Electronically FILED by Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles on 01/04/2021 01:54 PM Sherri R.

Carter, Executive Officer/Clerk of Court, by J. Lara,Deputy Clerk

Robert W. Thompson, Esq. (SBN: 250038)

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Casey A. Gee, Esq. (SBN: 284830)
2 THOMPSON LAW OFFICES, P.C.
700 Airport Boulevard, Suite 160
3 Burlingame, CA 94010
Tel: (650) 513-6111 / Fax: (650) 513-6071
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5 Brian D. Kent, Esq. (Admitted Pro Hac Vice)

Gaetano D’Andrea, Esq. (Admitted Pro Hac Vice)
6 M. Stewart Ryan, Esq. (Admitted Pro Hac Vice)
LAFFEY, BUCCI & KENT, LLP
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1435 Walnut Street, Suite 700
8 Philadelphia, PA 19102
Tel: (215) 399-9255 / Fax: (215) 241-8700
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Attorneys for Plaintiffs
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11 SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA

12 IN AND FOR THE COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES - UNLIMITED CIVIL JURISDICTION

13 VALERIE HANEY, Case No.: 19STCV21210
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Plaintiff, [Assigned for all purposes to Hon. Richard J.
15 Burdge, Jr., Department 37]
v.
16 PLAINTIFF’S OPPOSITION TO
CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY DEFENDANTS’ MOTION FOR
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INTERNATIONAL; RELIGIOUS SANCTIONS
18 TECHNOLOGY CENTER; DAVID
MISCAVIGE; and DOES 1 – 25,
Date: January 14, 2021
19 Time: 8:30 a.m.
Defendants.
20 Dept: 37
Res. No: 156144050581
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PLAINTIFF’S OPPOSITION TO DEFENDANTS’ MOTION FOR SANCTIONS

1 I. INTRODUCTION
Plaintiff properly filed a Motion for Reconsideration of this Court’s ruling on Defendants’
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Motions to Compel Arbitration based on new evidence provided after the ruling by independent third
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parties that were previously unknown and not discoverable through reasonable diligence by Plaintiff. As
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required by Code of Civil Procedure section 1008 (“Section 1008”), Plaintiff presented the new evidence
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to the Court and provided a satisfactory explanation for the delay because the evidence was provided by
6 former Scientologists who contacted Plaintiff’s counsel after reading an article about the Court’s ruling.
7 Having conducted objectively reasonable investigations and meeting the requirements of Section 1008,
8 there is no basis in law or fact for imposing sanctions pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure section 128.7
9 (“Section 128.7”).

10 II. LEGAL ARGUMENT

11 A. Sanctions Are Unwarranted Because Plaintiff’s Motion for Reconsideration Is Based on
New Facts Pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure section 1008
12 Defendants conveniently ignore, or attempt to hide in a footnote, that Plaintiff’s new evidence was
13 provided by a former Scientologist, Hana Whitfield, who was unknown and unaffiliated with Plaintiff and
14 her counsel prior to this Court’s ruling on Defendants’ Motions to Compel Arbitration. As required by

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Section 1008, Plaintiff’s Motion for Reconsideration and the supporting Declaration of Robert W.
Thompson, detail how Ms. Whitfield read a news article about this Court’s ruling on Defendants’ Motions
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to Compel Arbitration and independently reached out to Plaintiff’s counsel to provide previously unknown
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information relevant to the Motions to Compel. Neither Plaintiff, nor her counsel, knew Ms. Whitfield
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prior to this and could not through reasonable diligence have obtained the information from her prior to the
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ruling. Defendants’ nonsensical claim that Plaintiff’s counsel knew of Ms. Whitfield because they may
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have spoken at the same conference does not change this fact. Anyone who has been to a conference would
21 be hard pressed to say they knew everyone or since attending, know of every single person in attendance
22 at every conference they have ever attended. Even if that were the case, nothing about “knowing of” Ms.
23 Whitfield because she spoke at a conference could reasonably indicate to Plaintiff’s counsel that she
24 possessed the new evidence relating to the Committee of Evidence, which Defendants claimed was a fair

