARY W. THOMAS, PRESIDING	DEPARTMENT 1
CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY INTERNATIONAL, Plaintiff,
vs.	No. 157680
GERALD ARMSTRONG, ET AL., Defendants. ___________________________/

REPORTER'S TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

March 8, 1996

APPEARANCES:

For the Plaintiff:

Laurie Bartilson
Attorney at Law

For the Defendant:

Gerald Armstrong Pro per

REPORTED BY: JANICE M. KNETZGER, CSR#4434

Janice M. Knetzger CSR#4434

March 8 , 1996

P R O C E E D I N G S

---o0o---

THE COURT: Church of Scientology versus

Armstrong.

MR. WILSON: Andrew Wilson for the plaintiff and

moving party Church of Scientology.

MR. ARMSTRONG: Gerald Armstrong.

THE COURT: Mr. Armstrong, I believe you

requested this motion.

MR. ARMSTRONG: Yes, your Honor.

THE COURT: Go ahead.

MR. ARMSTRONG: Thank you.

First of all, I know that I suppose it's

clear to the Court that I've felt unlistened to.

Nevertheless, I have this opportunity and I

want to address for the sake of our future relationship

together because I think it will go on for a while in

spite of all the rulings to date the inconsistencies

between the agreement and between the orders that were

sought and the orders which were granted. And although I

listed a great number of them in my separate statement

inconsistencies, I want to address just three of them

here.

THE COURT: The argument what is left of the

case is that there is no present controversy for me to

Janice M. Knetzger CSR #4434

rule on a declaratory type of judgment.

That's basically what it is.

MR. ARMSTRONG: There are controversies.

THE COURT: There might be in the future, but I

don't rule on future things.

MR. ARMSTRONG: That's what the declaratory

relief is asking to look at.

THE COURT: The possibilities are endless,

possibilities of anything.

The philosophers sometimes argue that

possibility exists that there are no possibilities. We

don't go on that in legal.

MR. ARMSTRONG: If that were true, it would be a

fact.

I'll not address initial future

possibilities although that is a question because there

are future possibilities that exist right now. They are

not future.

The inconsistencies which make the ruling

on the cross-complaint wrong, I have three which are very

important.

The first one is the qualification in your

orders permitting me to communicate and assist government

agencies.

I'm barred from doing that by the

agreement.

Janice M. Knetzger CSR #4434

Can you, therefore, declare that the

agreement is enforceable when your orders do not enforce

it in that respect?

Secondly, there is the matter of avoidance

of service of process. I'm called upon by the agreement

to avoid service of process. I was specifically in his

order Judge Sohechen specifically said that I may make

myself reasonably available for service of process.

Your orders are silent on that specific

part of the agreement.

If that paragraph of the agreement is

enforceable, am I therefore to make my -- to avoid service

of process?

If I am to avoid service of process, is

that not obstruction of justice?

If it is obstructive of justice, must you

not again look at the whole Settlement Agreement, it's

effect in the whole arena of Scientology litigation?

Your Honor has noted what Scientology does

it intimidate its critics. It has acted to intimidate me.

If there are these inconsistencies between

the orders and between the agreement, how can you declare

that the agreement is enforceable when the orders did not

enforce it?

Thirdly, there is the matter of

communications to my lawyer. I'm specifically permitted

Janice M. Knetzger CSR #4434

by the orders to communicate to my lawyer. If that is --

if you parallel that with the avoidance of service of

process, I'm not permitted by the agreement to communicate

to my lawyers.

Likewise, I would not be permitted by the

agreement to communicate to my minister, to communicate as

I noted earlier to the government, to communicate to a

doctor, to communicate to anyone.

Those inconsistencies would indicate to me

and I think that if Your Honor were to look at and

acknowledge that there are these inconsistencies which

there certainly are, how can you say that those paragraphs

of the agreement are enforceable when they have not been

enforced, when they have not been addressed, when those

things have not been addressed in your orders.

