CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY
INTERNATIONAL, a California
nonprofit religious corporation,

Petitioner,

vs.

SUPERIOR COURT OF THE
STATE OF CALIFORNIA,
COUNTY OF MARIN,

Respondent.

GERALD ARMSTRONG,

Real Party in Interest.

Appellate Court No. A107095
Consolidated with Case No.
A107100

Trial Judge: Hon Lynn M. Duryee
Marin County Superior Court
Case No. CV 021632
Consolidated with Case No.
157680/152229.

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

I. PETITION FOR REVIEW

II. ISSUES PRESENTED FOR REVIEW

III. SUMMARY OF REASONS FOR REVIEW

IV. HISTORY OF THE CASE

V. ARGUMENT

1. By their failure to address the profound religious freedom issue and
defense in this case, the California Courts since 1992 have prostrated
themselves to unlawfully abet religious persecution

2. Because of the nature of religious liberty, it cannot but be an exception
to res judicata and collateral estoppel if raised as a defense at any time,
and res judicata and collateral estoppel cannot be relied upon to prevent
the raising of religious liberty as a defense at any time.

3. The Court of Appeal did not deal with what Judge Duryee did, but dealt
with something she didn’t.

A. Judge Duryee correctly applied C.C.C. §1670.5 in the
consolidated cases and combined matters before her, specifically
acting to limit the application of the unconscionable clauses in
Scientology’s contract as to avoid any unconscionable result

B. The correct remedy and procedure in this case is mandated by
C.C.C. 1670.5, specifically the reasonable opportunity to present
evidence as to the contract’s commercial setting, purpose, and
effect to aid the court in making the unconscionability
determination.

 

VI. CONCLUSION

ITT Telecom Products Corp. v. Dooley (1989) 214 Cal.App.3d 307, 319

Scientology v. Armstrong (1991) 232 Cal.App.3d 1060 , 283 Cal.Rptr. 917

Statutes

18 U.S.C. §241

18 U.S.C. §242

U.S.C. §§ 6401-6481 Formerly International Religious Freedom Act (“IRFA”)

C.C.C. §1670.5

Other Authorities

United States Constitution

California State Constitution

Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE
STATE OF CALIFORNIA

I.

PETITION FOR REVIEW

TO THE HONORABLE CHIEF JUSTICE AND THE HONORABLE

ASSOCIATE JUSTICES OF THE SUPREME COURT OF CALIFORNIA:

Gerry Armstrong, defendant and real party in interest, respectfully petitions

for review following the unpublished decision of the Court of Appeal, First

Appellate District, by Hon. Maria P. Rivera, Associate Justice, filed on October

19, 2005.

II.

ISSUES PRESENTED FOR REVIEW

1. Whether any California courts have jurisdiction to enforce a contract

that prohibits and punishes an individual’s religious expressions about a religion

because such prohibition and punishment have gone on too long to be stopped, or

for any other reason.

2. Whether California courts have jurisdiction to prohibit and/or punish

religious expressions of a foreign national expressed in foreign nations, and which

are not threats to public safety, order or national security in California or

anywhere.

3. Whether the Court of Appeal has jurisdiction to reinstate punishment

that the trial court had ruled an unconscionable result of the application of certain

unconscionable contractual clauses, without affording the victim or intended

victim of that unconscionable punishment the reasonable opportunity mandated by

C.C.C. §1670.5 to present evidence as to that contract’s commercial setting,

purpose and effect to aid the trial court in making or remaking that ruling.

4. Whether the Court of Appeal has jurisdiction to misstate the language

and meaning of a trial court’s rulings in order to facilitate the vacating of one of

those rulings, particularly where the result of such vacating is not justice, but what

has already been ruled unconscionable.

5. Whether any California court may punish an individual for properly

reporting a crime, even if such reporting violates the language and/or meaning of a

contract or court order.

6. Whether any California courts have jurisdiction to enforce a contract and

an injunction that are patently unlawful, and/or impossible to perform.

7. Whether California courts have jurisdiction to end an international

idiocy that is the unconscionable result of thirteen years of the California courts’

abetment in the application of unconscionable contractual clauses concocted and

enforced by a religion.

2

III

SUMMARY OF REASONS FOR REVIEW

This is an extraordinary moment in a more than 23-year campaign by the

Scientology religion, using the California court system, to deprive Gerry

Armstrong, an individual, religionist, and persecuted religious class member, of

his basic human rights, particularly his religious freedom, and, here immediately,

his physical freedom and safety.

This Court is where this case belongs, because it concerns the whole State

of California and what will be the whole State’s highest wisdom about religious

freedom for all its citizens. This Court has the opportunity to decide something

about the extent to which California’s courts may be used by California’s religious

corporations to deprive individuals of that freedom or in other ways persecute

them pursuant to religious doctrine and religious hatreds.

This State is also where plaintiff and petitioner Scientology organization is

headquartered. Scientology around the world is controlled, operated and exported

from California by David Miscavige, a California resident.

This Court can decide in this case if the California Wog Justice System will

confront the Scientology organization and curtail its use of the State’s courts to

suppress and destroy basic human rights and persecute the organization’s victims,

or if Scientology will continue to have its way with California’s courts. “Wog” is

the term Scientologists use for people who are not Scientologists. Society is called

in Scientology the “wog world,” and nations’ legal systems and procedures are

called “wog justice.”

There are no similar cases in California or anywhere. There are other

Scientology contracts that prohibit other people, many in California, on threat of

massive liquidated damages penalties and jailing, from discussing their religious

experiences in the Scientology religion. None of those contracts, however, have

been the subject of the enormous volume of documentation and litigation

3

generated in Scientology v. Armstrong, or achieved such global notoriety.

Scientology’s Armstrong contract is Exhibit 1 to Scientology’s exhibits in support

of its writ petition (“Exs.”), pp 1-16.

This then is a representative and leading case in a completely new area of

life and law in California and around the world; namely, religious corporations’

suppression and deprivation of individual religious freedom and other basic human

rights by contract, and by judicial enforcement of such contracts. Such contracts

are themselves a very modern invention of the religious corporation’s modern

corporate lawyers. The deeply evil intent of such contracts makes them

particularly difficult to confront, and thus particularly suited to the high confront

of the highest court in the State in which these contracts are concocted and their

enforcement directed by resident enforcers.

