Acting Seminar
The web log site justanormalgayguy.blogspot.com described on July 24th a seminar at the Celebrity Center in Los Angeles for actors looking to get into the movie industry. "Last night I attended a seminar on 'How to Get Into the Industry' presented at the Church of Scientology Celebrity Centre International in Hollywood, presented by Terri Novitsky. I presumed the 'seminar' would be some hook for something else that may or may not be legitimate or in my best interests. I was escorted by a nice gentleman in a suit to a back room where others were waiting for the seminar to begin. It was warm inside and those in attendance were sitting nervously, fanning themselves, and waiting for the seminar to start. Meanwhile people were flipping through the booklets we all got written by L. Ron Hubbard. "Terri came in about 5 minutes late, but full of sincere energy and enthusiasm. I could tell she was a little nervous herself. There were about 12 of us, all shapes/sizes/ages. We did some exercises where we said a line and she told us what emotion to express. I went in front of the class and found myself getting into it. "Terri has great things to offer, but the seminar was a hook to get us to buy another seminar for $35.00 which is probably good, but I declined. The Scientology people tried pressuring me into signing up now and not 'procrastinating.' I saw it for what it was and decided if I wanted to do the seminar, I'd do it later after I've done more exploring." Message-ID: 3e471c14.0307311028.558f295d@posting.google.com
Los Angeles
The LA Independent reported on July 30th that Scientology has paid the back taxes it owed to the local business district. "The Church of Scientology on July 18 paid more than $94,000 in delinquent property taxes on four of its Hollywood properties, including tens of thousands to the local business improvement district. The Independent reported the day before that the church had failed to pay $94,625 for the fiscal year that ended June 30 on its properties, including $41,227 to the Hollywood Entertainment District. "'The payment was in the works and this happens to coincide with your article,' said spokeswoman Linda Simmons Hight. 'It's really a non-issue,' she said. 'I can't think of anything of less interest to the Hollywood community than when somebody is going to pay their property taxes. I know it's of great interest to the [business improvement district], but that really isn't of general interest.' "The Hollywood Entertainment District had counted on receiving money from the Church of Scientology this year to fund services like street cleaning, security patrols and graffiti removal. The church, whose members include several celebrities, had owed about $31,200 in total taxes on its 6331 Hollywood Blvd. property, $41,700 on its 6349 Hollywood Blvd. property, $4,800 on its 1715 Ivar Street property and $16,700 on its 6724 Hollywood Blvd. property." Message-ID: 3e471c14.0307311048.d9a66ac@posting.google.com
Lisa McPherson
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled on July 22nd that a judgment against the estate of Lisa McPherson be set aside for lack of jurisdiction. "In 1997, the Estate of Lisa McPherson filed a wrongful death action in state court in Tampa, Florida against various corporations and individuals affiliated with the Church of Scientology. Upon being served with the complaint, and ostensibly as a cost-saving measure, Defendant Flag Service Organization (Flag) proposed to the Estate that they enter into an agreement to limit the number of Scientology-related corporate entities and individuals that would be named in the suit. The Estate and Flag consequently entered into a contract in which the Estate agreed to forego adding certain enumerated corporate defendants, and Flag agreed to forego encumbering its assets. "In 1999, the Estate moved the Florida court to add David Miscavige to the list of named defendants in its wrongful death action. Miscavige is the Chairman of the Board of RTC, a Scientology corporation, and while RTC was listed among the parties which the Estate was contractually bound to exclude from its action, the Estate sought to add Miscavige under the theory that it was not contractually precluded from adding Miscavige in his personal capacity. "RTC filed suit against the Estate for breach of contract, and against Liebreich personally for tortiously interfering with the contract between the Estate and Flag. RTC filed in United States District Court in the Eastern District of Texas under a diversity of citizenship jurisdictional theory. The jury returned a verdict for $258,697.10. RTC petitioned the district court for an award of $549,015.84 in costs and fees for the litigation of this single-issue breach of contract case. The district court reduced the award to $327,654.00. The court did impose sanctions against the Estate's counsel for 30% of the attorneys' fees awarded, which totaled $98,296.00. "The contention here is that Liebreich, as the personal representative of the Estate, created in personam jurisdiction over the Estate. There are two ways in which Liebreich might have brought the Estate into the reach of the district court. First, the district court found general jurisdiction over the Estate via Liebreich. Moreover, RTC argues that Liebreich created specific jurisdiction over the Estate. However, neither general nor specific jurisdiction existed over the Estate. "The district court correctly found that it had general personal jurisdiction over Liebreich as a resident of Texas. However, the district court impermissibly imputed that general personal jurisdiction to the Estate. As a creature of the Florida probate regime, the Estate resides in Florida. Thus, for an estate probated in a foreign jurisdiction to establish the type of continuous and systematic contact necessary for general jurisdiction, the representative of the Estate must have made those contacts in her representative capacity, on behalf of the Estate. It is not sufficient that the personal representative herself lives in Texas. "In sum, the district court lacked personal jurisdiction over the Estate. Liebreich's general jurisdiction cannot be imputed to the Estate, and the Estate did not establish minimum contacts relating to the breach action with the forum jurisdiction sufficient to support specific jurisdiction. Therefore, the district court erred in failing to dismiss the action against the Estate for want of jurisdiction." Message-ID: c8n7iv81odl5aberb2d7cqu4et7rn052a4@4ax.com
WISE
Press newspaper from New Zealand reported on July 26th that public money invested into a plastics factory run as a member of the World Institute of Scientology Enterprises has not produced the jobs that were promised, and is going bankrupt. "A year ago, the Westland District Council was defiantly pushing ahead with plans for the now-infamous Hokitika plastics factory. Ratepayers were assured that $581,000 of their money entrusted to some Australian entrepreneurs would jackpot within a year into a world-first factory, and Hokitika would be the world headquarters. "They were promised 53 jobs, quickly growing to more than 100, with the added benefit of having the plant licensed as a Wise training academy for local staff training. No-one was told that means World Institute of Scientology Enterprise, an offshoot of the Church of Scientology. "Even when the Australians pulled out in November (having established nothing more than a phone book listing in Hokitika) to focus the venture in Sydney, the council continued to express faith that they would be back and have the factory running before Christmas this year. As public dissension with the project grew louder, the decision was made for a delegation to fly to Sydney to reassure itself that all was well. It returned to pronounce that everything was on track. None of that will be forgotten now as the council scrambles to rescue the public money it risked. "FT Manufacturing (Westland) Ltd, the company hailed by Mayor John Drylie as leading the 'next generation' of plastics technology, has gone bust, and Westland ratepayers are going to be demanding answers, if not more." Message-ID: 9uoaivgve9d7pp12ihai9usptsmo417t5k@4ax.com
A.r.s. Week in Review is put together by Rod Keller ©
This collection is organised for WWW by Andreas Heldal-Lund.
Only edits done by me is replacing word encapsuled in * or _ with bold and underscore, and made links into HTML.