Then, we come to the matter of the meaning

of the order and I will tell this Court right now that

given the situation -- given the way this Court has ruled,

given my relationship of now 27 years with the Scientology

organization, given what it has done and attempted to do

in my mind, given the pressures it has put me under and

now the orders, there is no way in this and this Court

has no -- There is no way for me to extracate myself from

that.

Therefore, I need to know something about

the meaning of the orders.

Janice M. Knetzger CSR #4434

Am I, for example, permitted to communicate

about the orders?

Are you saying that I'm gaged [gagged] with respect

to the orders that this Court has issued or the rulings

all along or this litigation itself? If I'm not gaged, to

whom may I communicate and in what context?

Am I gaged about my bankruptcy proceeding?

May I communicate to the world about what happened in

bankruptcy?

If I'm specifically permitted to

communicate to government agencies, must I communicate in

secret less someone else hear?

Your Honor has addressed this ruling

specifically to two paragraphs which the Scientology

organization claims is all that remains.

I have just talked to what actually

remains, controversies. Nevertheless, 7-I will not use

the prior history and in future litigation.

They say and Your Honor has ruled on that

basis that they don't expect to enforce that in the future

should I bring an action against them.

If they will in reality make that promise

not get rid of it not likely is not good enough.

Am I permited in any future action to use

their past as they have used my past even in the

initiation of this action?

Janice M. Knetzger CSR #4434

18-E refrain from doing anything

inconsistent with the agreement.

There we come to Your Honor's

interpretation of the agreement which still remains

because it doesn't get addressed.

Is it this Court's interpretation that

Scientology can say whatever it wants about Jerry [Gerry]

Armstrong in any context in any Court and Jerry Armstrong

does not have the right to respond?

I know you probably won't answer that

because you don't have to. I'm the one who has to do the

answering.

Nevertheless, I think it must be addressed.

What does it mean to refrain from doing

anything inconsistent with the agreement?

If the agreement means that because that is

the Court's interpretation, they are free to do whatever

they want.

If that's the way we're going to leave it,

then you have to understand why I'm here.

Knowing that Your Honor has consistently

ruled against me and has apparently not for whatever

reason not listened, then I must be here because the

effect of such an agreement such an order and such a

treatment by the Court must be addressed. And if I'm the

last voice on this great planet to say it, I'm going to

Janice M. Knetzger CSR #4434

continue to say it.

I have and that's why I'm here.

Finally, I know your Honor stated to my

former lawyer that he had gone over his 15 minutes, I

didn't set my stopwatch.

There has been a recent ruling -- if I may

I'll give one to Your Honor to read. This is the Church

of Scientology versus Lawrence Wallershine. [Wollersheim] The date on

this is February 1st, 1996.

MR. WILSON: Your Honor, I object to this.

I'm familiar with that case. It wasn't

cited in any briefs. It's irrelevant to this proceedings

and it's improper further for Mr. Armstrong to bring it up

now.

THE COURT: That objection is sustained. You

didn't put the other side on notice of that.

MR. ARMSTRONG: That's fine.

Finally I've been -- I've had this paper

floating around for a long time.

For some reason, I copied it. For one

reason, as it turns out, it is completely applicable and

it is what this case is all about.

There are three aspects of it.

I know your Honor often quotes various

writers and philosophers and so on and so I would just

like to make my own quote and that's this.

Janice M. Knetzger CSR #4434

This is Christ speaking and it's a parable.

He said that men ought always to try not to

faint; saying there was in a city a judge which feared not

God, neither regarded man. There was a widow in that

city. She came unto him saying avenge me of mine

adversary. He would not for a while. Afterward he said

within himself, "Though I fear not God, nor regard man,

yet because this widow troubled me, I will avenge her,

lest by her continuing coming she weary me."