This Court has the opportunity to correct the bizarre and impossible

situation, which the Court of Appeal ignored, of California courts prohibiting and

punishing religious expressions made by foreign nationals in foreign nations. The

only jurisdiction California courts could possibly have in this situation is the

jurisdiction to deny jurisdiction to prohibit and punish such religious expressions.

The contractual clauses Scientology seeks to enforce against Armstrong,

and their judicial enforcement, including what Scientology seeks by writ petition,

are obviously barred within the U.S. by the civil rights guarantees, including

freedom of religion, in the U.S. and California Constitutions, and in the nation’s

other laws. Reciprocally, whatever Armstrong has said, written or done within the

U.S, for which Scientology has ever sought or is seeking in this immediate matter

to have him punished, are his religious expressions in exercise of his religious

freedom, and are inalienably protected by the same constitutions and the nation’s

and the state’s other laws. Court after court in California has refused to honestly

confront this reality, and acknowledge the indefeasible truth that what Scientology

seeks and has gotten away with judicially in its campaign against Armstrong is

4

unlawful. Some court some time will have to confront this issue and this Court at

this moment in time has jurisdiction to do so.

Armstrong obviously is not voluntarily giving up his basic human rights to

Scientology, including his rights to freedom of speech, freedom of religion,

freedom of association, freedom of movement, due process, self-defense, and

freedom from slavery. Armstrong is protesting every step of the way, declaring

that he was forced against his will to sign Scientology’s contract, and vowing to

never give up those rights. He believes that Scientology’s contract and what has

been done to enforce the conditions against Armstrong that deprive him of those

basic human rights are the fruits of a criminal conspiracy in violation of U.S. Civil

Rights criminal statutes, specifically 18 U.S.C. §241, conspiracy against rights,

and §242, deprivation of rights under color of law.

The Court of Appeal’s decision ignores this issue and these laws

completely, although Armstrong put them squarely and properly before the Court

in his briefs. This Court can now decide if a participant corporation in an ongoing

criminal conspiracy may by contract lawfully prohibit the ongoing victim of that

criminal conspiracy from discussing that criminal conspiracy and the crimes being

perpetrated on him. May the California courts lawfully be used to enforce such a

contract against such a victim of such a criminal conspiracy, which is proven to be

a criminal conspiracy by its own contract and actions to enforce that contract in

these courts? Does Armstrong actually have a duty to violate any orders of

California’s courts that compel him to participate in and forward Scientology’s

criminal conspiracy by playing its victim in that criminal conspiracy?

The International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (“IRFA”) 22 U.S.C. §§

6401-6481 is the guiding law and principle for the whole of the U.S., not

excluding California, in relation to freedom of religious expressions such as

Armstrong’s expressed by foreign nationals such as Armstrong in foreign

countries such as Canada where Armstrong lives. The IRFA also provides an

understanding of why even in the U.S. people may not be deprived of their

5

religious freedom by contract, and punished for their religious expressions about

religions in the way Scientology wants Armstrong to be punished. The IRFA was

enacted in fact specifically to protect people in positions and classes just like

Armstrong’s who are targets of religious persecution right now in present time just

like Armstrong. The Court of Appeal’s decision is completely alone in its

opposition to and disregard for the IRFA’s letter and spirit.

For Armstrong, as long as he is outside the U.S., his religious expressions

and his basic human rights are protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and

Freedoms, Constitution Act, (1982) and by the European Convention for the

Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (1998). Similarly,

Scientology is prohibited by these same human rights charters from depriving

Armstrong of his basic human rights in non-U.S. nations, and prohibited from

punishing Armstrong for his religious expressions. The European Convention and

other international human rights charters are identified in the IRFA at 22 U.S.C.

§6401(a)(2). In this matter this Court can rationally and decisively align

California law and decisions with the 8-year old IRFA, and with the international

human rights charters of the world the IRFA endorses. Say what is true, fair and

wise to guide any California Court that in the future finds its power and authority

being used to punish other foreigners for their religious expressions expressed in

foreign countries.

Although this case is all about the unlawful deprivation of human rights, it

is positioned at this time as a contract case, and clearly the law that the trial court

applied to the case and facts before that court was C.C.C. §1670.5. The trial court

ruled that the punishment Scientology sought to inflict on Armstrong, including

jailing and fining him, as the result of the application of the subject contract’s

clauses, was unconscionable.

Armstrong has found no other cases where what was determined to be an

unconscionable result was the contractual wholesale deprivation of an individual’s

freedom of religion, and his other basic rights and protections. It is doubtful that

6

such cases exist because these contracts are such new devices in the programs and

campaigns of new religious corporations to judicially suppress and destroy basic

human rights for individuals. This Court has the golden opportunity to stop these

contracts and their judicial enforcement from becoming de rigueur in California’s

courts.

The Court of Appeal’s decision fails to apply C.C.C. §1670.5, in fact

avoids addressing or even mentioning that governing statute, the applicability of

which Armstrong had addressed at considerable length in his opposition to

Scientology’s petition for writ (“Opp.”), in his respondent’s brief (“RB”) in

Scientology’s appeal consolidated in the Court of Appeal with its petition, and in

his petition for rehearing. (“Pet.Reh.”) The Appellate Court’s failure to apply the

proper California statute, and that Court’s failure to apply the procedural remedy

that statute mandates, has resulted in the reinstatement of the punishment that the

trial court, by proper application of C.C.C. §1670.5, had already ruled

unconscionable and consequently remitted.

The Court of Appeal’s reinstatement of the unconscionable result, which

had already been ruled unconscionable, is particularly unconscionable because to

reach its decision the Court of Appeal has had to misstate the language and

meaning of the trial court’s unconscionability judgment. The Court of Appeal also

ignored the effect of Scientology’s voluntary dismissal of its appeal from the trial

court’s judgment on the unconscionable punishment the Court was reinstating.