25 arbitration process.
As further explained by Plaintiff, former Scientologist, Michael Rinder, also contacted Plaintiff’s
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counsel after reading about this Court’s ruling and provided additional new evidence not previously known
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to Plaintiff, including the fact that the Committee of Evidence was a sham arbitration process. Because
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Defendants have no reasonable basis for claiming Plaintiff should have known or discovered the
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PLAINTIFF’S OPPOSITION TO DEFENDANTS’ MOTION FOR SANCTIONS
 information from Ms. Whitfield prior to the Motion to Compel Arbitration ruling, they attempt to instead
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claim that Ms. Whitfield’s evidence is duplicative of Mr. Rinder’s, and that due to a purported “affiliation”
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with Mr. Rinder, all of his knowledge about Scientology was somehow imputed onto Plaintiff and known
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prior to the Motion to Compel Arbitration ruling. Defendants provide no law or support for such a position.
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Nor do Defendants provide any actual evidence for their baseless allegation that Mr. Rinder contacting
5 Plaintiff’s counsel after the ruling “is flat out untrue.” Defendants’ Motion for Sanctions, 13:21-23. That
6 Plaintiff’s former employer may have had a show with Mr. Rinder in no way suggests a relationship or
7 connection between Plaintiff and Mr. Rinder, nor does the fact that she may have appeared on three
8 episodes of his show over a two-year period, particularly when Defendants provide no evidence that they

9 even communicated with each other. Further, that some of Plaintiff’s counsel may be on a Board of

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Directors with Mr. Rinder for an organization unrelated to Scientology is not evidence that Plaintiff’s
counsel discussed Scientology with Mr. Rinder or had any reason for thinking he would have information
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specifically related to the Motions to Compel Arbitration. Plaintiff’s counsel stated under penalty of
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perjury that Ms. Whitfield and Mr. Rinder came forward with the new evidence after this Court’s ruling
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and Defendants’ wholly attenuated and speculative conjecture does not change or disprove that.
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B. Sanctions Are Unwarranted Because Plaintiff Conducted a Reasonable Investigation
15 and the Motion for Reconsideration Was Not Frivolous

16 “The word ‘frivolous’ does not appear anywhere in the text of the Rule; rather, it is a shorthand that
17 this court has used to denote a filing that is both baseless and made without a reasonable and competent
18 inquiry.” Townsend v. Holman Consulting Corp. (1990) 929 F.2d 1358, 1362. A “finding of no reasonable
19 inquiry is tantamount to a finding of frivolousness.” Id. A reasonable inquiry means “an inquiry reasonable

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under ‘all circumstances of a case.’” Id. at 1364 (quoting Cooter & Gell v. Hartmarx Corp. (1990) 496
U.S. 384). As such, courts must give more leeway regarding relevant facts that are in the control of, or
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relate to the knowledge, purpose, or intent of, the opposing party. Id.
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Plaintiff conducted objectively reasonable investigations into this case, the Motions to Compel
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Arbitration, and repeatedly requested the opportunity to conduct further investigation, which were denied.
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Based on the information Plaintiff was able to reasonably obtain, without the help of the discovery process,
25 Plaintiff opposed the Motions with the limited information she was able to access. When third-party,
26 former Scientologists provided additional information after the Court’s ruling, she further investigated the
27 new evidence, fulfilled the Section 1008 requirements, and filed the Motion for Reconsideration in good
28 faith based on the new evidence.

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PLAINTIFF’S OPPOSITION TO DEFENDANTS’ MOTION FOR SANCTIONS
 None of Defendant’s cited case law where Section 1008 requirements were not met or Section 128.7
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sanctions warranted are either procedurally or factually analogous to this case. In Garcia v. Hejmadi (1997)
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58 Cal.App.4th 674, 690, the court held that Plaintiff’s own declared knowledge was obviously in the
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plaintiff’s possession prior to preparing the opposition to the motion for summary judgment and incorrectly
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citing it due to “inadvertent oversight” and time pressure was not a satisfactory explanation under Section
5 1008.
6 In Jones v. P.S. Dev. Co., Inc. (2008) 166 Cal.App.4th 707, 725, the plaintiff failed to provide an
7 adequate explanation for failing to obtain deposition testimony of a defendant’s person most qualified
8 where plaintiff knew of the witness, defense counsel had offered to make the witness available for

9 deposition prior to summary judgment motions, the plaintiff did not request a continuance to obtain the

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testimony, and plaintiff told defense counsel the witness’ testimony was unnecessary for the summary
judgment opposition and could be scheduled after.
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In New York Times Co. v. Superior Court (2005) 135 Cal.App.4th 206, 212-13, the court held the
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plaintiff failed to meet the Section 1008 requirements where defendant’s motion for summary judgment
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made clear that the company C2B’s performance was a central issue in the case, the plaintiff admitted that
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it engaged in “extensive discovery over 16 months,” the plaintiff did not request a continuance to obtain
15 the evidence, and the plaintiff had previously argued the new evidence presented was unnecessary to defeat
16 summary judgment and made the strategic decision not to collect it. The court distinguished that situation
17 from that in Film Packages, Inc. v. Brandywine Film Productions, Ltd. (1987) 193 Cal.App.3d 824, 828-
18 29, where the court considered evidence that was not materially different from the evidence considered
19 earlier, but “shed new light on the case,” because unlike in New York Times “the evidence could not have

