Harassment Suit Against Scientology Church to Continue

Thursday, May 21, 2026

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Court of Appeal:

Harassment Suit Against Scientology Church to Continue

Justices Affirm Denial of Anti-SLAPP Motion, Except as to Two Minor Allegations; Plaintiffs Allege Stalking, Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress in Retaliation for Accusations Against Actor Masterson of Rape

By a MetNews Staff Writer

The Court of Appeal for this district has rebuffed the bid by the Church of Scientology, its leader, David Miscavige, and actor Danny Masterson, and others, to dump a lawsuit against them alleging intentional infliction of emotional distress and stalking in retaliation for the plaintiffs’ cooperation with prosecutors in connection with rape charges against Masterson.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Charlaine F. Olmedo in 2023 sentenced Masterson, a Scientologist, to 30 years in prison in connection with sexual assaults on two women in 2003, both plaintiffs in the civil action, denominated “Does.” Also suing are two other alleged victims of Masterson’s sexual assaults, Marie Bobette Riales and Chrissie Carnell Bixler, as well as Bixler’s, Cedric Bixler-Zavala who is suing for loss of consortium.

Tuesday’s unpublished opinion, by Justice Carl H. Moor of Div. Five, largely affirms a March 25, 2024 order by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Upinder S. Kalra denying a motion under the anti-SLAPP statute, Code of Civil Procedure §425.16, brought by the defendants. Moor found that two allegations in the pleading. of insubstantial significance, should not have been stricken, drawing a partial dissent by Justice Lamar Baker.

The allegations that survive an anti-SLAPP motion are that false reviews were posted online concerning plaintiff Marie Bobette Riales’s food truck and that one Michelle Miskovich, identified in the complaint as an “agent” of the church, “contacted a reporter to claim that Plaintiffs were fabricating their claims against Masterson.” The stalking and loss-of-consortium allegations must fall to the extent they rely on those two statements, Moor said.

Except for the two exceptions, he determined that any public statement concerning any of the defendants that is protected—thus satisfying the first prong of the statute—does not meet the requirement under the second prong for defeating a cause of action: a probability of prevailing on the merits, referred to as “minimal merits.”

‘True Threats’

Moor differentiated between hints at threats, which he said are protected, and “true threats,” which he noted have been defined in case law as “a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals” and are not shielded by the First Amendment.

“If a statement or writing is unequivocally a threat of bodily harm that on its face constitutes a true threat under the law, it will not satisfy the first prong of the anti-SLAPP motion,” he wrote.

The jurist said that “a trier of fact could interpret Gold’s statements as true threats” and that the church could be held vicariously liable for based on allegation in the complaint that Gold and the church engaged in a conspiracy.

Gold’s Threats

One posting by Gold says:

“Chrissie’s children will be taken away, how easy, somebody or somebody’s will break into their house, plant drugs and drop dimes and off their children go to foster care where they will be drugged on psych drugs and sexually abused. That’s if they do lit smoke pot recreationally? If they do and her husband looks like he does, the private dix will drop dimes with child services and prove it in court....”

She warned of physical harm “by real bad guys and girls.”

Bixler elaborated in a declaration:

“In or around September and October 2018, Defendants’ agent Kathy Gold started publicly threatening me and the other Plaintiffs, and their relatives. Gold accused me and the other Plaintiffs of being religious bigots and liars and threatened to commit serious and violent crimes against us, including murder. Gold threatened to report me to Child Services to have our then five-year-old twins taken away from us and further threatened that the children would be drugged and raped.”

Moor’s Opinion

Moor said that “even if we assume all of Gold’s statements are protected activity, we conclude… that the plaintiffs have demonstrated minimal merit for their claims based on Gold’s statements.”

He wrote:

“In this case, a trier of fact who views Gold’s statements as threats to inflict the stated harm with the assistance of other individuals could also conclude from the evidence that Gold and the defendants were aware of and agreed to a conspiracy to intentionally inflict emotional distress. Gold expressly described a conspiracy to harass and inflict harm on the plaintiffs, which a trier of fact could believe Gold was participating in by posting threats against the plaintiffs. Gold confirmed in several messages that she is a Scientologist….Gold stated explicitly that the Church’s management team would run operations to manipulate information in the media. She stated in more than one message that people would take action to harm the plaintiffs, including stalking the plaintiffs, trying to run operations to manipulate information in the media. She stated in more than one message that people would take action to harm the plaintiffs, including stalking the plaintiffs, trying to rape them, breaking in to their houses to plant drugs, and reporting them to child protective services.

“The plaintiffs in fact experienced the harmful course of conduct that Gold described.”

The case is Bixler et al. v. Church of Scientology International, B339009.

Artificial Intelligence

The brief on appeal of the plaintiffs/respondents was signed by John Kucera of the Century City office of Boies Schiller Flexner, and joining in it were Alison L. Anderson and Maxwell V. Pritt of that office. Kucera used artificial intelligence in crafting the document.

In its reply brief, by Jasjaap S. Sidhu. Jeremy B. Rosen and Ryan M. Dunbar of Horvitz & Levy and Jeffrey L. Steinfeld, then of Winston & Strawn, the church pointed out:

“Before addressing the merits of this appeal in the introduction section below, we wish to draw the court’s attention to the fact that plaintiffs’ brief contains a series of troubling citation errors. The portions of the brief containing errors bear many of the hallmarks of Al-generated case citations….[M]ultiple sections of plaintiffs’ brief are filled with erroneous citations that mischaracterize holdings and refer to cases on unrelated areas of law. Some cases are mistitled such that it is difficult to determine what cases plaintiffs are intending to cite in the first place. And one case plaintiffs cite is completely made up. At minimum, this court should disregard these sections of plaintiffs’ brief and find the arguments plaintiffs make forfeited.”

Div. Five’s Order

Last Feb. 19, Div. Five entered an order saying:

“Respondents’ counsel, Boies Schiller Flexner, LLP and John Kucera, Esq., have conceded as follows: counsel prepared the Brief of Respondents, filed on July 30, 2025, with the aid of artificial intelligence tools; controls and policies to protect against the risk of improper use of those tools failed; and the filed brief included material citation errors that were correctly identified by appellants in their reply brief. Appellants’ Reply Brief, filed on September 8, 2025, specifically identifies…at least ten purported case authorities that have been miscited or mischaracterized in more than fifteen places in respondents’ brief.

“Accordingly, counsel for respondents is hereby given notice…that the court is considering the imposition of monetary sanctions on respondents’ counsel for the foregoing conduct.”

The order notes:

“The issue of sanctions and their amount will be argued at the time of oral argument on the merits of the appeal.”

There followed briefing on the matter. Kucera said in a declaration:

“As the attorney and partner in charge of the Filed Response Brief, I am embarrassed by and very much regret these errors. The Firm is undertaking an investigation to determine why its controls failed and to ensure appropriate corrective action is taken. However, as the supervising attorney ultimately responsible for signing and submitting the Filed Response Brief, I bear the responsibility for failing to personally verify the citations included in the brief.”

Kucera withdrew as counsel of record.

Moor’s opinion makes no mention of the use of artificial intelligence.