The dismissal of the appeal, which Scientology had successfully moved the

Court of Appeal to consolidate with this writ petition case, ended any possible

nonacceptance by Scientology of the unconscionability judgment. That judgment

then required acceptance of the remission of the unconscionable punishment that

Scientology sought by its writ petition to have reinstated. Obviously every

California court including this Court has a duty to prevent an unconscionable

result in any matter properly before it.

7

IV

HISTORY OF THE CASE

Armstrong was a member of the Scientology religion from 1969 through

1981. When he left, Scientology declared him a member of a class of citizens

called “Suppressive Persons” or “SPs,” whom Scientologists are directed by

Scientology religious scripture to persecute opportunistically, or “fair game.”

Scientology teaches in its “Suppressive Person” doctrine that SPs are evil, insane,

destructive, and irreversibly mentally handicapped, should be given no civil rights,

and are to be “hated,” “shattered” and “obliterated.”

Over the next almost 24 years, and continuing to this day, Scientology and

its agents fair gamed Armstrong in accordance with the organization’s

“Suppressive Person” doctrine. These fair game attacks include, inter alia,

physically battering Armstrong on six occasions; running into him bodily with a

car; terrorizing him on a highway in California and an autobahn in Germany;

attempting multiple times to have him charged criminally on false evidence,

including with the Los Angeles District Attorney, the FBI, and the prosecutor in

Ekaterinberg, Russia; suing him six times; driving him into bankruptcy; running

covert intelligence operations on him; attempting to entrap him in sting operations;

filing numerous false statements about him in legal proceedings; breaking into his

car and stealing extremely valuable documents and artwork; terrifying his

neighbors and his family; threatening to assassinate him; forging hundreds of

Internet postings, including racist postings, over his name; and creating and

disseminating countless black propaganda attacks on him around the world,

including to government agencies, media and the clergy. Pet.Reh., Opp, 4,5; RB,

9-30; Respondent’s Appendix (“R.App.”) 261:25-262:14. Black propaganda or

black PR is Scientology’s fair game policy and practice of destroying SPs’

reputations, credibility, relationships, livelihoods and lives with the relentless,

widespread covert and overt dissemination of false and defamatory materials about

the SPs.

8

Scientology filed its first suit against Armstrong in August 1982 in Los

Angeles Superior Court for conversion, breach of fiduciary duty and invasion of

privacy, and Armstrong filed a cross-complaint for, inter alia, fraud and

intentional infliction of emotional distress. Scientology’s suit went to trial in 1984

resulting in a judgment in Armstrong’s favor, which Scientology appealed.

Scientology v. Armstrong, (1991) 232 Cal.App.3d 1060, 283 Cal. Rptr. 917.

Armstrong’s cross-complaint was settled in December 1986 as part of a

global settlement involving some 20 clients of attorney Michael J. Flynn, then of

Boston, Massachusetts. Mr. Flynn was also a “Suppressive Person” and also the

target of Scientology fair game attacks, including, inter alia, infiltrating his office;

paying known criminals to testify falsely against him; suing him and his office

some fifteen times; framing him with the forgery of a $2,000,000 check; and black

PRing him internationally. Scientology got Mr. Flynn, who was also Armstrong’s

employer and friend, and who settled his own claims against Scientology in the

global settlement, to act as its agent to trick and force Armstrong to sign

Scientology’s settlement “contract” in order to have the fair gaming of Mr. Flynn,

his family and clients end.

Scientology did not leave Armstrong in peace following the 1986 global

settlement but has continued to fair game him ever since. The organization’s

attacks before he ever responded, or ever spoke out publicly against these attacks,

included generating and disseminating black PR on him publicly and

internationally; filing numerous sworn statements about him in legal proceedings

falsely accusing him of crimes and perversions; distributing an unlawful secret

video of him; blackmailing him with threatened publication of his private writings;

filing a false declaration he had been forced to sign as part of the “settlement;” and

threatening him with prosecution if he honestly testified pursuant to a deposition

subpoena properly served on him in late 1989 in a third party’s California

litigation.

9

From 1990 until now, Armstrong has spoken about his Scientology-related

experiences, knowledge and beliefs as called by God, even though that would

cause Scientology’s leaders to escalate their fair game campaign against him. He

never believed that the contractual clauses that prohibited his discussing his

Scientology-related experiences, knowledge and beliefs were lawfully judicially

enforceable. He has also, as was safe, courteous and wise, assisted his fellow SPs,

whom he knows to be a threatened religious class, even though any such

assistance is prohibited by Scientology’s contract. He has found it impossible

after a certain point to deal insanely with Scientology and its attacks on peace,

justice and sanity, and he believes that no court can lawfully compel him to be or

act insane.

In 1991, Scientology filed a motion in LA Superior Court to enforce its

contract against Armstrong, which was denied. In 1992 Scientology filed a

lawsuit to enforce its contract in Marin County, where Armstrong was then living

and working. Scientology obtained a series of summary adjudication rulings from

Marin Superior Court Judge Gary W. Thomas, eliminating all Armstrong’s

properly pled affirmative defenses, and culminating in a judgment and injunction

against him in 1995. Exs. 85-93.

Judge Thomas ruled that the contract’s liquidated damages clause that

required Armstrong to pay Scientology a penalty of $50,000 per utterance about

his Scientology experiences or knowledge was reasonable and enforceable. He

ordered Armstrong to pay $300,000 for 6 utterances and $334,671.75 in costs.

Armstrong discharged this sum in bankruptcy in 1996.

Judge Thomas ruled that Scientology and all the beneficiaries of its contract

could say whatever they wanted about Armstrong, no matter how false or

abominable, and he could not respond. See, the contract, Ex. 1, para. 1, for the list

of beneficiaries. If Armstrong responded to Scientology’s attacks, to defend

himself, his family, friends or co-religionists, or if he assisted any victim of

10

Scientology in any way, he would have to pay Scientology $50,000 per utterance

or assistance.

Judge Thomas ruled that the $50,000 liquidated damages penalty was per

recipient, and that a single letter Armstrong copied to 18 people would cost him

$900,000.