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been presented earlier because the plaintiff in attachment proceedings typically has ‘no reasonable
opportunity to undertake the meaningful discovery which can occur later.” Id. at 214-215.
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In Peake v. Underwood (2014) 227 Cal.App.4th 428, 446, 449, the plaintiff’s intentional and
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negligent concealment claims against listing agent were frivolous and warranted sanctions where the record
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indisputably established that the agent had provided the plaintiff with all disclosures and reports disclosing
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the existence of drainage issues prior to close of escrow and plaintiff failed to engage in any affirmative
25 discovery for more than a year after filing the action thereby demonstrating that neither her nor her attorney
26 in fact considered her claim to have any valid basis.
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PLAINTIFF’S OPPOSITION TO DEFENDANTS’ MOTION FOR SANCTIONS
 In Shiffer v. CBS Corp. (2015) 240 Cal.App.4th 246, the court held two documents and deposition
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testimony produced to plaintiff during discovery and before the summary judgment hearing were not new
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evidence.
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In Townsend v. Holman Consulting Corp. (1990) 929 F.2d 1358, 1366, the plaintiff “conducted
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absolutely no inquiry” before filing complaint and the naming of the defendant was essentially vindictive.
5 In Young v. Rosenthal (1989) 212 Cal.App.3d 96, the court concluded this was one of the “clearest
6 of cases” warranting sanctions, where court specifically found, not based upon any speculation or
7 conjecture, that plaintiff’s claims of fraud were blatantly false and the plaintiff’s attorneys knowingly lied
8 to the court and actively supported frivolous motions.

9 The present case is clearly distinguishable from these cited cases. Plaintiff’s factual allegations

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demonstrate the reasonable investigation into this case and the subject matter of the motions. Unlike the
parties in the above cases who could, but chose not to, have the benefit of the discovery process and
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continuance requests to obtain more information through the discovery process, Plaintiff was precluded
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from any discovery by the stay and further precluded when her repeated requests for limited discovery
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were denied. Unlike the parties in the cases above, none of the new evidence at issue were produced to
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Plaintiff by Defendants. Instead, Plaintiff only knew about the evidence because unrelated third parties
15 came forward with it. Like Film Packages, Inc., Plaintiff had little opportunity to conduct any meaningful
16 discovery, but since the ruling, have been able to find additional new evidence that sheds light on the
17 previously presented evidence. Lastly, Plaintiff nor her attorneys have engaged in any bad faith or
18 knowingly lied to this Court to support a frivolous motion. Tellingly, not even Defendants, who have
19 repeatedly and baselessly accused Plaintiff and her counsel of fraud, lying, and myriad of other insults,

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attempted to move for sanctions as a result of bad faith conduct. Because Plaintiff conducted a reasonable
investigation and filed a Motion to Reconsider that met the requirements of Section 1008 by presenting
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new evidence not available through reasonable diligence prior to this Court’s ruling, sanctions under
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Section 128.7 are unwarranted and should be denied.
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C. Defendant’s Assertion That a “Reasonable Investigation” Requires Review of an
24 Infinite Number of Publicly Available Documents Is Unsupported by Law or Logic
25 Defendants’ argument that a “reasonable investigation” would have been for Plaintiff to search
26 through the dockets of all cases cited by Defendants, Defendant’s websites, and any person she or her
27 attorneys have come into contact with that had any connection to Scientology, has no basis in law or logic.
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PLAINTIFF’S OPPOSITION TO DEFENDANTS’ MOTION FOR SANCTIONS
 Defendants make the absurd argument that “a reasonable investigation” requires an attorney to
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search the docket of every case that the adverse parties cite in their motions to determine whether any
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filings, or more specifically exhibits, contained therein may potentially be relevant to the case at hand.
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Aside from the clear lack of any legal support for this position, the sheer unreasonableness and illogic of
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Defendants’ argument is readily apparent. Defendants repeatedly claim the new documents Plaintiff
5 submitted in support of her Motion for Reconsideration are not new because they were publicly available
6 in the dockets of cases Defendants cited to in their Motions to Compel Arbitration.
7 Defendants cited a total of 64 cases in their Motions to Compel Arbitration. Declaration of Robert
8 W. Thompson (“Thompson Decl.”) ¶ 2, Exh. A, pp. 5-7; Exh. B, pp. 4-5. Of the 64 cited cases, Defendants