The Lord said, "Hear what the unjust judge

said. Shall not God avenge his own elect which cry day

and night unto him, though he bear long with them?

I tell you that he will avenge them

speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall

he find faith on earth?"

That's why I'm here because there is faith

and it's also why I think even at this late date Your

Honor must look and must address the religious issues in

this case which have never been addressed and which have

been skirted and which have been called something else.

They are there and that's what this case is

about and even at this late date, you can relook at that

agreement and my cross-complaint for declaratory relief

and you can maintain that and we can still proceed and

have a trial on these issues.

That's it. I made a copy for Mr. Wilson.

Janice M. Knetzger CSR #4434

MR. WILSON: I'm familiar with the Bible, Mr.

Armstrong.

MR. ARMSTRONG: Thank you. I have one if the

Court would like it.

THE COURT: Yes. You can give that to the

clerk.

MR. ARMSTRONG: Thank you, your Honor. That's

all that I have to say.

THE COURT: What do you say about this matter?

MR. WILSON: Well, Your Honor, I'm going to be

very brief.

First of all, the Court has listened to Mr.

Armstrong ad nauseam on a number of occasions.

The Court has simply decided against him.

I'm not going to go back through the whole history of this

matter.

The fact is that Number 1, Mr. Armstrong's

interpretation of the agreement is incorrect.

It doesn't prohibit him from being

available for service of process and it doesn't prohibit

him from doing the things it say.

Even if it did, it has a severance clause

which severs the parts that are unenforceable from the

parts that aren't and the injunctions are narrowly drafted

narrowly construed and are completely enforceable. They

are very detailed. They tell Mr. Armstrong what he can

Janice M. Knetzger CSR #4434

and can't do.

They don't need to be reinterpreted. There

is no controversy with respect to the two provisions of

the agreement that is at issue in the cross-complaint.

This case had 16 or 17 causes of action.

None of them had anything to do with those two claims.

There is no present controversy.

The last provision that Mr. Armstrong

refrained from doing things contrary to the agreement is

simply explication of the duty of good faith and fair

dealing that every contract has in the case.

Finally when this is over, I hope I have a

continuing relationship with this Court. I sure hope it's

not in this case.

I don't have anything else to say except

that there is a status conference set for Monday morning

which, if the tentative is upheld, probably should be

taken off calendar.

THE COURT: Mr. Armstrong, I don't think that

you, by your continual actions, have shown that you have

been intimidated by the Church of Scientology.

You have had a long relationship which you

just announced with regard to declaratory relief and

that's the only action pending between the church and you

and in this case.

I know there is some other adversary

Janice M. Knetzger CSR #4434

proceeding regarding some matter in bankruptcy.

MR. WILSON: That's been completed.

THE COURT: There have been some matters that

have gone to the Court of Appeal and otherwise.

In this case, the two sections which are

7-I and 18-E, the Church, even from the reading of the

papers, has never tried to specifically enforce the

paragraphs and never tried to recover from a breach of

damages action involving those particular matters and

were not subjects of their claim in this particular case.

In the prior motions which have been many,

I had enforced 77-D-E-G-H 10 and 18-D and I guess 4-A and

4-B were at one time appealed. It has become final as I

recall.

We're down to 7-I and 18-E in which I have

to decide whether there is something that is presently

here -- it isn't here presently -- or whether there will

be a probable future controversy involving those

paragraphs.

From the fact of your long association and

the non-attempt to enforce such matters, I cannot say that

there is any probability of future controversy with regard

to those particular matters in your contract.

My motion for Summary Judgment on the

cross-complaint is granted for those reasons I've set

forth and the status conference is taken off calendar.

Janice M. Knetzger CSR #4434

Thank you, gentlemen.

MR. WILSON: Thank you, your Honor.

MR. ARMSTRONG: Thank you, your Honor

---o0o---

(Whereupon, the matter calendared for this date

concluded.)

Janice M. Knetzger CSR #4434

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