Judge Thomas stated in his injunction that all these penalties and

prohibitions applied not only Armstrong but also “his agents, employees, and

persons acting in concert or conspiracy with him.” Since then, Scientology has

threatened several Suppressive Persons with enforcement of the Thomas

injunction against them for “acting in concert” with Armstrong.

Judge Thomas completely avoided addressing the religious freedom

defense, which was squarely and properly before him, and seriously misstated the

law he found controlling to justify that improper avoidance.

Armstrong appealed. See case No. A075027, which Armstrong

incorporated into his opposition to Scientology’s writ petition and in his

respondent’s brief in the consolidated cases in the Court of Appeal.

At the beginning of 1997, because of threats from Scientology, Armstrong

left California and returned to British Columbia, Canada, where he is a citizen. A

few days before he left California, he was served with a subpoena duces tecum by

the wog defendant in a Scientology-related case in U.S. District Court in San Jose.

The subpoena specifically commanded Armstrong to produce declarations he had

authored concerning unlawful acts by Scientology. The next day a Scientology

attorney faxed Armstrong a letter threatening him with prosecution if he produced

the subpoenaed documents. Armstrong wrote a declaration concerning the threat

and sent it to the judge presiding in the U.S. District Court case in which

Armstrong had been served and threatened.

While Armstrong was in B.C., and without service on him or notice to him,

Scientology got Marin Superior Court Judge Thomas to sign an OSC re contempt

and a contempt order against Armstrong for sending the declaration to the U.S.

11

District Court Judge. The contempt order makes no mention of Armstrong’s being

served to produce the documents he produced including the subject declaration,

and makes no mention of Scientology’s attorney threatening Armstrong and thus

causing him to create and transmit the declaration reporting that threat. Judge

Thomas punished Armstrong with 2 days in jail and a $1000 fine.

In August 1997, while in B.C., Armstrong timely filed his appellant’s

opening brief in his appeal from the injunction and judgment. Scientology moved

the Court of Appeal to dismiss his appeal on the basis of the fugitive

disentitlement doctrine. Mysteriously, the Court of Appeal, First Appellate

District, Division Four, mistook a request from Armstrong for an extension of time

to file an opposition to Scientology’s motion for an opposition, and in December

1997 dismissed the appeal.

Also in December 1997, Scientology got Judge Thomas to sign another

OSC re contempt against Armstrong for 13 expressions of his religious

experiences with the Scientology religion, which he expressed on the Internet or in

public conversations in Canada, the U.K. and Germany. In February 1998, Judge

Thomas signed a contempt order punishing Armstrong with 26 days in jail and a

fine of $2,600.

In November 2000, Scientology filed another application for an OSC re

contempt against Armstrong for 131 Internet expressions of his religious

experiences with the Scientology religion expressed in Canada, for permitting

himself to be subpoenaed to testify in a Scientology-related case in Florida, and

for expressions of his religious experiences with the Scientology religion

expressed in Florida and Denmark. Armstrong filed an opposition to

Scientology’s OSC, acknowledging that he had expressed thousands of such

expressions, and defending his legal right and religious freedom to do so. In July

2001, Marin Superior Court Judge Vernon F. Smith, who had inherited the

Scientology v. Armstrong case after Judge Thomas retired, signed an order finding

Armstrong in contempt, but did not impose any punishment.

12

On April 2, 2002 Scientology filed another lawsuit in Marin Superior

Court, CV 021632, against Armstrong, Robert Minton and the Lisa McPherson

Trust, seeking $10,050,000 from Armstrong for 204 “breaches” of Scientology’s

“contract.” The 204 claimed “breaches” included the 131 Internet postings

identified in Scientology’s November 2000 application for OSC, plus 73

additional “breaches,” including religious expressions expressed in Canada,

France, Denmark, Germany and Russia. Armstrong, who was then living in

Germany, timely filed his answer in November 2002. Exs. 211-295

Scientology filed a motion for summary judgment claiming there was no

triable issue of fact because Armstrong had admitted committing the “breaches,”

and seeking $50,000 for each “breach.” Armstrong opposed the summary

judgment motion, and in March 2004 Marin Superior Court Judge Lynn Duryee

denied the motion. Scientology moved to strike Armstrong’s evidence in support

of his opposition, and Judge Duryee denied that motion.

On April 9, 2004 Judge Duryee conducted a trial of Scientology’s

complaint, during which, with the agreement of Scientology and Armstrong’s

attorney Ford Greene, she consolidated the earlier cases, Marin Superior Court

Nos. 152229 and 157680, with the later CV 021632 case. Judge Duryee also

stated that she was considering the trial a hearing as well on the contempt

punishments in the earlier cases.

After opening statements from Scientology and Armstrong, Judge Duryee

ruled that the punishment Scientology sought to inflict on Armstrong beyond the

benefit that was conferred to him in the 1986 settlement was unconscionable. She

believed, albeit erroneously, that the benefit conferred to Armstrong was

$800,000. She therefore stated her judgment awarding Scientology $500,000 in

liquidated damages, since Scientology had already been awarded $300,000 in

liquidated damages by Judge Thomas, and she remitted, or discharged, the

contempt punishments jailing and fining Armstrong.

13

Upon Judge Duryee rendering her judgment at trial, Scientology entreated

her to punish Armstrong for the approximately 135 violations of Judge Thomas'

injunction for which Judge Smith had found Armstrong guilty in 2001, but had not

specified a punishment. Judge Duryee then sentenced Armstrong to five days in

jail and fined him $1000, but made the fine concurrent with her judgment, and

discharged that jail sentence as well.

Because for a period of some weeks after the trial Scientology’s attorney

and Mr. Greene could not agree on the language of proposed written orders to be

submitted to Judge Duryee for signing and filing, on May 20, 2004 she issued her

own orders. Exs. 17,18. Scientology received the orders from the Marin Court,

but Mr. Greene did not receive them at that time, and did not know of their

existence until July 12, 2005.