9 specifically argue that Plaintiff should have been able to find some of the newly discovered documents

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within the docket of Garcia v. Church of Scientology Flag Service Org., Inc., M.D. Fla., No. 8:13-cv-220-
T-27TBM (“Garcia Case”). To be clear, this is not because Defendants served these specific documents
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on Plaintiff or cited to these specific documents in their Motions to Compel, but simply because the
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documents were exhibits to filings contained in the publicly available docket of 1 of the 64 cases
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Defendants referenced in their Motions. Defendants’ “reasonable investigation” would require Plaintiff to
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not only sift through 64 dockets, but also review all of the documents to determine whether any filings
15 contained supporting exhibits pertinent to the case at hand. The Garcia Case alone has 296 filings, many
16 of which have hundreds of pages of supporting documents.
17 Requiring litigants to follow Defendants’ wholly unsupported and fabricated “reasonable
18 investigation” standard would have objectively unreasonable and unduly burdensome consequences.
19 Following Defendants’ reasoning, parties do not conduct a “reasonable investigation” unless a party

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investigates every available public document, website, and person with whom they have been affiliated, no
matter how personally unknown, hidden, or difficult to locate that evidence is at the time.
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Parties would be required to review all of the documents within all the dockets of all the cases cited
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by an adverse party or risk never being able to present that evidence again simply because no matter how
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personally unknown or hidden the document is to the responding party, it was “publicly available” at the
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time of filing. Such a requirement would force parties to spend exorbitant resources looking through tens
25 of thousands of pages of irrelevant documents in unrelated cases simply because they were cited by the
26 other party in the off chance that a document exists therein that would determine an issue in the case at bar.
27 To not conduct such an excessively burdensome investigation would have the extreme consequences of
28 not only barring a party from presenting such evidence if and when it is ultimately discovered through a

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PLAINTIFF’S OPPOSITION TO DEFENDANTS’ MOTION FOR SANCTIONS
 reasonable investigation and discovery, but also open up the party and counsel to egregious sanctions
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motions such as this.
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To illustrate this point further, to “reasonably investigate” and respond to this Motion, Plaintiff
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would have to review the dockets of the 18 cases cited by Defendants or risk not being able to later discover
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documents potentially contained therein or ask the Court to reconsider its ruling based on those documents.
5 Dockets from 9 of the 18 cited cases are attached to the accompanying Declaration of Robert W. Thompson
6 to demonstrate the sheer breadth of such an endeavor. Thompson Decl. ¶¶ 3-4, Exh. C-K. The docket for
7 LeFrancois v. Goel (2005) 35 Cal.4th 459 is not attached because it is 659 pages and contains 8,047 entries,
8 but will be provided to the Court upon request. Id. The attached dockets for the 9 cases span 260 pages

9 alone (919 pages including LeFrancois). Id. Plaintiff was unable to locate the dockets of some of the cited

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cases because they were family matters or pre-dated the Court’s case management system, so she would
have to conduct additional investigation to request and review. Even if it was possible to obtain all the
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cited case dockets, review the hundreds of pages of docket entries, and thousands of documents contained
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therein, nothing prevents opposing counsel from citing to superfluous cases to force a party to engage in
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excessive, unnecessary “investigation.” Further, litigants, like Defendants here, would be incentivized and
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rewarded for not being forthcoming or providing relevant documents. Instead, they could not disclose the
15 document, cite to one of many previous cases in which they were parties knowing relevant evidence the
16 opposing party does not know exists is one of thousands of documents in the docket of those cases, and
17 then claim the party should have known about, been able to find, and is now barred from presenting that
18 evidence to the Court. Such requirements for a “reasonable investigation” are unsupported by Code of
19 Civil Procedure §§ 128.7, 1008, pertinent case law, and the principles behind the Discovery Act.