On July 15, 2005 Scientology filed its petition for writ of certiorari or writ

of mandamus in the Court of Appeal seeking to have the jail sentences and fines

reinstated, and filed its notice of appeal seeking to have reversed the judgment of

unconscionability that limited the liquidated damages penalties. Simultaneously,

Scientology filed a motion to consolidate its appeal and writ petition on the ground

that the evidence and the legal questions presented by both matters are so related

as to make it advisable to consolidate them. The Court of Appeal granted the

motion.

Armstrong timely filed his respondent’s brief and his opposition to

Scientology’s writ petition. On September 2, 2005 Scientology requested the

Court of Appeal to dismiss its appeal. On September 8, the Court of Appeal

dismissed Scientology’s appeal, but kept the writ petition alive and scheduled for

oral argument.

On September 21, 2005 the Court of Appeal, First Appellate District,

Division Four, conducted oral argument. On October 19, 2005 the Court of

Appeal filed its decision, appended hereto, granting Scientology’s writ petition

14

and reinstating the jail sentences and fines against Armstrong that Judge Duryee

had remitted.

On November 3, 2005 Armstrong timely filed his petition for rehearing,

and on November 14 the Court of Appeal denied his petition.

V

ARGUMENT

1. By their failure to address the profound religious freedom

issue and defense in this case, the California Courts since 1992 have

prostrated themselves to unlawfully abet religious persecution.

The California courts that have dealt with Scientology’s contract

cannot but know about the towering religious issue and defense in this case,

which have through time towered ever higher. The filed documents before

these courts are filled with the religion issue and Armstrong’s religious

expressions about the religion issue and freedom of religion defense and

about religion itself. See, e.g. Pet.Reh. Opp., RB.

In denying Scientology’s motion to enforce its contract against Armstrong

in 1991, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Bruce R. Geernaert stated about the

contract and Scientology’s enforcement intention:

that is one … I'll say one of the most ambiguous, one-sided
agreements I have ever read. And I would not have ordered the
enforcement of hardly any of the terms if I had been asked to, even
on the threat that, okay the case is not settled. I know we like to
settle cases. But we don't like to settle cases and, in effect, prostrate
the court system into making an order which is not fair or in the
public interest. RB, 48; Clerk’s Transcript, prior appeal No.
A075027, 7700.

An unavoidable and overwhelming real life reason that rendered the order

Scientology sought not fair and not in the public interest is the eternal fact that it is

a religion that seeks to prostrate the secular wog court system for the unlawful

purpose of suppressing the religious expressions of a religious apostate and

punishing and crushing that religious apostate.

15

In 1992, Scientology filed the lawsuit to enforce its contract that has

resulted in the jail sentences and fines against Armstrong that the Court of

Appeal’s October 19, 2005 order has now reinstated. Between 1992 and now

Scientology found a number of judges, notably Judge Thomas in Marin County,

who were willing, for unknown reasons, to prostrate the California court system to

permit and abet Scientology’s religious persecution campaign.

Judge Thomas accomplished the abetment of Scientology’s religious

persecution of Armstrong in 1995 in no small part by avoiding the whole

religious freedom issue and defense, even though it was colossally and

unmissably then before him. As Armstrong protested in his earlier appeal

and elsewhere, Judge Thomas altered the language and meaning of the case

he cited to, ITT Telecom Products Corp. v. Dooley (1989) 214 Cal.App.3d

307, 319, to wipe out all Armstrong’s First Amendment defenses. Pet.Reh.

9-13.

As can be imagined by the plaintiff’s name, that case was not about

a person’s religious expressions about his religious experiences in a

religion. Dooley was about the disclosure of trade secrets to a commercial

telecommunications industry competitor. Dooley states, “it is possible to

waive even First Amendment free speech rights by contract.” Judge

Thomas stated: “First Amendment: First Amendment rights may be waived

by contract.”

Armstrong’s position is that because of the nature of religion and of First

Amendment religious rights such rights may not be waived by contract. He

believes that the failure of all California Courts to confront the religious freedom

issue in this case over the past many years validates that position, rather than

invalidates it.

In 1997, the Court of Appeal abetted Scientology’s religious persecution

campaign with its not fair and not in the public interest dismissal of Armstrong’s

appeal of Judge Thomas’ orders that abetted that persecution campaign. It should

16

be noted that this dismissal was engineered by Scientology on the grounds that

Armstrong had not served the very jail sentence that in 2004 Judge Duryee ruled

unconscionable and remitted. It is no human wonder that the Court of Appeal

division that dismissed Armstrong appeal would have some interest in reinstating

that unconscionable punishment, and perhaps even could go to the lengths that

division has gone to accomplish that reinstatement.

In 2004, Judge Duryee, while still not articulating the reality of

Scientology’s religious war on Armstrong, and the reality of his religious freedom

right and that right’s inalienability, at least limited and slowed down the judicial

religious persecution campaign against Armstrong by declaring the punishment

Scientology sought to inflict on Armstrong an unconscionable result, and remitting

that unconscionable result.

Now for some unholy reason a California Court of Appeal tribunal is

reprostrating the California court system, which Judge Duryee had uplifted for the

previous19 months, and is again back to abetting Scientology’s religious war on

Armstrong by issuing another order in that war that is not fair and not in the public

interest. The Court of Appeal’s order is not fair and not in the public interest for

the very reason that it abets Scientology in its religious war on Armstrong, which

war the Court of Appeal ignores in order to author its unfair order.

While mentioning that Armstrong claimed that the subject expressions for

which Scientology sought to have him jailed and fined were expressions protected

by the right to the free exercise of his religion, the Court of Appeal gave that fact

no value or effect, ruling that “Armstrong, however, is foreclosed from

challenging the merits of the contempt orders in this writ proceeding.” The Court

of Appeal even acknowledges, however, that “in unusual cases … either the trial

or appellate court may grant a remission of punishment.” A case could not even

be deemed unusual, and certainly remission could never be reached in any kind of

case, if the merits of the contempt order could never be challenged. Here there is

also the overarching factor of the adjudicated unconscionability of the contempt

17

punishments, and no judge can be foreclosed by any length of time from acting to

limit, prevent or remit an unconscionable result.

Armstrong challenged the merits of the contempt orders in many

documents filed in the trial court, all properly before Judge Duryee. These

challenges to the merits all included Armstrong’s proclamation and evidence that

the expressions for which Scientology wanted him jailed and fined were his

religious expressions in free exercise of his right to freedom of religion. On the

basis of Armstrong’s challenging of the merits of the contempt orders for all the

reasons he challenged them, Judge Duryee found the punishment they ordered

unconscionable and she remitted that punishment.

The challenges to the merits of the contempt orders that Judge Duryee had

in the record before her, could not but be part of the record before the Court of

Appeal. Consequently, Armstrong could not be foreclosed from pointing the

Court of Appeal to those challenges and reasserting those challenges already in the

record that Judge Duryee obviously found to be good grounds for remission of the

unconscionable punishment the contempt orders inflicted.

To justify its “foreclosure” of Armstrong from “challenging the merits of

the contempt orders” in the Court of Appeal, that Court had to find that “there

were no circumstances in the record justifying a remission of the sentences.” This

is a gross error that demands correction. The trial court record is filled with

circumstances justifying the trial court’s remission of the sentences, including the

facts that a religion had obtained those sentences as part of its campaign of

religious persecution against Armstrong, and that the sentences punished him for

his religious expressions in free exercise of his right to freedom of religion. The

Court of Appeal then did not have authority to declare Armstrong “foreclosed”

from demonstrating what is in the record before that Court, and what was in the

record before the trial court when that court ruled the sentences unconscionable

and remitted them.

18

2. Because of the nature of religious liberty, it cannot but be an

exception to res judicata and collateral estoppel if raised as a defense at any

time, and res judicata and collateral estoppel cannot be relied upon to

prevent the raising of religious liberty as a defense at any time.

There is no suggestion from Scientology that what Armstrong expresses,

for which Scientology wants him jailed and fined, are not or cannot be his

religious expressions of his religious beliefs about a religion. They have also

always been Armstrong’s religious expressions of his religious beliefs about a

religion, from the day Scientology sought to suppress those religious expressions

by contract. Scientology does not argue, of course, that it is not a religion.

Scientology’s position is that Armstrong is prohibited from expressing his

religious expressions about the Scientology religion by contract, and by Judge

Thomas’ injunction, and that it doesn’t matter if they are Armstrong’s religious

expressions. Scientology’s position, since it got Armstrong’s appeal of Judge

Thomas’s injunction dismissed in 1997, is that Armstrong is barred by res judicata

and collateral estoppel from asserting his religious freedom defense to which

Judge Thomas did Dooley. Armstrong’s position, supported by law and logic, is

that an individual being deprived of his religious liberty cannot lawfully continue

to be deprived of that religious liberty because the deprivation of his religious

liberty has gone on too long to be stopped, or for any length of time.

In the Scientology v. Armstrong legal war, this position grows in strength

and authority because Armstrong’s religious expressions have increased, his world

wide wog and Scientologist audience has increased, and his religious persecution

at the hands of the Scientology legions has increased. If such things can be added,

his human right of religious freedom to expose and oppose that religious

persecution has increased beyond his wildest imagination.

Before Scientology brought him to America, and consequently submitted

him to U.S. laws, Armstrong never conceived that any U.S. courts, especially

California courts, would ever prostrate themselves to abet the jailing, fining and

19

financial ruin of a citizen for expressing his religious experiences and thoughts and

for protecting himself, his family and citizen class from religious persecution. He

also never conceived of the religion he joined and his co-religionists being so

diabolical that they would create contracts to get wog courts to do exactly that and

then force their victims to sign these contracts. Armstrong’s position, however, in

alignment with law, logic and his own theology, is that the right of religious

freedom is always maximal, cannot lawfully be decreased by contract, and

therefore cannot be increased.

Armstrong is not claiming that he has some inalienable right to express his

religious expressions everywhere and at all times, if a stupid straw man

interpretation is given to such a concept. He is claiming that he has a right that

cannot lawfully be taken away by contract, at least in any reasonably free and sane

society, to express his religious expressions somewhere and sometime, and

certainly as called by God.

There is no question of anything Armstrong is saying or doing depriving

anyone else of any of their lawful rights, or being a threat to anyone’s safety, or to

the public order. In fact, he believes that he is seeing to and increasing everyone’s

safety, and arguably even good order, by expressing the expressions he has been

called to express. He contends that the record in this case and available to this

Court shows that from the day he left Scientology, almost 24 years ago,

Armstrong has not done anything that was a threat to safety, order, morality or

national security. Although Armstrong’s, and everyone’s, right to religious

freedom is always maximal, because no California court so far has been willing to

address the religious liberty issue and because Armstrong has continued to study

and address the issue, his certainty of the correctness of his position has increased.

Armstrong is an average common wog. He is not a lawyer, not trained in

law, and does not study law. He is a Christian, studies religion and is a religionist,

as religious as the next wog, or Scientologist, and he has his own thoughts, beliefs,

and religious activities.

20

Armstrong founded his own church in 1986 and renamed and restructured it

as the Church of Wogs (“CoW”) in Canada and around the world. CoW is to wogs

as Scientology is to Scientologists. CoW promotes what is good, true and holy in

wogs and in the wog world and defends wogs against invalidation, suppression,

attack and extermination. The only religion and organization that invalidates,

suppresses and attacks wogs as wogs and seeks their extermination is Scientology.

Armstrong’s words about the wog world, wogs, Scientology and Scientologists

constitute CoW’s religious scriptures, just as L. Ron Hubbard’s words about the

wog world, wogs, Scientology and Scientologists constitute Scientology’s

religious scriptures.

Along with his wife Caroline Letkeman Armstrong has also founded the

Suppressive Person Defense League (“SPDL”), dedicated to defending SPs against

religious persecution from Scientology and Scientologists and to educating the

wog world about the “Suppressive Person” religious doctrine that underlies the

persecution. Ms. Letkeman is also a declared SP, and also a target of Scientology

covert and overt intelligence operations, threats and black PR.