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D. This Court May Reconsider Its Order under Le Francois or by Plaintiffs’ Section 1008
Motion
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Nothing in Le Francois v. Goel (2005) 35 Cal. 4th 1094 prevents a court from reconsidering a ruling
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on its own motion, a party from filing a motion for reconsideration subject to Section 1008 requirements,
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or a party from requesting that a court reconsider a ruling on its own motion. In re Marriage of Herr (2009)
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174 Cal.App.4th 1463, 1470 (“trial court’s reconsideration on its own motion in Barthold was proper
25 because it limited itself to changing its mind based on the evidence submitted in connection with the wife’s
26 original motion”); New York Times Co. v. Superior Court (2005) 135 Cal.App.4th 206, 211 (“The Supreme
27 Court concluded that section 1008 does not limit a court’s ability to reconsider a previous interim order on
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PLAINTIFF’S OPPOSITION TO DEFENDANTS’ MOTION FOR SANCTIONS
 its own motion, if it gives notice to the parties that it may do so and provides a reasonable opportunity to
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litigate the question.”).
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Plaintiff fulfilled the requirements of Section 1008 and properly filed her Motion for
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Reconsideration. In the alternative, and as allowed by Le Francois and this Court’s inherent authority, the
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Court may also reconsider its order based on the evidence originally submitted.
5 E. Defendants’ Motion for Sanctions Excessive and Unsupported by Law
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Defendants failed to provide this Court with the full and accurate explanation of the law and
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principles regarding imposing appropriate sanctions under Section 128.7. Pursuant to Section 128.7(d),
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“A sanction imposed for violation of subdivision (b) shall be limited to what is sufficient to deter
9 repetition of this conduct or comparable conduct by others similarly situated.” (emphasis added). While
10 this section aims to discourage frivolous claims, courts have repeatedly emphasized the importance of
11 balancing such deterrence with ensuring attorneys are able to vigorously advocate for their clients. Peake
12 v. Underwood (2014) 227 Cal.App.4th 428, 448; see also Townsend v. Holman Consulting Corp. (1990)

13 929 F.2d 1358, 1363 (“We recognize that Rule 11 ‘must be read in light of concerns that it will spawn
satellite litigation and chill vigorous advocacy.’”). “Because our adversary system requires that attorneys
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and litigants be provided substantial breathing room to develop and assert factual and legal arguments,
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sanctions should not be routinely or easily awarded even for a claim that is arguably frivolous. Peake,
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supra, 227 Cal.App.4th at 448 (emphasis added). Courts must carefully consider the circumstances
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before awarding sanctions.” Id. (emphasis added).
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California case law does not support an award of sanctions in this case, let alone such an excessive
19 sanction request. As discussed above, Plaintiff’s Motion for Reconsideration was neither frivolous nor
20 factually analogous to the cases warranting sanctions. Further, there is no allegation of any bad faith on
21 the part of Plaintiff or Plaintiff’s counsel that would require sanctions as a deterrent to future similar
22 conduct. Even in cases involving bad faith conduct, courts have not awarded such excessive sanction

23 requests. In Laborde v. Aronson (2001) 92 Cal.App.4th 459, the court awarded $33,000 in sanctions
against a plaintiff upon finding plaintiff’s action was “frivolous and without merit … and with bad
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faith….” and brought for the improper purpose of harassment or delay, where the plaintiff, who was
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dissatisfied with the outcome of his divorce proceeding, filed an action against his wife’s attorney and
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their jointly retained psychologist even though litigation privilege established a complete defense to the
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action.
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Further, both state and federal case law make clear, Section 128.7 is not a fee-shifting statute.
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PLAINTIFF’S OPPOSITION TO DEFENDANTS’ MOTION FOR SANCTIONS
 Business Guides, Inc. v. Chromatic Communications Enterprises, Inc. (1991) 498 U.S. 533, 534 (“The
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sanctions are not designed to reallocate the burdens of litigation…, but to the issue whether a specific
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filing was well founded… Rule calls only for an appropriate sanction but does not mandate attorney’s
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fees.”). Imposing a sanction of exceedingly excessive attorney fees against a plaintiff for bringing a well-
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founded, good faith Motion for Reconsideration is not the mandate or intent of Section 128.7.
5 Even if this Court considers awarding attorney fees to Defendants, Defendants’ requested amount
6 of $160,220 is patently unreasonable. See Eichenbaum v. Alon (2003) 106 Cal.App.4th 967, 973, 977
7 (trial court did not abuse its discretion in finding $2,268 constituted reasonable attorney fees and costs for
8 the sanctions motion and only $2,000 of the claimed $4,056 attorney fees were reasonable with respect to

9 the demurrer and motion to strike). Because Defendants’ Motion for Sanctions is unsupported by law and

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fact, Plaintiff respectfully requests that it be denied in its entirety.

11 III. CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, Plaintiff respectfully requests that this Court deny Defendant’s Motion
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for Sanctions.
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14 Dated: December 31, 2020 THOMPSON LAW OFFICES, P.C.

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___________________________
Robert W. Thompson, Esq.
Attorneys for Plaintiff

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PLAINTIFF’S OPPOSITION TO DEFENDANTS’ MOTION FOR SANCTIONS