Armstrong and Ms. Letkeman have built and maintain three Internet sites

that express their Scientology experiences and beliefs. Much of their defense

against religious persecution by the Scientology religion and its agents is waged

on the Internet by documenting that persecution. Armstrong and Ms. Letkeman

have webbed a great number of documents relating to Scientology’s litigation

campaign against Armstrong’s, including all the documents filed in this case in the

trial court, the Court of Appeal and now this Court.

http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/legal/index.html

Scientology is waging a religious war or jihad on SPs. At its core and in

operation the Scientology religion is an intelligence organization, thus many of its

operations and channels of attack on SPs in that war are secret or cloaked and deal

in disinformation and black PR. Armstrong was a Scientology intelligence

operative close to Mr. Hubbard in the Scientology religion.

21

Scientology’s Armstrong contract is not at all a settlement agreement

between the parties to achieve the cessation of hostilities, but a declaration of

religious war by the religion on an apostate. The contract’s utterly one-sided

clauses, which Judge Duryee focused on very pointedly, and which the Court of

Appeal ignored, are prima facie evidence that the contract is Scientology’s fatwa

to all the contract’s beneficiaries to ruin and obliterate Armstrong.

Scientology and all the contract beneficiaries can attack Armstrong in any

way they want. He must take their abuse and remain silent. He must pay

Scientology $50,000 per utterance if he does defend himself. There is no such

penalty for Scientology. The contract, in fact, is an invitation and powerful

incentive to Scientology and Scientologists to attack Armstrong, his family,

friends and fellow SPs just because he cannot defend himself or other people in

the same way that other citizens can defend themselves and their loved ones. The

contract is an ungodly license for a religion and its adherents to hunt a human

being, a common average wog whom the Scientology religionists are commanded

by religious scripture and by other religious edicts or fatwas to hate and attack.

After confirming the contract’s one-sided conditions that evidenced its

unlawful religious jihad purpose, Judge Duryee then limited or remitted the legally

unconscionable results that Scientology sought in its effort to enforce those one-

sided unconscionable contractual conditions. By ignoring the one-sidedness and

the other clear indicia of the contract’s unconscionability and reinstating the

remitted unconscionable result, the Court of Appeal cannot but be abetting

Scientology’s jihad on SPs.

Armstrong has found no case of religious persecution in the United States

in the modern or post modern ages as ridiculous, cruel or grossly willfully

violative of U.S. civil rights laws as this case. This is a new phenomenon in the

U.S., using commercial contract law to bring back the medieval right and custom

of religions or religious groups to persecute and destroy people whose religious

expressions are not what the religion’s leaders insist they be. In Scientology,

22

using the wog law system to harass and ruin the organization’s SP victims and

targets is compelled by religious scripture.

Outside the U.S., where Armstrong lives of course, religious persecution

where people were jailed, or fined or ruined for expressing their religious

experiences or religious beliefs was more common. Consequently in January 1998

the Congress passed the International Religious Freedom Act to compel the

Government’s branches to take a principled stand on behalf of religious freedom

and against religious persecution in all foreign countries.

The IRFA is particularly applicable in this case because virtually all of

Armstrong’s religious expressions after January 1998 have been expressed in

foreign countries. The IRFA is also helpful in understanding why contracts like

Scientology’s are an impermissible deprivation of religious freedom within the

U.S., and why religious freedom must be an exception to res judicata and

collateral estoppel. The IRFA states:

Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes
that “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and
religion. This right includes freedom to change his religion or belief,
and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public
or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice,
worship, and observance.” Article 18(1) of the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights recognizes that "Everyone
shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion.
This right shall include freedom to have or to adopt a religion or
belief of his choice, and freedom, either individually or in
community with others and in public or private, to manifest his
religion or belief in worship, observance, practice, and teaching".
Governments have the responsibility to protect the fundamental
rights of their citizens and to pursue justice for all. Religious
freedom is a fundamental right of every individual, regardless of
race, sex, country, creed, or nationality, and should never be
arbitrarily abridged by any government. 22 U.S.C. §§ 6401(a)(3)

Clearly, for a person to possess freedom of thought, conscience, and

religion, he would have to possess the freedom to change his religion or beliefs.

His religion or beliefs can only manifest in expressions, which he must also

23

possess the right to change. Armstrong and every person has the right to change

his religion, beliefs and mind about all these things every second of every day

forever. Res judicata and collateral estoppel logically cannot be used to bind

someone to a particular form of religious conduct or prohibit a particular form of

religious conduct, because the person must be able and free to engage or not

engage in that conduct, or change his mind about that conduct or about the

religious contract that compels or prohibits that religious conduct.

The IRFA condemns both government-sponsored and government-tolerated

violations of people’s rights to religious freedom. Scientology is a government-

tolerated violator of people’s rights to religious freedom in the U.S, as this case

and the California courts’ toleration and abetment of Scientology’s violations of

people’s rights to religious freedom demonstrates.

There are no national or international Trade Secret Freedom Charters or

laws protecting the freedom of persons to express or divulge trade secrets.

Religious freedom is a very different matter, which, because of its nature, simply

lawfully may not be abridged by contract or by court orders. If ITT had chosen to

call itself a religion, declare that it is organized for solely religious purposes,

declare all its activities religious and its manuals scripture, ITT could not have

silenced Mr. Dooley about his necessarily religious experiences and religious

knowledge in the ITT religion. Scientology insists that it is a religion, and

therefore cannot silence Armstrong about his religious experiences and beliefs as

if they were commercial trade secrets.

3. The Court of Appeal did not deal with what Judge Duryee did,

but dealt with something she didn’t.

A. Judge Duryee correctly applied C.C.C. §1670.5 in the

consolidated cases and combined matters before her, specifically acting to

limit the application of the unconscionable clauses in Scientology’s contract as

to avoid any unconscionable result.

24

Armstrong has demonstrated at length in his appellate briefs in this case

that Judge Duryee could not but have been applying C.C.C. §1670.5 in both

limiting the liquidated damages to $500,000, where Scientology sought

$10,050,000, and in remitting or discharging the contempt punishment.

Armstrong’s position is that the $500,000 is also unconscionable, but that issue is

not before this Court.

Judge Duryee specifically identified the indicia of unconscionability, one-

sidedness, endlessness, trickiness. She used the unconscionable word in

pronouncing her judgment at trial, and she used the word in her judgment, which

she linked to the order re sentences.

The Court of Appeal decision does not mention C.C.C. §1670.5, although it

could not be avoided in Armstrong’s briefs, and acknowledges no effect of the

unconscionability ruling on the punishments the Court reinstates. The Court of

Appeal moreover misstates the unconscionability judgment. If the misstatement is

not made, the Court would have had to deal squarely with the unconscionability of

the punishment the Court was reinstating for other nonexistent reasons.

The Court of Appeal decision states:

The court, however, found that it would be unconscionable to
“punish” Armstrong with liquidated damages in excess of the
$800,000 he received as a benefit under the settlement agreement.

Judge Duryee’s judgment states:

Mr. Armstrong received a benefit under the settlement agreement of
$800,000. It would be unconscionable to punish him beyond what
the benefit was that was conferred to him.

It is clear that Judge Duryee was not, as the Court of Appeal has

characterized it, limiting the unconscionable punishment Scientology sought to

25

inflict on Armstrong to liquidated damages. Her intention is made unavoidable by

her linking of the contempts punishments to the judgment.

The sentences imposed in the two prior contempt actions, in Marin
Superior Court Case No. 152229/157680, which is consolidated
herewith, are discharged upon entry of judgment against Armstrong
herein.
On the order of contempt issued July 13, 2001, Armstrong is
sentenced to five days in jail and a fine of $1,000. The fine is
concurrent with the judgment

The decision states that Judge Duryee didn’t have jurisdiction to alter the

sentences imposed against Armstrong because the court’s orders in the contempt

proceedings are final and conclusive and not appealable orders. There is,

however, no such exception to C.C.C. §1670.5. There is no law stating that a

court may not act to prevent an unconscionable result if that unconscionable result

is jailing and fining someone for contempt of court. The position that punishment

cannot be remitted if found to be unconscionable defies all logic.

To say, which the Court of Appeal is saying in what it is and isn’t saying,

that a set of jail sentences ruled unconscionable and remitted, must be reinstated

because it is too late for a California Superior Court Judge to have her conscience

shocked, and consequently make such a ruling, also defies all logic.

Unconscionability in a contract is a very serious matter with very

serious legal significance and consequences. Scientology here is seeking to avoid the

consequences and they should not be permitted to get away with it. They are

getting away with it by enforcing the unconscionable. The Court of Appeal is,

with that Court’s avoidance of the profound issues including C.C.C. §1670.5 that

Armstrong raises in his briefs, abetting the unconscionable.

The Court of Appeal also has avoided the effect of Scientology’s dismissal

of its appeal from the judgment, which states that the very punishment Scientology

sought, and which the Court of Appeal has granted, was unconscionable. The

26

dismissal, in fact, should have immediately barred Scientology from proceeding

with its writ petition to have the unconscionable punishment reinstated.

B. The correct remedy and procedure in this case is mandated

by C.C.C. 1670.5, specifically the reasonable opportunity to present evidence

as to the contract’s commercial setting, purpose, and effect to aid the court in

making the unconscionability determination.

Scientology should have availed itself of that opportunity afforded it by

C.C.C. §1670.5(a). Scientology erroneously jumped the gun and filed its appeal

and writ petition. The Court of Appeal should have sent the matter back to the

trial court to conduct an evidentiary hearing on the contract’s commercial setting,

purpose, and effect.

Why Scientology is avoiding the statutorily mandated evidentiary hearing

on the contract’s commercial setting, purpose, and effect is clear. Such an

evidentiary hearing would show that Scientology unlawfully coerced and deceived

Armstrong into signing its contract, that Scientology fair gamed and compromised

his attorney, that there were no negotiations whatsoever about the reasonableness

of the obscene liquidated damages penalty, and that there is no relationship

whatsoever between that penalty and the actual damage Armstrong causes with

each expression of his religious beliefs he expresses.

But Armstrong too is to be afforded an evidentiary hearing pursuant to

C.C.C. §1670.5(a), and he has made this claim and demand throughout this

consolidated appellate case.

VI.

CONCLUSION

What is completely and glaringly missing in this case is a fair hearing or

trial on the merits, including the merits of Armstrong’s profound human rights

defenses. What should be reinstated, and what this Court has jurisdiction to

reinstate, is not the unconscionable jail sentences and fines Scientology wants

inflicted on Armstrong, but his defenses against such unconscionable punishment.

27

For the reasons stated herein, Armstrong respectfully requests this court

grant review to determine the issues presented above.

Dated: November 25, 2005

CERTIFICATE OF LENGTH

Pursuant to Rule 28.1(d)(1) of the California Rules of Court, respondent

Gerry Armstrong certifies that the number of words in this brief, according to the

word count of the computer program used to prepare the brief, is 8,398 words.

Gerry Armstrong

28

PROOF OF SERVICE

          I am employed in the Province of British Columbia, Canada. I am over the
age of eighteen years and am not a party to the above-entitled action. My business
address is #1-45950 Alexander Avenue, Chilliwack, B.C. V2P 1L5.

          On November 25, 2005 I served the following documents:

PETITION FOR REVIEW

on the following persons on the date set forth below, by placing true copies thereof
enclosed in sealed envelopes addressed as stated on the service list, as follows:

XX By Overnight Courier

California Court of Appeal
First Appellate District
350 McAllister Street
San Francisco, CA 94102

Clerk of the Superior Court
Marin County Superior Court
3501 Civic Center Drive
San Rafael, CA 94913
U.S.A.
(Hon. Lynn Duryee)

Kendrick Moxon
MOXON & KOBRIN
3055 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 900
Los Angeles, CA 90010

          I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of Canada, the United
States, and the State of California that the above is true and correct.

          Executed on November 25, 2005 at Chilliwack, B.C., Canada

Caroline Letkeman

Image of face page 11-28-2005